By Matt Tasler/sports@trcle.com
Former Cleburne boys basketball coach Jeff Cody touched the lives of numerous players, coaches and fans during his 45 years courtside as a head coach.
The Texas Association of Basketball Coaches announced earlier this month that Cody will be one of six inductees into the TABC Hall of Fame on May 9.
The induction ceremony will take place during a luncheon at 2 p.m. May 9 at the El Tropicano hotel in San Antonio.
Tickets are $25 for the public and $10 for TABC members and can be purchased by contacting the TABC office at 281-313-8222.
Cody said he was shocked when he received the call from the TABC after finishing a round of golf with his grandson, Trenton.
“[My reaction] was one of complete awe,” he said. “To be honored by your peers and then recognized by your peers is amazing. It is a tremendous honor to just be mentioned with some of those men and women who are already in there, but to be a part of it is almost unbelievable.
“It’s a team deal because everywhere I’ve been — Cleburne, Granbury and Boswell — I had a lot of kids play for me and a lot of coaches work with me. It’s a great honor to be mentioned in that group, let alone be a part of it.”
Girls basketball coach Mitzi Marquart has been at Cleburne for nine years and she said the support of the boys program helps her and the girls staff tremendously.
“I’m not sure exactly how to put into words what a special man Coach Cody is to me,” Marquart said. “Not only as a peer, but as a great coach and a great friend. He is a great person.”
Marquart said Cody was deserving of induction into the hall of fame after all he has done for basketball. She said Cody helped her by giving direction when she had a question about the sport.
“We sat down lots of times just to talk, about basketball in general or the coaching profession and the different styles,” she said. “I’ve coached at other places, and the girls coaches and the guys coaches here are always there for each other. The camaraderie is awesome.”
Cleburne boys head coach Lyle Lackey, who played under Cody at Cleburne in the late ’90s and took over for his mentor in April 2008, said Cody taught him and the other coaches and players on the team, that basketball isn’t always about diagramming a game-winning shot.
“One thing I learned from Coach Cody that has had an effect on my coaching career is the way he treated people,” Lackey said. “Coach Cody always taught us that it’s not about X’s and O’s. It’s about how you treat the kids, how you treat the parents, how you treat the referees and anyone else you come into contact with. From being around him, I’ve seen when we went to other places the respect the coaches had for him. They were opponents, but I learned a lot seeing how he related with the other coaches.”
Lackey said Cody didn’t limit his philosophy to the players and coaches on the team. He said Cody treated coworkers and everyone else at the high school with the same regard.
“When I heard about this honor for him, I thought there isn’t a better guy or someone that deserves it more than Coach Cody,” Lackey said. “He’s a hall of fame coach, a hall of fame person and I couldn’t be happier for him and his family.”
Lackey said often coaches earn Hall of Fame honors because of longevity in the sport and Cody’s successes on and off the court over more than four decades make him a deserving candidate.
“He made little changes over the years,” Lackey said. “But his philosophy of treating people right never changed. It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to continue the program. The main focus is on the program. It’s not about him. It’s not about me. It’s not about whoever’s sitting in the head coaching position. You’ve got to treat people right and build those relationships. We want to teach them to be successful young men first, successful students second and third, we want to teach them a little basketball.”
In addition to the Hall of Fame induction, the weekend’s activities (May 7-9) include the TABC annual clinic, which features some of the nation’s top college coaches as speakers, high school all-star games and more than 100 vendors.
More information can be obtained by contacting the TABC office or visiting www.tabc.org.
Cody said his teams struggled in his first three seasons at Cleburne and he was fortunate that the school board and administration gave him the opportunity to turn the program around.
“Those first three years were not pretty,” Cody said. “I will never forget the guys on those first few teams because they stuck it out with me. They laid the foundation for what followed. The parents, administration and the school board were behind me. There was a time I thought I might be fired and said to myself that we couldn’t keep the status quo.”
Cody said he learned valuable lessons early in his career from coaches such as John Nichols from Everman.
“As a young coach, I didn’t ask a lot of questions,” he said. “I grew up with the belief that asking questions was a sign of weakness or lack of knowledge, so I learned some hard lessons because I was trying to do it all myself.”
He said the Jackets’ success starts at a young age with the Little Dribblers program.
“It goes all the way back to Little Dribblers,” Cody said. “My basketball family was a big factor in this honor. The system is what wins for you and I knew the system would win this year. That’s why the team has been successful, because it carries over to the next group.”
Cody surpassed the 800-win plateau before retiring from Cleburne ISD in April 2008. In his 36 years at Cleburne, Cody recorded more than 700 wins, which he reached in December 2007.
Cody will be inducted into the Hall alongside three other legendary coaches — Brazoswood, Klein Forest and Haskell high schools coach David Middleton; Longview High School coach LeRoy Romines; and Euless Trinity coach Sue Cannon.
Cody’s teams reached the postseason 25 times and he won more than 800 games in his career.
Two former players also made the cut, in Dallas South Oak Cliff and Stephen F. Austin University player Barbara Brown-McCoy, and Dallas Crozier Tech, Tyler Junior College and East Texas State College player Bryan Miller.
