For most college recruiters, WNC has never been sought-after for its basketball talent.
When Panther legend Lee Scruggs graduated in 1997, going on to play at Georgetown and professional leagues all over the world, his unique mix of size and skillset was unprecedented in the area’s history. While the 6’11” Franklin Athletic Hall of Famer can’t teach players to be as tall as him, he’s now helping WNC high schoolers gain notice from major college programs.
“I think that number is up to like 19, and our whole 2024 class is signed to play in college this year,” said Scruggs of his Team Swish travel basketball squad, and the players he’s coached who have earned scholarships from college programs.
“For us as a program, small as we are, that’s something to be proud of, because at the end of the day that’s our mission for the kids – to try to help them reach their dreams of playing at the next level, and to have our whole senior class get that opportunity was pretty special.”
For the past eight years, Scruggs has taken some of the area’s best athletes under his wing, competing in tournaments across the Southeast with many of the region’s top amateur teams. The results speak for themselves as well, with players committing to major programs like Citadel and Emory this past year. As a former WNC high schooler trying to get noticed by college recruiters, Scruggs says he wants to make it easier for local players than it was for him.
“I started out coaching travel ball with Tony Christie and the WNC Big Cats, and I always had a vision of starting my own travel team to help the kids in Western North Carolina, because I know how hard it is for the kids in this area to get a fair chance at recruiting,” he said. “Tony and I linked up and we kind of had the same vision, and he did some great things with the Big Cats. I finally got the courage to kind of do my own thing, and I branched off from them and started Team Swish, and here we are.”
Now the only amateur team of its kind west of Asheville, in recent years Team Swish has attracted some of the area’s top athletes, including Franklin High School standout Max McClure. Despite drawing players from an area not known for its basketball talent, Team Swish has taken some of the region’s top squads by surprise.
“We played CP3, and it came down to the last possession,” said Scruggs of the Chris Paul Basketball Academy, the Winston-Salem-based team of the future NBA Hall of Famer. “We were actually up one, and they had the ball for the last shot. They ended up taking the shot and actually missed it, got the rebound, put it back in and that’s how the game ended. We were honored to be able to be on that stage with a team like that. That just kind of shows what the tournament organizers think of us to put us up against a team like that, and that’s where we want to be.”
At a Greensboro tournament organized by the scouting service Phenom Hoops this April, Team Swish nearly upset one of the state’s premiere amateur teams, which boasts NCAA Division I prospects across the floor. Led by East Henderson star Caiden Brewer, the team has even received some national recognition.
“One of the organizations that we play with called HoopSeen, they host tournaments all over the country, and they actually have their own association,” said Scruggs. “Caiden made their First Team All-HoopSeen Association, and I don’t think there’s ever been a kid from Western North Carolina make that. That’s a big deal, because those kids are from all over the country that get selected. There’s only five, and he was one of the five that made the first team, and that’s a credit to how he played this summer.”
Between helping players gain recognition from national experts and holding their own with the Southeast’s best talent, Scruggs has turned Team Swish from a well-kept secret to a regional power, as essentially a one-man show with the help of his wife, Chrystal. Such has been the squad’s success in recent years that star players from downstate are beginning to take notice.
“We’re already thinking about the roster for next year,” he said. “The thing for us, which is a good problem to have, is when we first started Team Swish we were basically getting guys from Asheville back this way. Now we’ve got kids reaching out from all over the state wanting to play for us, and that just makes us that much better. When you can get kids from Greensboro and Charlotte and King’s Mountain, those kids can play down that way, and when you add that to what we have up here, that’s a pretty good team.”
Once an area usually passed over by college recruiters, Scruggs is slowly helping WNC become a basketball hotbed. In addition to players ages 17 and under, the program even branched out into the younger age groups this year.
“We actually started a third-grade team this year for my son and his age group,” said Scruggs of he and Chrystal’s son, Jayceon. “This is the first year for that, and we started off small-scale because we really didn’t know much about that age group. At that age you’ve kind of got to crawl before you walk. … We did five tournaments, and those kids got better every weekend. To see those kids be that young and how far they came from day one to the end of the season, it was fun to be a part of.”
In coaching WNC players from third grade to their senior years in high school, Scruggs is passing a lifetime of basketball knowledge onto the next generation of talent. After a 15-year college and pro career, in which he was once recruited by legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson, Scruggs says he wants to use basketball as a tool to help his players become better men.
“I guess just how he showed tough love, if that’s the right word,” said Scruggs of the Naismith Hall of Famer. “He was somebody that would rip into you, and five minutes later he would hug you and tell you that he loved you. That means a lot, because as a coach, things aren’t always gonna go smooth, and sometimes you have to challenge your players. You have to challenge every player differently because every player responds differently to criticism, and you always have to pick them back up when you’ve been hard on them. … At the end of the day it’s not about winning and losing for me – it’s about helping a kid out trying to reach his full potential, be a better man, and hopefully reach his dreams to play at the next level and get his education.”