McCallie's Mac Hunt (15) has his shot knocked down by Hamilton Heights' Silas Adheke.The campus, such as it is, is nearly hidden and could easily be mistaken as nothing more than an auxiliary gym tucked behind Hickory Valley Community Church. But just before the tree-lined subdivisions off Lee Highway sits Hamilton Heights Christian Academy, a tiny five-classroom school that has been making an immense impact on the lives of students since 1997.
For the last seven years the school has been comprised predominantly of international students, many of whom have helped build the best Tennessee prep basketball program that nobody knows about.
"I think word is starting to get out about us slowly now that we've played and beaten some of the better teams around," said Hamilton Heights headmaster Duke Stone. "We definitely want to see our program grow to an elite, national-level program. We're not a team of Chattanoogans, and we're not going to compete against many Chattanooga teams.
"We knew if you're going to compete at that level, to be an Oak Hill Academy-type national power, we would need to do so with international kids. And there are so many of those kids who really have nothing in the way of hope and want to come to the U.S. to study and play."
Using missionaries and basketball contacts throughout Europe and Africa, Hamilton Heights has established a screening process to determine which students will be accepted based on both academics and athletic potential.
This year 31 of the school's total enrollment of 70 are international kids, including students from Lithuania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bahrain, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Vietnam and Russia as well as the U.S. All but five of those play on either the boys' or girls' basketball team.
"Our kids will spend six to eight hours in the gym just about every day working on their game," said Hawks coach Zach Ferrell, a former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga guard. "One thing I've noticed is how grateful the international kids are, how coachable they are and how hard they work. Our kids are constantly in the gym trying to improve their game. They are always accepting coaching with great attitudes."
Ferrell, a baby-faced 27-year old who is in his second season as head coach, leaves his job at BlueCross each afternoon to oversee practice or drive the team bus to a game. A Nashville native who formerly worked for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he also lived and worked in inner-city ministries in the Highland Park area for five years.
It was there that he expanded his passion for coaching basketball and sharing his faith with young people.
"The first week my wife and I lived in Highland Park, I put up a basketball goal outside our house, and that first night we had about 30 kids come to play on our goal," Ferrell said. "It wasn't unusual for us to have 15 or so teenage boys sleeping on our floor some nights just because they enjoyed getting to play games and have a place to hang out, and they recognized that we genuinely cared.
"One of the house rules that all the kids knew and followed was, if you stay with us you're going to church with us on Sunday. I've kind of carried that calling to where I am now. I never talk about winning a game to my players. It's about how the game of basketball can translate to life and how it can help them have a better future for their families and community."
Although Hamilton Heights has fielded soccer, volleyball and baseball teams in the past, basketball is the only sport currently offered. Of the boys' varsity's 13 players, eight either already have scholarship offers or are projected to by their senior season. The most recognized of those is 6-foot-10 junior center Abdulhakim Ado, who is being recruited by 27 schools, including Memphis, Louisville, Ohio State, Florida, Connecticut, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, and has nine official offers already.
The school has capped its enrollment at 70 (grades 9-12) with no plans to expand and no plans to join the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association. As an independent school it has no restrictions on the number of hours players can practice, the number of games the team can play or the amount of contact a coach can have with the team.
So far this season the varsity boys have beaten all 10 TSSAA opponents, including perennial Memphis power White Station. The Hawks also have beaten every foe considered among the best in the city -- Baylor, Brainerd, Central and McCallie and won the annual Best of Preps holiday tournament.
By season's end the team will have traveled for games to West Virginia twice, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham and Virginia, with Ferrell driving the bus and players paying for their own hotel and food costs.
"I don't necessarily like it, but I understand when people call us a 'basketball factory,' and I understand when coaches in the area don't want to play us," Ferrell said. "The only thing I cringe at is when people say we recruit. We do recruit, but we recruit internationally. We even have a rule that we don't accept students who have already played high school ball at a Chattanooga public school. That's because we're not looking to hurt any of the public schools by taking their kids.
"This is a place where you're allowed to create an excellent program and greatly impact the kids. We get to have a lot of conversations about the Bible and learn more about each other's faith. The essence of what we do here is to impact their lives and share the faith."
Hamilton Heights requires the lowest tuition of any secondary private school in the city, and the $4,750 annual cost includes dorm rooms that are rented from Tennessee Temple University for those students who don't have host families.
"Many of our international kids have never been to church before they come here," Stone said. "But we have kids from many different backgrounds and faiths, and it's enlightening for our students to see diversity.
"One of my favorite pictures was taken last year during chapel when there were kids from seven countries and four religions represented and you can tell all those kids love each other. A lot of people are finding out about our basketball program, but really that image is what we want to be about."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.