EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second story in a series on the top local high school boys’ basketball players of the past decade.
During his time as head coach of the Howard boys’ basketball program, Walter McGary saw the potential in Brandon Walters long before the big player saw it in himself.
So it’s quite possible that nobody was pushed harder during the Hustlin’ Tigers’ practices at that time than Walters, who would eventually help the program reach the TSSAA Class AA state semifinals in 2013 by averaging 20 points per game as a senior.
The reason for the push was that Walters, who was 6-foot-8 and 280 pounds by age 16, needed to realize what he was capable of – and possibly nobody was better suited for the job than the 6-8 McGary, who averaged 18.3 points and 11.9 rebounds per game in a three-year career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Walters eventually did, but it was quite the road to get there.