UTC basketball player Jahmal BurroughsCoach John Shulman pulled out a plastic bin filled with plastic balls scribbled with Sharpie marks from behind his podium in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball meeting room Friday.
Shulman showed the bin to the team.
Up to a few minutes before the Mocs gathered to prepare for the Southern Conference game against Appalachian State tonight, he hadn’t seen the bin in almost three years, when he gave it away as a gag gift at the postseason awards banquet.
Memories flashed through his mind when he saw the plastic balls again. For a moment or two — more than usual — he was actually speechless.
The balls represented memories from the final games of the 2008-09 season when UTC won the SoCon tournament and advanced to the NCAA tournament.