Welcome to The Afternoon Drive, where the sports staff of the Times Free Press will give you a dose of (random) sports-related information that will hopefully get you thinking about more than just what’s for dinner. This information will be packed into an online list form each weekday, but the opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff as a whole.
Today’s list
In today’s sports list, Patrick MacCoon looks back at five times a prep athlete provided a glimpse of what they would become.
1. McDonald’s All-American snub drives Rhyne Howard
Looking back at my time covering a generational player who will go down one day as possibly the greatest women’s basketball player in the Volunteer State, I almost felt like Brian Windhorst covering LeBron James in the early stages of his career. Howard’s killer instincts were driven to another level after being left off the McDonald’s All-American team her senior year. In the 10 games that followed, the Bradley Central star averaged 30.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 6.4 steals, 4.6 assists, 3.8 3-pointers and one block per game while shooting 75% on 2-point field goals and 55% on 3-point attempts. In a road win against Walker Valley she nearly had a quadruple-double with 24 points, nine rebounds, nine assists and eight steals. Now, the Bearette legend is a member of the Team USA’s qualifying Olympic team.