Have We Seen The Best

There were rumors going around four years ago of this 8th grade kid that  was going to basketball camps and had all the coaches woozy at what they were seeing.  There was this girl who could dribble and  shoot with the best of the boys and she was going to start  her ninth grade year at Rocky Mount.  All those hopes and dreams were dashed as while attending one of those camps she blew out her knee and had to sit an entire year.

Now a sophomore in her very first game she was timid on her knee not trusting that she could really let it all out.  Despite that she scored 13 points in her first varsity game and would average nearly 15 that year. By her junior year all the fear of a wobbly knee gone her average ballooned to 22 and by her senior year 27 per contest.

When you look at the basketball career of J'Kyra Brown points per game is not her most important stat. There is always a controversy about  the term Most Valuable player. My concept is if she wasn't there what would the team do.  We all saw what a MVP was this year that on that night at Hunt when J'Kyra went down so did the hopes of the Lady Gryphons in 2013.  During her absence or in some cases her limited court time the Gryphons not only lost that Hunt game but went down at Nash Central, Southern Nash and Fike was about to get their turn whipping up on the Gryphons until J'Kyra came in.

The last leg of her high school basketball career she had to lug this extended knee brace which will make a 4.5 runner in the forty take at least 5 seconds to maneuver.  Slower and yet still a scoring machine and surely Northern Nash will be glad to never have to play again.

But J'Kyra is not about scoring, She tries to get everyone involved in the offense but many times her team mates would say why should I shoot when we have J'Kyra can do it better?  I think she is a natural shooting guard but he is able to handle the ball well enough that she can play the point.  She is tall enough in the high school level that she can rebound with the best of them.  Up until her latest knee injury she could defend the other teams best player.

J'Kyra  is one of those players that makes everyone around her better. If the truth be told both Nash Central and Northern were better teams just because in order to compete with her they had to be better.  We as fans have had a three year run that you needed to be in the gym at tip time of the girls game to watch J'Kyra and not wait until halftime so you could be there to watch the boys.

I suspect there will be many homes games in Greenville (ECU) next year that there will be a group from Rocky Mount there just to watch J'Kyra.  The funny thing is what we have seen for three years we don't know what it could have been if she didn't have that dreaded injury as a freshman and the last month of her senior year.

There are two banners hanging in the rafters at Rocky Mount which any team that comes into gym can stare at those greats of the past.  They hang in the rafters because of what they did after they left Rocky Mount.  I think there is room for one more. I hope that as J'Kyra Brown moves on to ECU that she can get healthy and play at that level up to her potential.

You have to give credit to her parents.  J'Kyra is well rounded that team comes first, she is polite and not the center of the world off the court.  It has been a pleasure to watch this treasure both on and off the court. I mean this with all sincerity if you didn't see J'Kyra  Brown play you may have missed the the best basketball player from Rocky Mount High school since Phil Ford. See Next Year J'Kyra!