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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

a team-mate of Scooter Houston and contributed mightily to that great 23-2 season.

Clarence Robinson, John Underwood, Ricky Jemigan, DeLeon Kelly and Maxwell Kelly
were all outstanding enough to later play at the college level.

COACHES
Our Tigers have had some great basketball coaches, too.

Jim Melton coached the state championship team in 1947.
Joe Fields coached six years at CHS and averaged more than 20 wins per season, barely

missing a state championship trophy in that 1962 overtime loss to Apopka.
Earl Hill’s Tigers lost only one regular season game in 1968 and fell just one game short of

making it to the state finals.
And now, here comes Randall Leath, who started the season with 15 straight wins and he

has the Tigers thinking state playoffs.
GYMS
The Tigers have played basketball mainly in four gyms over the years.

The Administrative Complex on West Duval Street ... Of course this was CHS from 1923-
1959 and the earliest games there were played on the narrow confines of the auditorium stage. A lot

of players from those days remember the brick walls were just beyond the baskets. You could crash
into a wall on a driving lay up - and there was a chance you could fall of the stage is you went too

close to the edge.
The Tyson Auditorium . . . Also known then as the National Guard Armory, this upstairs

court was located over city hall offices and the fire department. This was where our 1947 state
champs played their home games and where John Wood scored the 49 points - and where the fire

sirens would scare the bejabbers out of you if a fire truck was called out during a game.
CHS North Campus . . . This is here Randall Jackson, Scooter Houston and Jonathan

Burgess played. Joe Fields coached three years here and won 62 games. Earl Hill coached here and
had a 23-2 record in 1968. Every member of Coach Hill’s starting lineup averaged scoring in
double figures that year.

CHS South Campus ... Coach Joe Fields returned for three more years and again won 62

games for a six-year total of 124 wins. Now enters Randall Leath who previously won a state
championship at P. K. Yonge and he has the Tigers looking great again.

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