South Royalton to usher in new era with new gym
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By TOM HALEY rutland herald staff - Published: December 1, 2009
When Mike and Marlene Fulcher were painting blue and gold basketballs to give their sons Quinn and Nevin as Christmas presents to commemorate their 1,000-point milestone with the South Royalton boys basketball team, they couldn't believe their own handiwork.
They quickly noticed the date they were painting on the ball for Nevin matched the one for Quinn: Nevin had reached the mark on Feb. 16, 2004; Quinn on Feb. 16, 2001.
Three years to the day after Quinn turned the trick at Blue Mountain Union High School in Wells River, Nevin had his special occasion at home against Proctor.
There was another oddity about the 1,000-point achievement in the family. They both pretty much did it in three years for different reasons. Nevin did not play much as a freshman due to a very strong Royal team that year.
Quinn was suspended his entire junior year due to misconduct during the soccer season.
Mike recalled that his wife wanted to move, but Quinn was loyal to the Royals, saying he wanted to stay and play his senior year at South Royalton.
And that senior season he quickly made up for lost time, having memorable night after memorable night. He dropped 48 points on Black River. He scored 45 in each of two meetings with Wilmington and also lit up Blue Mountain for 45 points.
The Fulcher family has since relocated to Greensboro, N.C., where they spent the last four years watching Nevin pitch for the Greensboro College baseball team. He graduated from there in May of this year.
But South Royalton is still very much home to the Fulchers. Mike coached nine years at the high school and there is still friends and family in the community.
And sports still runs through the family. Nevin is working on his Masters at Wake Forest and wants to coach college basketball. Quinn is doing some coaching at the lower levels and Mike, who was an assistant at Dartmouth College for a number of years, is on a high school basketball staff.
The family will be making the trip north for the opening of the new gym at South Royalton High School. The grand opening will take place on Dec. 12 when Central Vermont League rival Rivendell comes to town for a boy-girl varsity doubleheader. The Royals and Raptors will tip off the day with the girls game at 1 p.m. and the boys contest will follow.
Part of the ceremony will include the unveiling of a new banner with the names of all the 1,000-point scorers on it.
"It will be different after coaching for nine years and watching the boys play so many games in the old gym," Mike Fulcher said.
Joining Quinn and Nevin on the banner will be South Royalton boys basketball players Pete Howe, Mike Ballou, Mike Gray, David Manning and Joe Lamson, along with girls hoop stars Katherine Clark and Lydia (Koenig-Brock) Eaton. The banner will be unveiled following the girls game.
Lamson didn't have to wait long to ascend to his first head coaching job at the varsity level. After spending last year as the JV boys basketball coach at Maimonides High School in Brookline, Mass., he will take the reins of the varsity team this season.
When Lamson moved to the Boston area to take a job as manager for a market research company, he joined a men's basketball league to get to know people. The athletic director from Cambridge Rindge and Latin asked him if he was interested in coaching.
The next thing he knew, he had been hooked up with Maimonides as the JV coach.
When the varsity coach didn't return for this season, there was Lamson at the helm of the big team.
"I was kind of apprehensive about taking the job. But then I wasn't sure when the opportunity would come up again," Lamson said.
Lamson can hope that his players at Maimonides can make the same athletic memories he made at South Royalton. He scored over 1,000 points for the basketball Royals and was a state track and field champion in the javelin. He was also one of the state's top decathletes.
He then went on to play four years of basketball at Drew University in New Jersey where he was a captain his senior year.
He absorbed plenty of basketball lessons growing up in the small Vermont town. He was a fixture at the basketball camp every summer at the high school. He learned from basketball coach Jeff Thomas and track and field coach Jeff Moreno.
And he learned plenty about training and paying attention to technique under Moreno's tutelage in track. Now, he's ready to try his own hand at varsity coaching and he's excited about it.
No matter how the Maimonides team fares, this season promises to be special for Lamson. The afternoon of Dec. 12 will give him a memory for all time, all wrapped in a reunion with former teammates and friends.
Howe, Ballou and Eaton were the players who scored their 1,000th point before the 3-point line came along.
Perhaps Eaton has the most interesting story when it comes to the scoring of the 1,000-point milestone. She reached it in the semifinals against Chelsea at the Barre Auditorium and without much to spare, finishing her career with 1,003 points.
"Chelsea had some big girls. I knew it would be hard to get the eight points I needed," Eaton said from her home in Moultonboro, N.H., where she coaches her two daughters in elementary school. "We should have won. I would trade my thousand points for beating Chelsea."
South Royalton is one of those small communities where everyone seems to have a connection. Mike Ballou's father Jim Ballou coached Lydia's team. And daughters Kim and Carmen Ballou were Eaton's teammates.
"They would feed me the ball. Carmen would have had 1,000 points if she had not fed me the ball so much," Eaton said. "Jim Ballou was the best coach there ever was. He spoke at my wedding."
Mike Ballou, like Nevin Fulcher, was a college baseball pitcher. He, in fact, for the University of Maine Black Bears in the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
That's the type of intimacy there is in South Royalton and that promises to make Dec. 12 very special.
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