One season. One loss by one point in double overtime. One AAAA State Championship. First-year Liberty County Panthers basketball head coach Julian Stokes has just logged an amazing first season, a dream for most, but reality for Stokes. To the naysayers who cry that Stokes was given the talent to be the best and had a lot of luck, I say you are partially right, but only because you don’t know the whole story.
“It has been an amazing experience for my first year as a head coach,” Stokes said. “I am very fortunate and blessed to have had this experience. This means so much to everyone. I am just proud that I could help guide these great young men to bring back the championship to Liberty County.”
The welted, black rubber edges of a basketball mirror the color of the black marsh along places like Cay Creek. That glistening mud, cropped by sharp edges of the marsh grass, has been in Liberty County since before Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence. The coastal mystique and beauty of Liberty County draw people in, just as the love of the hardwood beckons them.
Julian Stokes is Liberty County, and Liberty County is Julian Stokes, who moved here with his military family in 1995. Though four years Gwinnett’s junior, Stokes will surely be hailed as a Liberty County hero in the same manner as Gwinnett and the county’s other signer of the Declaration, Lyman Hall.
“Everyone is calling me a hometown hero, but I am just so glad to be able to give something back to a community that has given support to me,” Stokes said.
Stokes is an alumnus of Liberty County High School; he ran over the same hardwood as a point guard and scampered across the grass as a quarterback, and he understands what it means first hand to be a Panther. He made entry passes to teammates Rion Brown, who starred at Miami, and Jordan McRae, a phenom at Tennessee, both of whom went on to play professionally. Brown played abroad, and McRae was drafted by the 76ers and spent the first part of his career in Australia, but traded and dropped a whopping 61 points in a NBA D-League game, getting him a cup of coffee with the Phoenix Suns before moving on to a contract with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers
“Being able to play for coach Graham at Liberty and later coach was something that I always wanted to do,” Stokes said. “I was also fortunate to play with some great teammates that have gone on to professional careers, like Jordan McRae with the Cavs and Rion Brown playing abroad. Playing created an accelerated pace, but from a coaching standpoint, they have shown me how to see certain things a team is doing and keys that can certainly give me a chance to make sure we are in the best set of formation.”
The gridiron wasn’t any different when Stokes quarterbacked the team that finally led the Panthers past the first round. As an agile runner and intelligent signal caller, Stokes also had an All ACC running back in Shadrach Thornton. Thornton’s physical running style helped mold young freshman linebacker Raekwon McMillan long before he would win a national championship and be elected a Captain for Ohio State University.
South Georgia, collectively, is known for the gridiron, from the small towns in the Coastal Empire to Football Mecca in Valdosta. In recent years, McMillan and now athlete extraordinaire Richard LeCounte have D-I football coaches locked into the GPS of LCHS.
2015 was a good year for the Panthers. Liberty had to claw and fight during the playoffs, coming out against Woodard Academy playing their most complete game of the year, but in the Final Four, Jonesboro’s height and speed proved too much. By the time the Panthers moved out of spring football, there had been a shakeup with the retirement of Liberty County boys basketball head coach Willie Graham.
“Since I coach quarterbacks, I was on the field most of the summer and at camps and in the weight room, so we didn’t get as much work in the summer,” Stokes said. “Most of them play with strong AAU programs and continually work in the weight room and go to camps and still made open gyms, so I thought we would be alright when the season started.”
Liberty had just lost to the Cartersville Purple Hurricane in the first round of the GHSA AAAA football playoffs, and the Panthers basketball season was days away. While the football players were starting to make the transition from the turf to the court, Liberty won its first few games. Before the Christmas break, an above-average Statesboro handed the Panthers its first loss of the season, and Liberty took it hard and used it as a tool and motivator for the remainder of the season.
“Statesboro made us understand we had to be ready to play every time we step on the court, and sometimes it seems that is just an understood over stated point,” Stokes said. “But I used the Statesboro game to make them understand that if they didn’t want to have that feeling again of losing that we had to play four quarters of basketball.”
The Panthers heeded Stokes advice and, despite still having to battle adversity and fight through some tough games, did not lose again.
“As we were moving through tournament and the bracket got smaller, I started to be very confident about winning a state title,” Stokes said. “Defeating Lithonia, who was well balanced and had height, made us realize what we could accomplish playing our best basketball.”
Stokes readily admits that he had expectations at the beginning of the season, but he also had a very real fear of not succeeding these expectations with such a special team this season.
“I would second guess myself, but I also started to allow them to play using athletic ability to create turnovers and transition,” Stokes said. “We still ran some traditional offense, but when you have great athletes, you have to let them play. Professionally, being as young as I am, this has been great for me, but I think be expectations next year not nearly as much pressure. This has been a great season, and I am just blessed to have a part of it. It’s something that will last and hopefully positively influence these young men for the rest of their lives.”
SE-CC-4.16-Stokes
Stokes’ rookie year ends with a gold ball
By John Wood
