GRETNA, Neb. — This is not a story about high school basketball. This isn’t a beloved coach who died midseason. It is not a story of redemption, sadness or achievement.
It’s about union. This is a story about the community and a team that has revealed, through their resilient fight to honor a lost leader, what sport at its best looks like.
On Wednesday night at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska, Gretna High School will play a first-round game in the Class A boys state tournament against Millard North.
Brad Feeken led the Dragons to victory. He trained them with passion. known in Nebraska. His death at age 48 on December 30, 2023, after a more than two-year battle with neuroendocrine cancer, marked a new chapter for his players.
Gretna starts five seniors and brings two others off the bench. Landon Pokorski, Alex Wilcoxson, Alec Wilkins, Kade Cook, Joey Vieth, Chase Doble and Avery Schendt have already secured their legacies. This week matters little about how they will be remembered, and yet it means a lot to them to get to this position in the state tournament after months of pain.
The morning Feeken died, Gretna players and coaches gathered at their high school. They felt more prepared to move forward as a group than individually. The schedule showed a game that same day in the quarterfinals of the Metro Conference Christmas tournament.
The thing about the Dragons to play. Nine hours later, in an emotionally charged gym, Pokorski scored the winning goal. He pointed his finger towards the sky as his teammates harassed him. Pokorski believed that if he threw the ball correctly, Feeken would help him find the net.
I couldn’t have written it better. #gretna (@gretnabball) surprises Papio Sur with a buzzer-beating goal via senior @LandonPokorski just over 12 hours later #dragons Head coach Brad Feeken passed away 🏀🐉💚
@GEHSGriffins @WOWT6News#nebpreps #ParaFeek pic.twitter.com/TMu09zUnw9—Grace Boyles (@GraceBBoyles) December 31, 2023
From that moment on, the boys showed the way. When Feeken’s condition worsened last fall, parents, teachers and supporters in Gretna prepared to support the team.
Quite the opposite has happened: these older people have inspired a community in search of answers.
“They keep showing up,” said Travis Lightle, superintendent of Gretna Public Schools. “They just show up. They are there for each other. With the way they treat the fans, the little kids, they say, ‘This is what (Feeken) would want us to do.’ And when you look at them, they’re playing exactly the way he would like.
“They are not angry. They are not bitter. “They just continue to do the right things.”
My opinion on Gretna basketball is biased. I’m biased. Too close, too inverted.
I resisted touching this story professionally for months. But last week something changed. I’ll get to that.
First, some background. I have lived in Gretna with my wife Shannon since 2005. Both of our children were born here. They’ve grown up as part of this growing southwest Omaha suburb that’s still small enough to foster a bond.
Ten years ago I trained T-ball with Bill Heard. His daughter was 6 years old. Mine was 7. Heard, a longtime assistant at Feeken’s Gretna bench, took over the basketball team when his old college teammate became too sick to coach.
He has mourned the loss of his best friend for the past nine weeks. Heard also heads Gretna’s softball program and plans to coach both sports as her two children progress through high school.
Feeken won two state titles in 21 years as a head coach, but he impacted more lives in Gretna as a seventh-grade reading teacher. My daughter learned about her life in her classroom four years ago. Few teachers meant more to her.
My son attended his basketball camps. Feeken’s teams embodied his lively personality. This piece written by Dirk Chatelain beautifully captures the Feeken spirit..
When he got sick, the community rallied around the coach, his wife Jenny and their children, Rylinn, 13, Maylee, 11, and John, who turned 7 last month.
This was the scene two weeks ago for an event organized at short notice. If there had been space, I have no doubt that more people than live in all of Gretna would have shown up to support Feeken and her family. pic.twitter.com/0dobg200TO
– Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) December 30, 2023
In his final weeks, Feeken connected with Brad Stevens, general manager and former coach of his beloved Boston Celtics. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg and Creighton Greg McDermott expressed his admiration for Feeken.
When word spread of Feeken’s death, my family, like many others, felt called on December 30 to attend the Dragons’ Metro Conference tournament. In that gym at Omaha Creighton Prep, the moment of silence and the pregame tribute to Feeken contributed to a mood like I’d never experienced before: a mix of disbelief, anguish and resolve.
From an upper corner of the seating area, Hoiberg watched.
“Honestly, it was one of the most special games I’ve ever seen in person,” Nebraska’s coach told me this week.
Gretna jumped out to a 15-point halftime lead against Papillion-LaVista South, then watched it disappear as the weight of the moment took hold.
“We’ll never play a game like that again,” Pokorski said. “I still don’t realize how difficult that day was, how difficult that game was.”
When Pokorski reached the baseline in the final seconds, with Gretna trailing 48-47, Hoiberg loudly predicted the shot would fall.
A town held its breath.
“Seeing the team’s reaction, those guys hugging each other on the court and crying, I know they did it for Brad, what he meant to those kids,” Hoiberg said. “It was emotional. “Some tears came out.”
He was far from alone.
The Dragons with Feeken’s daughters, 13-year-old Rylinn (left) and 11-year-old Maylee, after Gretna’s 65-63 win at Kearney to earn a berth in the state tournament. (Courtesy of Angie Wilcoxson)
The tears did not stop that Saturday night. Nine days after Feeken’s death, Rylinn, his eldest daughter, He paid tribute to his father at his funeral.
I heard Feeken praised. Pokorski and Wilcoxson talked about his legacy. For years, they said, Feeken preached to them about the importance of “doing hard things.”
Three of Gretna’s five losses this season came in the first 18 days of January. It was a difficult moment.
“Basketball was secondary,” Heard said. “But basketball was really important because it’s the place where we can all be together. It was obvious that the children needed it. I needed it.”
Feeken left motivational messages on sticky notes for his players to find. In January, Jenny Feeken took her place and texted the seven Gretna seniors.
They receive excerpts from “Hitting the Rock: 7 Lessons for Developing Courage on the Path to Mastery,” a book Jenny is reading with Rylinn and Maylee.
The frequency of his messages increased last month as tournament time approached. Lately, he has reminded seniors that they are prepared for whatever life throws at them.
“Everything has been difficult for them,” he said. “It helps me. They tell me they like it, so I hope it helps them too.”
The Dragons won nine straight games before a three-point loss in the regular season finale against top-ranked Bellevue West. The loss knocked Gretna out of its host position in the state tournament qualifying district game and set up a Feb. 1 game. 27 trip to Kearney High School in central Nebraska.
In Kearney’s hornet’s nest, a 3,000-seat gym, the course of this season changed for Gretna. Basketball returned strongly to the foreground. Another chapter began. It was Feeken’s kind of night. And again, the Dragons showed their strength.
Already into the last district, the noise of the crowd made the ground shake. Gretna won 65-63 to secure a trip to the state tournament like Kearney A heave in half court at the buzzer and hit the rim..
Possibly no team in the state could have handled that wild environment as well as Gretna. In celebration, Rylinn and Maylee cut the last strands of the hoops’ net. The nets returned to Gretna with the girls.
“Just one of those moments that’s so much bigger than a ball game,” Heard said.
Likewise, Heard said, the state tournament often provokes exaggerated emotions.
Gretna, in past seasons, has felt the pressure of the postseason. Last year in Lincoln, Millard North beat the Dragons in the semifinal round. The officials denied a Pokorski bucket in the final seconds. video of the work Feeken shows, advancing into the action before Millard North held on to win 54-52.
The Mustangs themselves eliminated Gretna two years ago in the semifinals and in district play in 2021. The story of the Dragons against Millard North haunts their minds, Pokorski said.
But pressure for Gretna? No chance with this team.
“When you’ve been through what we’ve been through off the court,” said Pokorski, the unflappable point guard who will play at Southwest Minnesota State, “it tends to make basketball a little easier. What we were supposed to do this year, we already did.
“Our purpose was much bigger than basketball.”
(Above photo of Bill Heard and Gretna’s senior starting five (seated), courtesy of Nicole Stuchlik)
