Wright guides Scott County Central boys basketball team to final four after recovering from car accident

~ SCC coach Kenyon Wright returns his Braves to the final four after being injured in an in-season car accident

Kenyon Wright focuses on the worst-case scenarios when assessing the opposition.

He often talks about how his Scott County Central boys basketball team will be lucky to stay within 20 points of its opponent. He mentions the superior coaching skills of his counterpart. He stresses the skill of the other team. It's something he's been doing since taking over the Braves for the 2009-10 season.

So his optimistic outlook on his January car accident came as a surprise.

"It could have been a lot worse," he said. "I'm very lucky, very blessed on that deal."

Scott County Central coach Kenyon Wright talks to senior Dominique Porter during the fourth quarter of their Class 1 sectional win against Risco. (Fred Lynch)

The injuries he sustained and their aftereffects forced the 26-year-old coach to miss three weeks of work, which included three basketball games late in the regular season. But the sport he loves to coach also provided some normalcy during the days after the accident. He's overcome the injuries to lead the Braves to a familiar place -- the Class 1 final four.

Wright was driving home after dinner in Cape Girardeau with his wife, MaKenna, stepfather and sister Jan. 26. He started through the intersection at Kingshighway and Shawnee Parkway when a truck ran a red light and smashed into the driver's side of Wright's car. MaKenna, who works as a nurse at Saint Francis Medical Center, said Kenyon and his stepfather were knocked unconscious, and Kenyon had to be cut from the car.

Kenyon relays the story, but it's from what others have told him. He doesn't remember it.

"I don't remember hardly any of January at all," he said. "It happened at the very end of January. I remember the Christmas tournament, for the most part, and stuff after that, I don't remember."

MaKenna was forced to wait about two hours after the accident before she could see her husband. He recognized her but couldn't remember much else.

Scott County Central coach Kenyon Wright will be trying to lead the Braves to a fourth consecutive Class 1 title later this week in Columbia, Mo. Wright suffered a serious head injury in a car accident in January and missed time with his team. (Fred Lynch)

"He knew me and he recognized people like family members, but the only thing he knew was his name was Kenyon and that he was a coach," she said. "He didn't know where he was a coach at. He didn't know what happened. He would just say, ‘What happened? Where am I at?' He kept repeating himself over and over and over."

Wright has posted a 77-14 record during his three seasons with the Braves, and 10 of those losses have come this season. He's led the Braves to two consecutive state titles, but the accident happened just after back-to-back losses to Sturgeon and Notre Dame.

"The next day the trauma doctor and all them came around and he still didn't have his memory back," MaKenna said. "He had me tell him about all the ballgames he played. ... So he would ask me, ‘Well who did we play?' And I would tell him, and he would say, ‘Well did we win?' and I'd say, ‘No.' Then ‘No way, we did not lose that game.'

"He kept going, ‘No, no. Do I even have a job?'"

A slow recovery

MaKenna said Kenyon started remembering more about 48 hours after the accident. He knew he was the coach at Scott County Central. He remembered his players' names. But he was far from healthy.

MaKenna said she convinced Kenyon's doctors to let her take him home, but she needed to eliminate any stimulation at their house.

"I took his cellphone, and he couldn't listen to music, nothing," she said. "He just had to lay there in a dark room. So we spent six days laying in a dark room. We're not supposed to talk to him. We're not supposed to bother him, but I felt bad leaving him sitting in a dark room by himself, so I'd go sit in the dark room and wait for him to tell me he was thirsty or hungry or something."

Walking was challenging enough, much less coaching a basketball team.

"The first time I got him out, he couldn't walk," MaKenna said. "He was dizzy. He was puking. It was just too much on his head to get out in the light and get around. We had to really slow everything down. We really had to focus on him. Our lives just went into a complete halt."

MaKenna said Kenyon wasn't supposed to have any visitors, but she made an exception because of Kenyon's concern about the Braves. She allowed assistant coach Andrew Pullen, who is known as Boat, to make brief visits.

"With Kenyon being so worried about basketball, I told Boat, I said, ‘Boat, if you want to come over, you can come over and talk to him. Just for a little bit. Not for very long. Just tell him something about basketball,'" MaKenna said. "So Boat would come over like every day after practice and tell Kenyon how they ran, how they did. Then they'd just talk about basketball for 35 or 40 minutes, then Boat would leave.

"I really think that was probably something that made Kenyon more sane during that time was just those updates. Boat, he really helped him out a lot on that deal."

Nate Wills, one of Kenyon's close friends and the Bell City boys basketball coach, went to visit his friend less than a week after the accident, and the visit shocked him.

"I thought when I came over there that first night, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh,'" Wills said. "Of course I've never been around an injury like that. It was very eye-opening. He was hurting. There's no doubt. He was very confused, and it was scary."

Returning to duties

Kenyon's return to coaching progressed through baby steps. The first time the players got to see their coach after the accident was before the New Madrid County Central game, which was Feb. 1.

"I know it was scary for them because they didn't see or hear from him for probably a week before we could start letting him slowly going back," MaKenna said. "I know the New Madrid game, he didn't get to go to the game, but I drove him up to the school and he talked to the kids right before they got on the bus. That was the first time the kids got to see him after that."

Staying through an entire practice provided too much stimulation, so MaKenna would take him to the gym for small portions of practice. It allowed him to adjust slowly to his usual routine. He missed three weeks of work, and she missed about 2 1/2 weeks to care for him.

"I would take him up to the gym for 20 minutes and take him home or I'd take him to the gym for 45 minutes and take him home because he couldn't be alone," she said. "He'd get confused and go try to leave the house. For them first three weeks, we were both home all the time, and he couldn't drive. He couldn't even start driving until about two weeks ago."

Kenyon returned to the bench for the Scott City game Feb. 13, but he had strict instructions to avoid yelling or getting too worked up. That's a challenge for a coach who regularly jumps into a defensive stance and waves his arms to mimic his team's defensive efforts. He usually spends most of the game on his feet yelling directions and rooting on his players. It fell to MaKenna to enforce the rules.

"I would tell him, ‘I'm going to tell you if you're getting upset,'" she said. "I sat right behind him and any time he'd start yelling, I'd have to go grab him and pull him back down and tell him, ‘Quit yelling,' and he'd be like, ‘OK, OK, OK.'"

MaKenna praises the work assistant coaches Frank Staple and Pullen did during Kenyon's return. She also said the players made an obvious effort to help their coach.

"Them first few games, even then, Kenyon was real good about calling a timeout if he needed to talk to everybody or he would tell Boat or Frank who to holler at, and then them kids would come up to him, like in the middle of the game," she said. "They'd run up to him so he didn't have to yell across the court. I was really impressed with them.

"I can't tell them enough how much it helps him not having to yell, them just acknowledging. It makes me feel better that they at least respect him enough to do what they're supposed to do and help him get better because if they didn't listen to him and didn't do things the way they should, it could have gotten a lot worse."

Three-game skid

The Braves lost their first three games after Kenyon returned to the bench, including the Scott City game.

"You've got to feel for his players too because they're without their head coach for a month, so that kind of gets them out of routine and their structure," Wills said. "Next thing they know, they're listening to a different set of coaches because their leader is out. Then boom, he's back, but he's got to get back in that rhythm. I think that took him a week or two. In fact I know it did because they had a stretch that was a little difficult for them."

The players tried to use their coach's return as a rallying point.

"We had a whole new team plus losing our coach, it was kind of scary, so we just had to come together as a team, as a family, and just tell everybody we were doing it for coach K," SCC senior Dominique Porter said.

Kenyon was back, but he still was hurting. The aftereffects from the injuries influenced his ability on the sideline.

"He told me once -- it was after that Scott City game -- he can tell he don't think as fast as he could," MaKenna said. "He said whenever he was playing Scott City, he could tell after the game, he was thinking of so many more things he should of did. That was a bad game. He was hard on himself for that. That's about the last game that he said he could tell a difference."

Despite the limitations, Kenyon felt a duty to return to the sideline. He thought he owed it to his players to help them use the last few games of the regular season to prepare for another run at the state championship.

"The kids have worked so hard to get to the point they were at," he said. "It's one of those things, I'm not going to let anything stop me from coming back and getting in here and giving them an opportunity into districts and end on the right note."

Kenyon's health improved as he guided the Braves to another district title then past Risco in the sectional round and Eminence in Saturday's state quarterfinal. Wills, who has been watching tape of upcoming opponents with Kenyon, said he rarely notices any lingering effects from the accident.

"He's not 100 percent, but right now I think he's about 98 percent," Wills said. "Every week has been better. It's just a time thing. Him and I talked about it, and I think it really concerned him from an in-game coaching standpoint. When he first got back, he told me, ‘I feel like I'm a step slow on in-game decisions.' I don't think he feels that way anymore. I think he's back to where he was."

The superstitious Wright, who already has two state titles to his credit, will be on the sideline Thursday when his Braves face Glasgow in the noon state semifinal at the Hearnes Center in Columbia, Mo. He'll wear the same shirt, pants, socks and shoes he wears for every game once the district tournament begins, and they don't get washed until the season ends. It's a tradition he started during his first team's charge to the state championship. There's comfort in that routine. But there's also comfort in being back where he excels, which is in a gym with his team.

"As young as I am and everything, it's enjoyable because I relate to the kids fairly well," he said.

And a fourth consecutive title for the Braves would go a long way toward erasing some of the pain of the last month and a half.

"The month of January was horrible for us, but it's getting better for us," MaKenna said.