HIGH SCHOOL

Dugger basketball legend Brody Boyd returns, as a trainer

Former Dugger star Brody Boyd is back helping the Bulldogs' program.

DUGGER – On a hot July afternoon, Brody Boyd is standing in the corner of the gym at the Dugger Community Center with his hands clasped behind his back. He watches as 10 high school-age players from local communities such as Sullivan, Carlisle and Elnora scrimmage in front of him. The back of his T-shirt reads, “Some Wish For It … Some Work For It.”

The moms and dads scattered in the bleachers know Boyd – or, at least, they know of him. Boyd was a force of nature as a player in Dugger, even at 5-foot-10 and 150-nothing. He was the kid who grew up watching “Pistol” Pete Maravich tapes who would literally sleep around the corner in the Union High School gym. He was the kid who would tell you he was going to drop 40 points and then score 45.

Those were different times. On this July afternoon, Boyd monitors the action, occasionally interjecting to make a call or impart advice. He says nothing when a defender makes an aggressive steal and goes in for a layup. A mom yells out, “That’s a foul!”

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“Kids are soft these days,” Boyd says later. “It’s a different generation. You saw it. The problem is the parents. I come from coach (Steve) Alford and he comes from coach (Bob) Knight. Tough love. If you don’t like it, you get out.”

Boyd, 36, is a little gray around the edges now. It has been almost two decades since he poured in 2,632 points at Union, a number that still ranks No. 5 on the all-time Indiana boys basketball scoring list. After four years in Iowa, where he played his college ball, Boyd is back home in Dugger, a sleepy community of 900 in Sullivan County.

“People ask, ‘Why did you come back?’” Boyd says. “I love basketball. I love to help the youth. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. That’s just the way it is. I’ll go back to Iowa and give clinics and stuff. But this is home. Family is here. I’m a little more comfortable being here if I’m going to put stakes down.”

He watches players develop

Boyd envisions a day soon when he has his own facility and his own travel programs. He has a spot picked, outside of Oaktown in Knox County. “That is the next step,” Boyd says.

He points to Jaylen Mullen, an eighth-grader at North Daviess. Mullen is only about 5-8 but is an advanced ballhandler with a knack for playmaking. His father, John Mullen, played alongside 1993 Indiana All-Star Toby Madison at Washington Catholic, helping the tiny school to a semistate in the single-class tournament in 1991 and a sectional title in ’93.

John Mullen was a post player. He brought his son to Boyd to learn from another guard.

“I have seen five or six kids in here who have been working with him who have made huge steps from last year to this year,” John Mullen says. “He’s positive. He’s obviously in it to make money. It is his livelihood. But he seems to be in here for every kid, no matter the talent level.”

Brody Boyd (gray shirt, center) offers instruction during a recent practice.

Boyd looks out at Jaylen Mullen and sees a talented player. He wants him to take more shots. That message probably seems fitting, considering the source.

“I thought I knew a lot about basketball in high school,” Boyd says. “I didn’t. I just launched it from 35 (feet). I didn’t have a clue. These kids don’t either, which is why I do what I do.”

Boyd knew what he wanted from a young age, though. His father Benji, a 1974 Union graduate, scored 1,000 points in high school. His uncle Doug, a 1982 Union graduate, scored 1,570 points for the Bulldogs. Older brother Ben Boyd topped them both and set a Union record with 1,744 points in 1994.

Ben, six years older than Brody, was an inspiration to his younger brother. Brody remembers a visit to Toledo, where they sat his brother in the nosebleed seats.

“‘I said, ‘They really gave you those tickets?’” Brody remembers. “He said, ‘I guess.’ I said, ‘Well, I guess you aren’t good enough. I’m going to sit right behind the bench.' That’s what fueled my fire.”

Brody grew up at a time when Union basketball was a consistent winner. The 1985 team won a single-class sectional and the ’89 team played for a regional title before falling to much larger Terre Haute South. By the time he played his freshman season in 1996-97 (the final year of the single-class tournament), Brody’s name was already known in Sullivan County. He averaged more than 15 points a game that season as Union, led by Indiana All-Star Jared Chambers, was the smallest school remaining in the tournament by the regional final round.

Union led eventual state champion Bloomington North at halftime at the regional championship in Terre Haute before fading in the second half and falling, 62-51.

Brody Boyd of Union (Dugger) shown in 2000.

“We were probably the last team to ever make a run like that,” Boyd said. “It still eats at me to this day that we could get that close and run out of gas.”

Boyd, who played for Joe Hart in high school, had a lot more points and one more tournament run left in him. After sectional disappointments against Bloomfield as a sophomore and White River Valley in overtime as a junior, Union rolled into the Class A state championship the 1999-2000 season on the strength of Boyd’s 32.2-point scoring average. Boyd went out with a bang, scoring 28 points in the second half of the finals, but Union’s comeback attempt fell short in an 82-70 loss to Lafayette Central Catholic.

Christian Simpson heard stories about Boyd’s high school days from his father when he first started working with him two years ago. One day, the Sullivan junior pulled up the 2000 Class A championship game on YouTube and watched for himself.

“Man,” Simpson says. “He was pretty good.”

Boyd played with a chip on his shoulder, in part due to how many times he was told he was too small to play Division I basketball. And it still rankles him when people correlate Class A competition with his 2,600-plus points. “Hey, I averaged 46 against 4A schools,” he says.

Steve Alford or Bob Knight?

But these perceptions also factored into his college recruitment. Boyd was hell-bent on playing in the Big Ten Conference. Alford, the former Indiana star, was coaching at Missouri State through Boyd’s junior season at Union. Though Alford had recruited former Indiana prep stars such as Kevin Ault and Danny Moore to build an NCAA tournament Sweet Sixteen team in 1999, Boyd had no interest.

“I told him I wouldn’t come on a visit,” he says. “I didn’t want to play at a mid-major.”

That changed when Alford was hired at Iowa in March 1999. That spring, Knight was also talking to Boyd about the possibility of coming to Indiana. Knight was concerned about Boyd’s size. He wanted him to attend prep school for a year, which seemed like an OK idea. But when Knight made a visit to Dugger, Freda Boyd made it clear that her son was going elsewhere.

“I had my home visit and my mom says, ‘My son is not going to play for you,’” Boyd remembers. “I said, ‘Mom what are you talking about? Dad, get her out of here.’ Coach Knight says, ‘Ma’am, what do you mean?’ She says, ‘Brody knows what he is capable of doing. If you don’t want him, he can play somewhere else.’

After Knight departed, Freda Boyd said she did not like the way he looked at her on the way out. “Mom, I wonder why?” her son said.

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-Iowa's Brody Boyd (11) drives around Ohio State's Tony Stockman during the second half Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004, in Columbus, Ohio. Boyd scored 25 points in Iowa's 78-67 victory. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)-

-CAPTION:  Hot: Iowa's Brody Boyd (11) drives around Ohio State's Tony Stockman during the second half Wednesday. Boyd lit up the Buckeyes for a career-high 25 points.
RAN B & W

After Boyd visited Iowa, Knight stopped recruiting him. When Alford offered a scholarship in July 1999, Body accepted. That was that.

“I knew right away that’s where I was going,” Boyd says. “I didn’t feel comfortable playing for (Knight). I’m a strong guy and feel like I could play for anyone, but I didn’t want to go to prep school. I wanted to play right away.”

Boyd says going to Iowa was a decision he “wouldn’t change for the world.” He lived up to his reputation as a 3-point shooter, making 193 3s to still rank No. 7 on Iowa’s career list. Boyd also became a different player under Alford. As a senior in 2003-04, Boyd had 68 steals. That number ranks fourth on Iowa’s single-season list. As a full-time starter that season, Boyd averaged 11.1 points, 2.3 steals and shot 36 percent from the 3-point line.

“It’s crazy what I learned in four years from (Alford),” Boyd said. “I thought I knew a lot about basketball, but I had no idea what to do in certain situations until I learned from him.”

'Dugger will never fail me'

Despite the odds, the school where Boyd used to pack the 900-capacity gym has survived. In 2014-15, the Northeast Sullivan School Corporation voted to close the elementary school in Dugger and Union High School in a cost-cutting decision. Union was reinvented as a charter school, named Dugger Union. After four years of playing non-Indiana High School Athletic Association events, there are plans to reapply for IHSAA membership.

This place is resilient. So are its people.

Boyd was living in Keokuk, Iowa, a community of 10,000 along the Mississippi River in the southeast corner of the state, bordering Illinois and Missouri. He had several years of experience there, working with youth basketball players and had worked as a director of the Carthage Family Fitness center in Carthage, Ill.

Though he continues to make trips to Iowa to see his 5-year-old daughter, Boyd has made his home back in Sullivan County for the past two-plus years.

“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do when I got back,” Boyd says. “But I knew it would be basketball. Dugger will never fail me. They treat me pretty good here.”

Brody Boyd of Dugger Ind. is seen in this file photo date unknown.

It is different, though. When Boyd grew up, his father was the junior high coach. He had access to the gym whenever he wanted to play. It is not that easy anymore.

“Now you have to have a key, a nurse, an ambulance to get in a gym,” he says. “I’d stay all night in the gym. Dad would call up to the school at 6 in the morning and I’d tell him I’d been shooting the last hour. I was a little bit of a different breed, though.”

Last season, New Albany star Romeo Langford knocked Boyd down a rung on the all-time scoring list, to No. 5. Boyd called Langford to congratulate him, a gesture that was passed on to him from another generation.

“Rick Mount called me when I passed him,” Boyd says. “Records are made to be broken. People asked if I was mad. I said, ‘Mad about what?’ No way. My God, he earned it.”

There might not be a Romeo Langford or a Brody Boyd in the gym at the Dugger Community Center. But there is an Ike Wolford, a North Daviess sophomore. There is an Eli Gettinger, an eighth grader at Carlisle. There is an Eli Crites, a freshman at White River Valley.

They may not know the Brody Boyd that led the state in scoring for two years. But they know he came from here. And they have YouTube.

“When you can come from a place like Dugger and make it in Division I basketball, it is a big achievement,” Jaylen Mullen said.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.