By Justin Graves
The Cullman Times
HOLLY POND — Life is good for the Holly Pond High girls basketball program. A team on the rise just keeps climbing the ladder.
And that shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows local basketball closely.
The progress this program has made in recent years was destined to happen. Same can be said about the future that is in store.
That’s what the right coach can do in the perfect place, surrounded by people who are buying into the system.
Something similar happened at Cold Springs in the early-90s. Tammy West was hired and the rest is history.
Four Final Four appearances. Three state titles. A regional tournament berth almost every season.
That’s what West has done at Cold Springs. She’s helped the Eagles become one of the state’s premier small-school girls basketball programs.
And now it looks like Scott Adams has Holly Pond headed in the same direction.
But this really isn’t a shocker. A couple of the area’s top basketball minds predicted this would happen when Adams was hired as the Broncos’ head man two years ago.
West and her father, former Good Hope High boys basketball coach Danny Welborn, called it way back in 2007. They both said Adams is a winner, and he’d win big at Holly Pond.
If anyone should know what an Adams can do with a program, it’s Welborn. He was coaching at Good Hope when Adams’ father, Dwayne, was putting the finishing touches on his hall-of-fame career with the Holly Pond boys basketball program.
And as Welborn told the story a few years back, Good Hope and Holly Pond played some classics way back in the day.
Things are a little different for Welborn these days. He’s gone from successful basketball coach to successful golf coach to retired hall of famer.
But even though Welborn isn’t coaching anymore, he’s still at a basketball gym almost every game night — serving as full-time grandparent, supportive father, super fan and bleacher analyst.
He doesn’t meddle with his daughter’s team. To hear Welborn tell it, she doesn’t need his advice. So he just sits back, watches and admires.
And some of that admiration has filtered over to what his old rival’s son is doing at Holly Pond.
During top-ranked (2A) Cold Springs’ win over No. 6 North Sand Mountain this past Saturday at Cleveland High, Welborn threw out compliment after compliment for Holly Pond while discussing some of the teams the Eagles have played this year.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Welborn believes the Broncos are heading towards big things. After all, he said exactly that.
Just like his daughter has been saying since this summer.
Before the season started in November, West predicted that Holly Pond would have a great season. The Cold Springs coach even said she expects the Broncos to make some serious waves when the postseason begins.
Kind of hard to argue with that.
Ranked seventh in Class 3A, Holly Pond has beaten a team that was ranked in the Class 5A poll (Muscle Shoals) until this week and the No. 3 team in Class 3A (Danville) on its home court. The Broncos have also played ranked teams like Cold Springs, Lauderdale County and Clements extremely close.
Now sitting at 13-3, Holly Pond looks to be the front-runner in Area 13. Win that crown, and the Broncos could be looking at their first Northeast Regional appearance in years.
And anything could happen after that, especially with a well-coached, talented team like Holly Pond.
But Holly Pond needs to get used to this. All signs point to continued success for the Broncos …
… All signs point to a program that could eventually play in Final Fours and compete for championships — possibly starting sooner than later.
Justin Graves can be reached by phone at 734-2131, ext. 257 or by e-mail at jgraves@cullmantimes.com.
