Farmland to hardwood
Chapter 1 | A community's first high school builds identity on the court
This is Chapter 1 of a Substack series chronicling the 2023-24 Natomas High School of Sacramento boys basketball team.
Prologue
At the locker room entrance of the Natomas High School gymnasium, away from administrators, teachers and classmates, Aeron Wallace IV sits unbothered, holding a basketball to his right hip. No phone. No chatting. No distractions. His eyes transfixed on the basketball game before him, the court he plans to dominate. A freshman with a reputation around town for fluid ball-handling and pure shooting, Aeron became a varsity basketball player as soon as he stepped on campus.
The Natomas boys freshman team has now entered the second of what will eventually become three overtime periods. A Marysville High player, who minutes earlier was pounding the padded wall behind the basket after missing an easy layup, has found the nerve to sink a free throw and tie the score again. Aeron waits on these weathered wooden bleachers for his high school career to begin. Junior varsity players huddle outside the gym doors, there since the final minutes of the fourth quarter of this freshman marathon, hopping and stretching to stay loose, shaking away season-opening jitters. Aeron sits in his sweats and sneakers, in his own basketball universe. His game won’t start for another 90 minutes, until at least 7:30 or 8 o’clock.
Across the gym, behind the Natomas Nighthawks bench, Brian McKenzie awaits his first game as a varsity head coach. The Brooklyn native has played on some of the biggest stages — in the prestigious New York City high school championships, where as a junior at Xaverian High he made the game-clinching shot for the Catholic League crown; in Madison Square Garden, the “mecca of basketball,” where he played in prep all-star showcases and later as a Division I basketball player with Providence College; and across the globe for five years as a professional vagabond, finishing his playing career by destroying the competition in a Saudi Arabian league. Now, at age 35, he has settled in the Natomas community of northwest Sacramento with his wife, Ryan, and two boys, 6-year-old Ty and 2-year-old Noah. Wearing burgundy Natomas sweats with silver trim, McKenzie live streams the freshman game to Instagram.
Kim Horton, sitting by the metal doors that lead to the locker room hallway, has seen all the basketball jubilation and heartache on this campus. Soon after Natomas Unified School District purchased 50 acres of farmland in south Natomas from the Fong Ranch, Horton began working as a campus safety officer at the school’s temporary site across Interstate 5. And, three years later, when the main campus opened on Fong Ranch Road for the 1997-98 school year, she saw basketball become instantly ingrained into its culture. The Nighthawks’ boys teams won section titles in two of their first three seasons. The Kings, Sacramento’s first major franchise upon arriving to Natomas in 1985, often practiced at the high school’s gym.
Basketball courts popped up where, decades earlier, Natomas farmers had picked tomatoes, celery and soybeans. Housing developments, protected from catastrophic floods by reinforced levees, offered relief from soaring Bay Area real-estate prices and an escape from inner-city blight and gangs. Native American land, forever changed by the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, had become a hub of basketball fervor.
Natomas had new life, with hoops as its heartbeat.
One last tune-up
Rio Linda, a census-designated area 13 miles northeast of Natomas, is no basketball mecca. But on this rainy November night, any gymnasium will do – city, township, village, settlement, census-designated plot of land, wherever. The Foundation Game, an exhibition fundraiser for California’s high school sports governing body, the CIF, is Coach McKenzie’s last chance to instill the tough defense and hard-nosed rebounding he hopes becomes “intrinsic” with Natomas basketball – borne from the New York City courts of his youth. The Nighthawks’ tallest player is 6-foot-3. Many of their preseason opponents will have players 6-foot-7 or taller, including Rocklin High, a top-10 team in the region; neighborhood rival Inderkum High, which opened six years after Natomas High and now has perhaps the best team in the city; and Sacramento High, which won a section title with McKenzie as an assistant coach last season.
As sports culture goes, Rio Linda is best known for the dirt track that launched the legendary NASCAR racing career of Jeff Gordon. The boys basketball team here had only seven victories last season, to 20 losses. Rush Limbaugh, a resident in his early conservative radio days, described driving into Rio Linda as “a road leading into what looks like oblivion.” But toughness can be found anywhere, even in oblivion, and McKenzie wants to see which of his Nighthawks have the guts to play his desired brand of basketball. Late in the second half, with Natomas in control, freshman forward EJ Rose takes a hard charge from an out-of-control Rio Linda player, forcing a turnover. As EJ lies in a brief daze, the Natomas bench jumps to its feet in celebration. Minutes later, as EJ subs out, McKenzie greets the forward with a bear hug. The message isn’t just for his 6-foot-3 freshman, but for the entire team. Want to see the court? Want to win league? Want to compete with Inderkum? Get tough. Get better.
“Build on this!” McKenzie tells his team in the Rio Linda locker room, looking to muster enthusiasm before the return bus ride. “Grow from this! Embrace every little part of it. Seniors, this is your farewell. Freshmen, this is your introduction. Remember, we start in less than a week. What you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it. And I’ve been saying it: If we don’t want to show up early and get shots up, don’t be mad when they’re not falling in the fourth, when they’re not falling consistently. Those things matter. They matter.”
“Two claps for EJ!”
Clap! Clap!
“Two claps for EJ!”
Clap! Clap!
“Great minutes! Great minutes! No complaints. We get it, he missed a layup. But guess what? He made a winning play. Took a big charge in the fourth quarter. Everybody on the bench … don’t think I didn’t see. How many people stood up?”
McKenzie makes sure sacrifice is rewarded. A player falls? You help him up. A player is subbed out? You give him a high-five. A player takes a charge? You get on your feet.
“I know my ass was up,” says Aeron Wallace III, an assistant coach, without hesitation.
“Me too!” a player adds.
“Me too!” says another. “I think everybody stood up.”
“Ok, good.” McKenzie concedes.
A cruel summer
Matt Johnson simply couldn’t miss the Natomas opener against Marysville.
Perhaps more than anyone, Johnson knows what this game means to McKenzie. Before last season, the coaches each applied for the varsity position at Sacramento High, the second oldest high school west of the Mississippi, established in 1856, and the alma mater of Kevin Johnson, perhaps the city’s greatest boys basketball star.
McKenzie’s resume included playing four seasons of Division I hoops in the Big East Conference, when he helped Providence College beat several marquee programs, including making two clutch free throws in the final minutes of a stunning upset over No. 1-ranked Pittsburgh. Johnson was the hometown hero, a Sacramento High alum who led the Dragons to a 2005 section championship at Arco Arena. A father of two by the time he left Sacramento High, Johnson didn’t qualify academically to play Division I. Instead he attended Sierra College, and later signed to play at Northern Arizona, a mid-major Division I school. After playing professionally overseas, he worked for his real estate license, and became an assistant coach at Sierra.
The Sacramento High job went to Johnson, a joyous return. McKenzie swallowed his pride, taking the junior varsity position and serving as a varsity assistant. There was friction at first, Johnson remembers, but by season’s end the two were celebrating a Division III section championship together at Golden 1 Center. Johnson earned All-Metro Boys Coach of the Year honors from The Sacramento Bee. Senior Mike Wilson was named First-Team All-Metro and signed with Division I Sacramento State. McKenzie began substitute teaching at Natomas, and when varsity basketball coach Evan May stepped down after an 18-11 season, McKenzie was named his successor.
Meanwhile, at Sacramento High, glory gave way to turmoil. After Johnson allowed a suspended student to practice in the school’s gymnasium, he began hearing rumors about his job security. On September 1, he was fired. Sacramento High Athletic Director John O’Con told The Sacramento Bee “a pattern of behavior” led to Johnson’s dismissal. Johnson called the firing “petty” and “unfair” and gave an emotional interview to local sportscaster Kevin John. California public school coaches work on year-to-year contracts, and those who aren’t full-time teachers are particularly vulnerable. Johnson’s supporters protested at the campus. McKenzie lent support through phone conversations, helping Johnson through professional heartbreak.
Two months later, as Natomas High prepares to face visiting Marysville, Johnson finds McKenzie, his assistant coach turned professional ally, behind the bench. They shake hands. Share a laugh. Quickly catch up. When the varsity game begins, Johnson takes a seat about 10 rows above centercourt, well outside the cut-throat world of prep basketball. Johnson recently began working at Capital College and Career Academy, a new charter school in north Sacramento, as an academic enrichment coordinator. The school has only ninth-graders. There is no varsity basketball team. After school, using portable hoops in the school parking lot, he leads voluntary practices.
No fans. No stakes. No pressure. Just hoops.
Clearly though, as he watches Natomas open its season, there is a chip on Johnson’s shoulder. Though he keeps in touch with coaches and players from Sacramento High, Johnson is resigned to never again coaching at his alma mater, at least not under its current administration. He states, matter of factly, that he plans to coach college basketball in five years. For now, though, he roots on McKenzie and Natomas.
Opening tip
Minutes before Natomas varsity takes the floor, McKenzie drags open, with a loud rumble, the chain-linked fence that protects the boys basketball locker room. Above the coach’s white board are photos of past Nighthawks athletes, including Mekhei Byrd, a football star and last year’s leading basketball scorer at 13 points per game. Byrd now plays receiver at Sacramento State, leaving sophomore Manno Jenkins as the only returning basketball player who averaged more than five points last season.
At this moment, though, McKenzie isn’t worried about basketball, or Marysville. McKenzie isn’t worried about boxing out or defensive switches. It’s locker room clutter that has him frustrated, and wondering whether his players are disciplined enough to achieve their dreams, basketball or otherwise.
“I gotta worry about finding a random hanger right before the game?” he asks his players, pointing to the floor. “It’s the little things that matter, and the little things that will take us up, or down. If we can’t focus on those, when we get a little adversity, it’s going to be too much. It’s going to become overwhelming. We have to focus on the little things.”
Johnny Benjines, a junior forward, leads a team prayer, speaking in fluent Spanish. “They just roll with it,” he says of the language barrier. “It’s mostly about staying healthy.” Johnny’s prayer is a new tradition. A way for McKenzie, who will be leaning on mostly freshmen and sophomores on the court, to elevate an upperclassman who has dedicated himself to the program.
Brandon Marshall hits a 3-pointer to give the freshmen a triple-overtime victory. In the junior varsity game, Alfred Preston “AP” Wilkins hit a 3 for Natomas in the final seconds to force overtime. McKenzie’s varsity players continue to stretch in the hallway, nearly an hour after their season was scheduled to begin. In overtime, AP scores 11 points, finishing with 47, to beat Marysville. At last, varsity takes the court.
Marysville, 36 miles north of Natomas in Sutter County, had a 29-4 varsity record last season and won the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV title. Natomas went 18-11 and lost in the first round of the Division III section playoffs. The Sac-Joaquin Section, with Sacramento and San Joaquin counties as its hub, has nearly 200 high schools across Northern California: from Merced County in the south, the Sierra foothills in the east, Sutter County in the north and Solano County in the west. High schools are assigned to Divisions I through VI based on enrollment and basketball pedigree. Natomas, with around 1,200 students, is in the Greater Sacramento League, a Division IV league, but was assigned to the Division III section playoffs last year.
Marysville, the reigning Division IV champion, is a formidable test. Natomas’ starters are Manno Jenkins, a sophomore, and Aeron Wallace, a freshman, at guard; juniors Harold Beckwith and Johnny Benjines at wing; and Achilles Terrell, a 6-foot-3 senior, at forward. Manno, the team’s confident offensive leader, opens the scoring with a 3. But the offense is rushed. Quick 3s clank off the rim. Marysville leads by seven. Aeron heads to the bench in foul trouble. An ominous start.
McKenzie needs grit, a counterpunch.
Stand on business
Kahirre Louis destroys quarterbacks in the fall – slinging them to the turf after tossing linemen aside. The chiseled, 6-foot-3 linebacker had 16 sacks last season. “It could have been more,” he tells Natomas High football coach Gary Melvin, who sits at the gym entrance during the freshman basketball game. One night last spring, Kahirre (pronounced Kuh-HAR-EE) ran the 100-yard dash for the track team, and then sprinted to the gym for a volleyball match. “I just love sports,” says the senior, perhaps the best pass rusher in this football-crazed Sacramento region. Fresno State and Nevada are interested in his football skills. But Brian McKenzie, down seven points only minutes into his varsity coaching tenure, needs rebounding and defense.
Darius Hemmingway accounted for five touchdowns last fall, four with his arm at quarterback and one more rushing. The senior also picked off two passes. On the basketball court, he plays like a free safety, a constant ball-hawk in pursuit of steals, blocks and charges. After a six-steal performance during a preseason game, McKenzie insisted that he can see Darius leading the state in the stat. But he has to do it within the defensive scheme and, more importantly, while staying out of foul trouble.
The football teammates, each with burgundy dreadlocks, give Natomas basketball instant energy off the bench. Kahirre opens the second quarter against Marysville by snatching an offensive rebound and laying it back in, cutting the deficit to 16-15. Darius is beat off the dribble, but recovers to swat the layup against the back wall. He points to the home crowd for approval. Freshman Joseph McNeal enters, and spins off a defender for a lay-up and 19-18 lead. After Marysville regains the lead, Manno hits back-to-back 3s, then a layup and a tip-in for a one-man, 10-0 run and 29-20 lead.
Aeron and Johnny, subbed out after the sluggish start, re-enter the game. Aeron scores a put-back for his first high school points. On the next possession, he drives baseline, drawing three defenders, and passes to Johnny for a corner 3. Marysville throws a lazy pass, and Aeron leaps for the steal, streaks down court alone and nudges the basketball over the rim. “Dunk that next time!” a fan cries from the bleachers. Aeron gives a laugh. In about eight minutes, or one quarter’s time, Natomas has outscored Marysville 28-9, turning a seven-point deficit into a 12-point lead, 36-24.
In the game’s closing minutes, Manno calls for freshman forward Kaleb Lyles to set a screen. The sophomore guard splits the two converging defenders, dribbles around another and lays in his final basket of the night – a 22-point performance, with four 3-pointers. The 19-point lead is the largest of the game. In the end, it’s a 60-46 season-opening victory against a defending section champion, though from a low division.
“We took care of business,” McKenzie tells his team. “That’s a Nighthawk win. Understood? We have to make sure we stand on business consistently.”
For some Natomas players, the victory comes as an ego check. EJ Rose, the freshman forward praised last week for taking a charge, plays sparingly. Juniors and seniors ride the bench, watching freshmen fill the statsheet. Some don’t see the court at all.
McKenzie knows the feeling. As a sophomore at Providence, he started all but one game, averaging 28 minutes and double-digit points. He shot 46.9% from the field, 40.6% from the 3-point line and 73.0% from the free-throw line. But the Friars had a losing record, and head coach Tim Welsh, the man who recruited McKenzie out of high school, was fired. New coach Keno Davis had different plans. McKenzie moved to the bench, his minutes reduced, his season point total more than cut in half. His shooting percentages plummeted, as did his NBA dreams. It can be a cruel game.
“If you’re not happy,” McKenzie tells his team, “get better.”
Nick Lozito is a freelance sportswriter based in Sacramento. He has 20 years of sports journalism experience, covering high schools and colleges, NBA, WNBA, MLB and NFL. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee and KQED.