It was Wednesday night, four days after father and son Detroit Douglass helped claim the Division 4 championship when Pierre Sr. and his wife, Inger, convened a family meeting.
Pierre Brooks II and his younger brother, Joshua (11), and sister, Laila 7, sat in the living room and waited until their father would address them.
“You had another little sister,” he told them.
Now everyone was amazed.
“Pierre was pretty crazy about it,” Brooks sr. Said, ‘but my little girl was quite excited about a little sister. Pierre probably thought he would have to take care or something. ”
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But Pierre Sr. could not hold a straight face for long.
“No,” he said laughing. “You’re Mr. Basketball.”
Pierre II, 6 feet 6, jumps off the couch and gives his father, also 6-6, an enthusiastic breaststroke that may have registered a 5.0 on the Richter scale.
(The house suffered no apparent structural damage.)
“We shared a lot of emotions,” Brooks II said. ‘It feels like the state has recognized me in a wonderful way. We were both amazed. ”
Brooks was announced Friday as the 41st winner of the Hall Schram Mr. Basketball Award, given annually by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan to the state’s leading senior.
A Michigan State basketball signee, Brooks put up 2,889 points, with Iron Mountain’s Foster Wonders (2,573 points), Kobe Bufkin of Grand Rapids Christian (2,143), Julian Roper II of Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (1 668) and River Rouge’s Legend Geeter (1 410).
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Of the 1,187 votes cast before the semifinals, Brooks garnered 383 votes in the first place and Wonders had 339.
In a spectacular senior season, Brooks averaged 33.1 points and 9.3 rebounds to lead Douglass to the state title.
He starts the season as the best player in the state, but a few years ago it would not have been difficult for anyone to see Brooks play and think they are looking at a future Mr. Basketball.
And the younger Brooks would have agreed with them.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, chasing. “My sixth grade year I was not really good. I was more of a strict shooter. All I did was shoot the basketball. I didn’t really have physical tools. ”
Brooks at the time played for the Family, the highest-profile AAU team in the state.
During the trial phase, one coach was blunt with Brooks.
“Man, go play with the younger kids,” he said. “You get a little more with them.”
To make matters worse, the coach said it in front of his teammates and their parents.
Brooks was sad and he was not alone. He loved playing basketball, but he was cut short by one of the better AAU programs of the state.
“I went home crying to my father and mother,” he said. “I was crazy, frustrated.”
If Brooks wanted to seek sympathy at home, he did not find much.
“Let’s go to work,” all his father says, not wanting his son to feel sorry for himself.
“On the inside, it hurt,” his father said.
Fortunately, Keon Henderson always thought the younger Brooks had a lot of potential and after Brooks was cut, Henderson asked him to join the REACH Doughboys.
“He really saw something in Pierre,” his father said. “He instilled a lot of confidence in Pierre, especially with his shooting and handling of his ball.”
But most of all, it was Brooks who took it upon himself to prove the Family coaches wrong.
“Since then I wanted to work,” he said. “The next day I put in many hours and since then I have done a lot of work.”
Brooks played well that summer, but then did a surprising thing. He went back to the family and tried again.
Most players who were clipped would avoid the team that cut them like the plague.
“I could definitely say that,” Brooks said. “But my dad and I believed we wanted to succeed on the Nike track. The highest level was important, so going back to the family and not giving up was the best option. ”
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Brooks made the family team that year and he has been a big player ever since, giving his father the idea that he might be a future Mr. Basketball will coach.
“I want to say that we thought he would have shot it in his ninth grade,” his father said. ‘It was based on the fact that he played AAU with all the top players that were in that team. He has always established himself as one of the top players once he is in school. ”
But there are many players who mature early and are phenomenal as freshmen and sophomores. Often they end up hitting a plateau in their improvement and are caught by other players in their class.
This never happened to Brooks, whose development was constant during high school.
“His level of improvement got better every year with something,” his father said. ‘In the ninth grade he was a little immature on the basketball court and he would easily get frustrated. We really worked on it in terms of being mentally tough, mentally strong and coaching.
‘In the 11th grade we wanted him to get faster and stronger, so he dedicated himself to going into the weight room and running on the track. This year, he was just self-motivated. It does not have to tell him that it is time to get up shots. He was really self-motivated to get better and take on a more leadership role. ”
Brooks played three memorable plays in the state championship game. The one was a tomahawk dunk that he threw down with some ferocity.
The second was a 3-point basket from the center of the MSU logo, almost halfway through the final seconds of the second quarter.
And it was no desperation. Brooks used the same shooting motion he used on all of his jump shots.
This one was a little deeper than any other recording taken by anyone over the weekend.
After the game, he was asked what he would bring to MSU, and he named the shooting range.
Asked if MSU coach Tom Izzo would give him more logo shots, he replied: Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
“But when the shot clock is at 1 and I’m there, I have no problem flying.”
Then there was the game in the fourth quarter when Douglass clung to a four-point lead when one of the players from Wyoming Park Trinity Christian publicly broke in for an undisputed layup.
But apparently out of nowhere, Brooks comes down the track like a runaway locomotive, to the basket and he somehow makes a clean block and keeps it a game with two possessions.
It was nothing more than a pure all-out attempt to win time.
“It was like a will to win,” he said. ‘It was just to be present not to let the other team score. This is something I do regularly. ”
It has become a regular basis since he was cut from the AAU team seven years ago.
“I still think about it when I play,” Brooks said. “I still have something to prove. That’s why I always play with a chip on my shoulder. ”
Mick McCabe is a former Detroit Free Press columnist. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ mickmccabe1. Save $ 10 on his new book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” by ordering right away at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.
Michigan Mr. Basketball through the years
Here are the 41 winners of the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award:
Pick it up
Here are the results of the 41st Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award, presented by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. Only BCAM members may vote:
1. Pierre Brooks II, Detroit Douglass: 2,889 points
2. Foster Wonders, Iron Mountain: 2,573 points
3. Kobe Bufkin, Grand Rapids Christian: 2,143 points
4. Julian Roper II, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s: 1,668 points
5. Legend Geeter, River Rouge: 1,410 points
Votes are cast on a 5-3-1 basis.