By REID TUCKER
Jane Hamilton has seen some things in her time keeping the books for Paxton’s basketball teams. And 36 years is a long time in this sport, especially when you’re trying to keep up with the Bobcats.
She’s seen changes in the game, of course, as no less than the introduction of the 3-point field goal to high school basketball complicated her impeccable scorebook record-keeping technique. That was in 1987, after Hamilton had already been doing the job for seven years. The game has sped up since then too: the athletes got faster, jumped higher and played harder as time went on, but Hamilton kept pace down the stretch through many, many basketball games.
Flashing the wink and smile that are just as much her trademark as her always meticulously legible and accurate scorebook records, she said a charitable guess would put the total number of games she’s seen at “about a million.”
“We’ve definitely worn out a car or two over the years,” she said, referring to the multitude of road trips she and her husband Fred took following the Bobcats and Lady Cats. “He’s always been with me, and he rarely complains about getting in the car to drive to a ballgame with me. We haven’t missed too many, home or away, since 1973, and I’ve loved every minute.”
In that span of time, she’s seen the intense rivalries between Paxton and schools like Laurel Hill and, more recently, Malone. She remembers the running-clock wins and the heartbreaking losses at the buzzer, and she’s been there for the moments when distinctions between good and bad games are harder to come by.
One of those instances came just last week, when the whole Paxton community, overjoyed that the 2015-2016 boys basketball team was the first since 1974 to make it to the Final Four, suffered the shock of their team’s loss to Chipley in the championship game. Hamilton, speaking after the Bobcats’ victory in the Region 1 final over Malone, who they also beat after a tense the District 1-A tournament showdown, was confident the Bobcats would break the long dry spell and bring home a state championship. Even when things didn’t turn out that way, she maintained her positive attitude and heaped praise on the players for their display of courage and poise, as several were either battling sickness or injury going into the title game.
“I think they wanted it more than any team I’ve seen a long, long time,” Hamilton said. “I wasn’t nervous or worried at all because I knew they would fight until the very end. They’re not the kind to let any of us down.”
The Paxton girls basketball program also grew from relative obscurity into one of the most preeminent small school programs in the region during Hamilton’s years at the school. She fondly remembers the late-night bus rides with the team, ferrying injured players to the hospital and stepping between team mates when tempers temporarily flared. She saw the Lady Cats’ ascendancy in the1990s when they went to four state tournaments and saw them win a championship in 2014 and play for another in 2015.
“When I first started, girls’ teams didn’t have much of a following anywhere, not just here at Paxton,” Hamilton said. “Not many fans would come to see them play, but once we started to really have success in the ‘90s, more and more people would come until now we have as much fan support for the girls as we do for the boys’ teams. To watch that program emerge, game by game, into what it is today was really something special.”
Hamilton’s Paxton roots run deep. Her mother was in the high school’s first graduating class way back in 1939, and Hamilton herself graduated in 1961. She graduated with a degree in education from Troy University soon thereafter, but didn’t start her teaching career at Paxton until 1973, after spending several years raising her two children. She first took up scorebook keeping in 1980 as a way of helping out at the hoops-mad school which, just by virtue of Paxton’s small population, always seemed to be short-stocked on volunteers even if there was always enthusiasm to spare.
“I always felt like my students were my own kids,” Hamilton said. “I wanted to be involved in their lives inside and outside the classroom, and that means basketball. That sport is everything at Paxton. It means everything to Paxton.”
Though neither of Hamilton’s children ended up playing basketball, all four of her grandsons – Jack Hamilton, who played on this year’s state runner-up team, and Drew, Dan and Dustin Geoghagan – did. She counts it a “tremendous blessing” to have been there for her grandkids’ ballgames, and, like any doting grandmother, is proud of the good example they set as Paxton student athletes.
Hamilton also cherishes the bonds she forged over the years with players and coaches alike. She became especially close with Latonya Washington, the eventual Lady Gator and WNBA star destined to go down in history as the best female basketball player Walton County has yet produced, and Jeff Bradley, the head coach of the boys’ program since 1998, when Hamilton switched to keeping scorebooks for the Bobcats. Hamilton took Bradley under her wing when he was still a young coach, helping him prepare for his teaching certification exams and, of course, providing ample moral support and encouragement from the scorer’s table at center court.
She sat on the sideline with Bradley and the Bobcats during the state championship tournament. Even though her last official night as scorekeeper came during this year’s Region 1 final, and even though Hamilton is looking forward to being able to actually enjoy just watching basketball instead of having to work, she said she would always be willing to help out if needed.
“Jeff is just like a son to me,” she said. “I love him to death. Anytime he needs me, I’ll fill in.
“This has been a really wonderful experience, and I’ll treasure it as long as I live. It’s been just such a great part of my life. I’m going to miss it. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to do this for so many years.”