Gritty group from MCC showed more than talent

By Fredie Carmichael / Executive Editor
The Meridian Star

MERIDIAN — When the Meridian Community College golfers gathered to accept their award as the NJCAA Div. I National Runner-up and Freshman Brandt Garon as the individual national champion in Huntsville, Ala., on Friday, I swelled with pride.

But it wasn’t really about what they had accomplished, though I was certainly impressed by how they performed. My pride was about who they were as men and one unforgettable moment.

As the players, families and friends gathered around the clubhouse of Robert Trent Jones Hampton Cove, the loudest applause from the MCC golfers didn’t come from the announcement you might have expected.

It came when defending national champions McLennan Community College (Texas) was announced as the 2010 champions.

The MCC players parted, giving the players space. Then as each McLennan player passed, they applauded loudly and offered personal congratulations and patted each player on the back.

This was an especially poignant moment considering the subdued reaction some from the McLennan team had moments earlier when Brandt was awarded the national title as the overall individual winner.

It was also special considering this MCC team — who was in second place and 9 shots back of McLennan heading into Friday’s final round — never got their chance at a comeback after the tournament was limited to 54 holes due to rain.

This MCC team entered the tournament as a certain underdog. In only their second year at the Division I level, they arrived in Huntsville as the 8th ranked team in the country. Few expected them to even be in the final pairing, much less threatening to win the entire tournament.

But this team believed. Despite having three players under 5-foot 7 inches tall — including the national champion and an All-American — they made the 7,300-yard links-style course with large, undulating greens look like it was Lakeview, Meridian’s public course.

On some holes, the McLennan players — tall and lanky — bombed their drives 50 yards past the MCC players and drained long birdie putts. It didn’t seem to phase the MCC players. They fought and kept plugging along.

But in the end, it was the way they responded by not winning that was most impressive.

And it was a reflection of their coach.

One of the first things my friend Sean Covich, head coach at MCC, told me he wanted to accomplish as coach: teaching his players respect for the game and sportsmanship.

Throughout the year, he made his team stay at the course after every tournament, despite how they fared, and congratulate the winning team and personally thank the host golf pro at each course and the host golf coach. It’s a practice that served them well in the end.

“I just want them to fight like crazy on the golf course but then show ultimate respect and honor to the game after they’re done,” Covich said. “I’m fortunate to have a great group of guys.”

And their sportsmanship wasn’t lost on the other players or coaches. MCC was the underdog most were pulling for to upset McLennan. Similar to me, most were probably relieved to see a trait so often lacking in today’s athletes. Sportsmanship, a trait natural to most of us in the past, seems to have eluded so many these days. It was for that reason that the behavior of our own, MCC golf’s best, was so refreshing.

Moments after Central Alabama Community College’s Coach Dave Jennings presented Garon with the national title, he joked to the crowd: “They just joined Division I two years ago. They’ve been a real thorn in our side … but I tell you, they are an awesome team. Sean Covich and his guys are top notch.”

One parent from Brevard Community College of Florida told me, “that is the grittiest bunch I’ve seen.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And I couldn’t have been more proud of this year’s NJCAA National Runner-Up team from MCC: Brandt Garon, freshman from Baton Rouge; Clemens Dvorak, freshman from Vienna, Austria; Cory Williamson, sophomore from Collins, Miss.; Garrett Westbrook, sophomore from Baton Rouge; and Nick Hawkes, sophomore from London, England.



Fredie Carmichael is executive editor of The Meridian Star and played for MCC’s golf team from 1998-2000 and competed in the NJCAA Div. II National Championship in College Station, Texas in 2000. E-mail him at editor@themeridianstar.com.