Story by Rusty Ellis
Tuesday begins a new season for the York Institute Dragons, and with that begins a new head coaching gig for Rodney Pile.
It’s nothing new for Pile, as he was the head coach at Clarkrange just down the road for several years. That doesn’t change the excitement level for the Dragons’ coach after spending a year as an assistant.
“I enjoyed last year as Coach (Roy) Whited’s assistant, he did a great job,” Pile said. “I learned a lot and I’m excited to be back…I don’t know if it’s just different, but it feels like the season is just rushing upon us. It seems like practices are going fairly quick, and we’d love to have a few more days of practice before that first game, but I’m sure every coach is in that situation.”
The Dragons finished just a game short of making it to Murfreesboro last year, falling 56-55 to Howard in a home substate game. The team returns three starters in Nic Smith, Jon Heddings and Myles Leffew, while also having to replace a couple key contributors.
“We lost Riley Cooper, a senior from last year who did a great job,” Pile said. “I think he’s going to do great things at Walters State and then move on to a bigger school…we also lost Bryson Bilbrey, who was a freshman last year, and he started for us. He decided to go to Stone Memorial, so that hurt us physically.”
Smith and Heddings will be relied upon as the two senior leaders on the team, and both bring a wealth of experience that Pile hopes carries over to the younger guys.
“We’ve got two great seniors coming back,” Pile said. “They were team leaders this summer during our summer camps. They’ve done nothing, but a wonderful job so far. We’ve got some really good senior leaders.”
Their leadership becomes even more important when you factor in that several players will be taking on much larger roles than they previously occupied.
“You can’t put a price on it,” Pile said. “They’ve been through the battles and the wars, and they’ve got the most experience on the team. Hopefully, other guys on the team look up to them. They’ve got to understand that how they carry themselves and how they act, that’s how others will act.”
Leffew and junior Blain York are among other players that Pile expects to see big things from.
“We’ve got Blain York, who’s a junior shooting guard that saw time off the bench for us last year,” Pile said. “We’re expecting big things from him. Myles Leffew is a sophomore who is going to be our starting point guard…we’ve got Jackson Conatser who came off the bench a lot last season. He’s a shooter. Zach Byrd is going to start at center for us as well. I’m really excited for this six players.”
The biggest change besides Pile being the coach is the massive change in district. York was playing in the gauntlet known as district 8AA last year, but unlike most of the teams from that league, the Dragons stayed in 2A due to enrollment numbers.
Their new district features Monterey, Jackson County, Bledsoe County and Sequatchie County. While it features a bunch of new faces, the objective hasn’t changed for Pile.
“I’ve always told my teams that the main thing we’re trying to do is win the district,” Pile said. “It all starts with your district. We’ve got to make sure we’re ready to play every night. We feel like we’re the best team in the district, and every team should feel like that, but we feel like we’re the best in the district.”