‘This bunch is not about themselves.’ How ‘a joke’ became a contender in three years.

Sports at Berea Community High School have been the butt of jokes for most of Adrienne Beggs’ life.

So, while Berea trailed greatly deep in the second half to West Carter — in a game it would ultimately lose, 70-40, in the All “A” Classic quarterfinals — it meant a great deal to Beggs to hear fellow students and fans, many clad in paper hats from Long John Silver’s, cheering as if the Pirates were ahead by 30.

“I really appreciate it as far as outside and inside school, because Berea kind of became a joke inside school, too,” Beggs said. “‘Oh, we have a game, but ha ha why go to it?’ or something. I love seeing the difference, even in this game, we were down by 15 at one point and everybody was still supporting us. I think we’ve really changed the culture at Berea, and seeing that is really amazing.”

Berea’s girls fell to 19-5 on the season with a minimum of seven games left on their schedule — six in the regular season and a first-round opener in the 44th District, which seeds its tournament via random draw. The word “favorite” has been used to describe the Pirates’ chances of winning the district — something it hasn’t done since 2003, the tail end of an era in which Berea was an 11th Region juggernaut. That was also the last year Berea qualified for the All “A” Classic before Beggs’ group ended the drought.

The last decade and a half as a whole was up and down, record-wise, but the program all but cratered after Jerry Bingham, now the school’s athletic director, resigned from the head coaching spot following the 2012-13 season. The next three seasons saw as many new head coaches, and the win totals dropped with each.

Dammian Stepp took over the program before the 2016-17 season and has dramatically reversed the Pirates’ course. They’ve matched their win total from the previous two seasons and their next win will give them their first 20-win season since the team won 23 games in the 1999-2000 campaign.

Perhaps most impressively, the shift has occurred not at the behest of motivated seniors, but talented youngsters who’ve bought in to changing a culture. Beggs is the only senior on Berea’s roster, which features more freshmen (seven) than it does juniors (one) and sophomores (four). The Pirates start Beggs, a sophomore and three freshmen. Their first two players off the bench are an eighth-grader and a freshman.

“I think moving forward the future’s very bright with this group,” Stepp said. “I’ve said from the beginning, as we’ve started this process, our goal is to win the All ‘A’ state tournament. We’re not here to be the team that’s just here to make a showing each year. If you’re gonna do this thing, you want to do it with the purpose of being the best you possibly can.”

Stepp credited the family atmosphere at Berea for the program’s ascension, and its ability to keep together players who could have fled to bigger programs within Madison County without many eyes being batted.

“If one hurts, the others hurt. If one fails, the others fail,” Stepp said. “This bunch is not about themselves. This bunch is about Berea basketball and about what we started three years ago and an approach to being able to do something that nobody ever thought we could do.”

Beggs has taken to summing it up like this: her Pirates have gone from “It’s just Berea” to “It’s Berea.” There’s a lot of power in that ‘just’ and its absence, Stepp said.

“We’re making an impact on our school and our district and eventually our region and maybe in the state,” Beggs said. “That’s all we can really hope for.”

Correction: This story previously stated that the Berea girls’ basketball team had not won a district tournament since 2000.

This story was originally published January 25, 2019 at 6:14 PM.