Livingston basketball’s Sean Berry waited a long time to become a head coach. The opportunity presented itself this year after Frederick Camp, last year's Lion leader, retired.
Berry was an assistant on Camp’s staff for his two years, and now takes over a team that was bounced from the bi-district round of the playoffs last season.
The team lost multiple productive seniors, but has reloaded with a long, athletic bunch that improved their district record to 2-1 Tuesday versus perennial hoops power Hardin-Jefferson.
“That's the biggest turnaround I've seen so far from last year to this year,” Berry said Tuesday after a come-from-behind win. “We just don't quit. We absolutely fight to the finish. It is really one of the things that I wanted them to do this year better than they did last year.
“Last year, when a few things went wrong, they shut down and quit. This year, I have really hammered down on them and Coach (Jeremy) Barnes and Coach (Kerry) Bryan have been awesome about it. We just keep plugging and keep chipping away. Eventually, it is going to go our way.”
Providing effort until the final whistle has been an issue in certain areas of the Livingston athletic program, and it is something Berry said he saw over a few different sports. He coached football last year along with his basketball responsibilities and said many of the same characteristics carried over onto the gridiron.
“It happened on the football field and it happened on the basketball courts, so I knew if I got the head job, I knew that was one of the things I was going to change immediately,” Berry said. “We are going to be great sportsmen, represent this community and school district extremely well, and we are going to not quit. That is why I came up with the slogan ‘sine pari’ – (Latin phrase that translates to) without equal. Did I steal that from the U.S. Army special operations? Of course I did. I was Army for six years. But I knew that without equal means that you don't quit. You fight, and you keep going. Failure is not an option. Losing? I can learn from losing, but what I can't learn from is quitting.”
The love of the sport and failure to quit came at an early age for the coach. As a youth, his father handed him a basketball, dabbling with it a bit until the fourth grade. At that point, he joined a team and made his first basket.
“It was done from there; I was all in. I tell my kids all the time if they want to be great at this game, to follow my example. I went to school from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Then from 2:30 until about 8 p.m. at night, I was playing basketball. I was playing or watching or studying. I (told the team), ‘You watch a lot of basketball, but you don't learn. You've got to watch and learn, and that's the key to what makes a basketball player great – he is going to watch, he is going to learn, and he is going to do.’”
Attempting to walk on at a few colleges in Arkansas, Berry blew out a knee a week before tryouts.
“I started watching and got the bug again. I said, if I can't play, I'm going to coach or officiate or something like that. I officiated and learned the rulebook more so than I did as a player. I started coaching a little bit, and when I was in the Army, I was in and around Killeen. I was watching Killeen Ellison, Killeen High, Harker Heights, Copperas Cove, Belton and Temple. Those were fantastic games back then. I (was deployed) to Germany and got to experience basketball on another continent. That was amazing just to watch those games. You want to talk about some shooters, it's the Europeans.
“When I was in Iraq, we had a half court set up in one of the hangers with the aviation unit I was with, and we would play basketball in there. I was unit level logistics. I was responsible for all the equipment, all the supplies, and everything we needed to deploy, come home, train or fight. I was responsible for getting, maintaining, and keeping a record. I was busy 24/7, basically. We deployed with $34 million worth of equipment, and we didn't miss a single thing – not a single nut, not a single round, not anything. It was a tough job.”
Upon arrival back in the States, Berry took a job teaching.
“Ondra Waddy that was at Brazosport and at Mesquite Horn now, said, ‘Come coach basketball with me.’ Three years later, we are sitting in the Alamodome at the state championship game. To stand on the floor where my heroes have played like Sean Elliott, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, (Michael) Jordan, (Hakeem) Olajuwon, (Clyde) Drexler, (Larry) Bird and Magic (Johnson) – I was a kid in a candy store.”
After a stop in Huntsville, Berry was hired in Livingston. The coach he received the call from was another assistant from the staff of that Brazosport state final team. Former Livingston head coach Calvin Phillips hired him in June of 2022, but passed away that August.
“That hurt. Calvin and I were close. I called him ‘boss man.’ He is a fantastic guy and loved him to death. When he passed away, it was hard. Losing Calvin was a big loss to the basketball community, because he was such a wonderful guy.
“The thing that struck me the most was when I walked in the gym and first met him, he was in the gym with the Brazosport varsity team. He was yelling at them. He said, ‘I don't care what happens on this basketball court. I don't care if you become great players or not. What I do care about is that you will become great men.’ I knew right then and there, this is my dude. I have taken the stuff that I have learned from him and tried to instill it in these guys. I want them to become great men. We'll get wins, we'll get championships, and we'll get all the hardware and trophies and everything. But none of it matters if they don't go on to be great men.”
To instill the “sine pari” mindset into his team, Berry said it was more leading by example than anything he or the coaching staff said.
“They don't see us quit. I am going to drive you to that finish line kicking and screaming if I have to. I'm not going to quit, and neither are you, and I won't let you. It is setting an expectation and saying that you will meet it or you won't play.”
Difficult games to this point in the season including West Orange-Stark and Huffman Hargrave have provided examples of the staff's message paying off. Livingston has lost games this year and been blown out, as was the case versus Hargrave by 53 points. What has not happened, however, was the Lions slowing their effort.
“My guys didn't quit. They fought and that is what I wanted. It is about instilling in them that drive to want to win. It is also telling them something that they probably haven't heard in a long time. ‘There is good here.’”
Berry said Phillips’ positive attitude about Livingston is part of the reason he landed in Polk County.
“When he got this job, I lived in Huntsville. He called me and he said, ‘You know, I got this Livingston job.’ He said, ‘Berry, there's good here, but I'm going to need some help to bring it back.’ Unfortunately, he passed away before we could work together again, but I see what he saw.
“I told (the team), ‘Guys, you are good.’ They don't have to be the whipping dog of the district or this region. They can compete at a high level, and they can win. I think this year we have kind of proved that we can. We're getting guys that don't have a lot of experience who are starting to get it. Some of those veterans like J.T. (Garner) and Ziekus (Garner) and Sam (Pedigo) are really pulling them along, saying, ‘Guys, listen to me. I have been here, and I know what to do. Follow me and let's go.’ That is what has really been huge for us.”
Livingston has a deep bench, with 10 players regularly seeing time on the court. Depth is a luxury at a Class 4A high school, even if much of that bench is inexperienced at the varsity level. The coach said that their lack of varsity minutes is balanced by effort.
“You have to bring them in, and you have to say, ‘Look, I know I am asking you to come in cold off the bench and do what you have to do, but I will make it worth your while. Just give me those minutes. We are going to get people in. When you go out there, just give it all you've got for however long it is, whether it is 10 seconds or 10 minutes. It will happen.’ I think it is just kind of willing it into them and getting them to believe and have that confidence to say, ‘I am going to do whatever it takes.’”
Many were asked to do what they could Tuesday, showing the fight of which Berry speaks. Down to the Hawks until the last ticks of the third quarter, Livingston's effort and hustle were on display. They needed multiple turnovers on defense to close a double-digit deficit.
They even faced one final challenge with under a minute to go. Chances looked bleak in a tie game, as Hardin-Jefferson stalled with the basketball to run down the clock and take the final shot. Yet, T.J. Garner swiped the dribble of a Hawk point guard and deposited the final two points of the game, providing the difference in the win.
The months of effort and push by the coaching staff gave Berry confidence in those closing moments.
“I knew our guys would fight until the end.”