Clarksville, TN – Every city is known for something and its fair to say Clarksville is know for many things. Tobacco, Wilma Rudolph, Fort Campbell, Harry Galbreath, the 1999 Tornado, Mason Rudolph and Austin Peay (the governor and the university), are just a few.
Clarksville’s nicknames have ranged from: The Queen City, Queen of the Cumberland, Gateway to the New South to the current Tennessee’s Top Spot.
And this year glut of basketball players going to play on the Division I level is quite impressive with Northeast’s Alex Poythress (Kentucky); Clarksville High’s Bashaara Graves (Tennessee), Chandler Cooper (Florida), Jessy Ward, (Mississippi State), Tiasha Gray (Austin Peay), and Tia Nicholson (Tennessee Tech); Kenwood’s Blake Jenkines (Hampton University) and Rossview’s Kyle Weldon (Army).
Plus throw in Clarksville High’s Daijon Williams, who was an McDonald’s All-American candidate along with Weldon, Poythress and Graves. And Poythress and Graves are playing in said game on in Chicago on March 28th.
They along with the Lipscomb group of Malcolm and Martin Smith (Clarksville Academy), Zavion Williams(West Creek), Damarius Smith (Kenwood), Tennessee State’s Jasmin Shuler (Kenwood) and Rachel Allen (Northeast) and Austin Peay’s April Thomas (Northeast), Tyrone Caldwell (Clarksville High) and Brandon Burney (Montgomery Central).
And I know I’ve forgotten some, but please don’t hold it against me, just let me know and I’ll add them to the list.
Just how dominant?
The City of Clarksville has had a boys high school basketball team represent it every year in the TSSAA Class AAA State Tournament since 2007 beginning with Clarksville High in 2007 and 2008, Northeast in 2009 and 2010 and West Creek and Clarksville High last season.
There’s good chance Northeast will be back this year with Poythress and don’t count out Ted Young and the Wildcats cause Williams, Drake Young and Anthony Hightower make for a scrappy bunch.
On the girls side, Clarksville’s been represented in two of the last four state championship tournaments with Northeast in 2007 and Clarksville High going last year, and very likely again this.
So just add ‘Hoops City’ to Clarksville’s name plate and just know that I’ve got next.
