London, making music in Nashville, getting married and having kids of their own. Sometimes the hang around time lasts as long as the games.
But that is what I have come to appreciate most about basketball in general, and at SDS, in particular. It’s a family. And like family it never ends. Students graduate, they move on, they do remarkable things, they live in exotic and exciting places, but somehow they all find their way back. Whether it’s summertime or the holidays, or both, so many Griffins wind their way home to a gym on Skylyn Drive to play basketball with the team that just keeps getting bigger.

Meet Coach Sartor

It starts with open gym

Open gyms always begin with a team of current student-athletes playing the first two games, win or lose. After that, the winners stay on. The opposition is always a group of alumni and former Spartanburg Bucks (Sartor’s successful AAU club) and other players from the community, many of them current or former college and professional athletes. The series of games often lasts three or four hours, with refrains of “one more, one more” coming from the bleachers from the next five that want a little more run.

Even better than the competition, which is fierce, is the “hang-around” time afterwards, when alumni and coaches re-live their highs and lows as Griffins, and share the experiences they have had since leaving SDS: living in China, graduate school, playing ball in college, serving in the military in the Middle East, being in one another’s weddings, settling down in Honduras, working in Dallas, New York, 

​Posted on March 4, 2016

By Alex Richardson
Varsity boys basketball assistant coach

On Saturday, Feb. 27, the varsity boys’ basketball team achieved a significant milestone in the school’s rich and varied athletic history. The 12 players and four coaches for the 2015-16 version of Griffins basketball cut down the nets at the Sumter Civic Center after defeating Bethesda Academy by the score of 80-57 to win the school’s first state championship in basketball. It was, by any measure, a remarkable season, which included a 25-2 overall record and an 8-0 regular season region record. Perhaps making the accomplishment more surprising (to some) and impressive (to most) is that fact that this year’s starting five consisted of three freshmen and two sophomores. It goes without saying that this could be the start of something grand.

At this point I suppose it would be appropriate to detail the many highlights of the season, and the many individual goals and milestones that were reached. Such are the perks of a championship run. Three seniors (Zach Greene, Donovan Davis and Cupid Du) provided maturity and an exemplary work ethic from Nov. 1 to Feb. 27. The lone junior, Co-captain Rollins Turner, gave the team a spark of energy off the bench and typically helped pick up the defensive intensity. Three underclassmen (freshmen Rett Foust, William Owens and eighth grader Clay Killoren) worked double duty in leading the JV team to a 7-6 record, and added depth while offering a glimpse of the good roundball fortunes that lie ahead.

And then, the starters: Zion Williamson and Magic Moody (who both eclipsed the 1,000 point mark in their young careers) routinely performed spectacular feats on the basketball court, in games, in practice, in recess and now, all over YouTube. Co-captain Kyle Tracy provided steady leadership and poise along with tremendous effort and intensity, helping to keep this young bunch grounded and focused on the ultimate goal. And finally, a pair of freshmen in the backcourt, Ta’Lon Cooper and Bishop Richardson, who have played together since the fifth grade and have won two SCISA region titles for the Middle School team, provided crafty, unselfish play night in and night out.

Coach Lee Sartor deserves tremendous credit for blending successfully these wide ranging talents and ages to come together as the best basketball team in the state. But more than that achievement, Sartor should be lauded even more for the basketball program he has built at SDS, 12 years in the making.

Coach Sartor has not just created a culture for SDS basketball, but a family. I guess that is why, when I took my turn at the ladder, cutting down my section of the championship net, pausing to look at the excited and relieved faces of this year’s team and its fans, I thought about the first team I coached with Lee at SDS: Diesel, LA, Mike Z, MAX, Stew, Hatch, Jay, Lakeside, Lacoste, Austen, Henry and James, Russell and Rob. And then the rest of the names crossed my mind in a frenzy: the Reels, McBrides, Ikes, Overtons, Big Country, Travis, Hudgins, Melton, Wilton, Bucky, Coach Sims, Coach Wilson and so many more. It was all I could do to step off the ladder and let the celebration continue, let Coach Sartor finish the job of cutting down that elusive net.

It all started for me over 10 years ago, when I called Coach to ask if he’d like any help with the team. Really, I just wanted to play some basketball, but if that meant running some drills and coaching a little, I was more than game. Sartor had just completed his first season with the Griffins, and I had recently moved to Spartanburg. He asked me to come out to an open gym in the off-season. In those days open gyms were held in the Seth Milliken gym, “the old gym,” and in mid-summer it would be over 100 degrees and we’d play for hours. By we, I mean upwards of 30 “kids” ranging in age from teens to 40-somethings. It was there I first saw the Griffins not only learn how to compete, but also how to win. Because in that environment, if you lost, you might not get back on the court for an hour or two. So the Griffins learned to play together and to play for each other, two qualities that have been benchmarks of the program’s success, then as now.