'It has been God's plan'

On Mother's Day, Lynn Brantley received 70 cards and 50 phone calls.

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Annette M. Drowlette/Staff

Lynn Brantley teaches her 10th-grade world history class at T.W. Josey High School. Mrs. Brantley also holds the title as Georgia's winningest girls basketball coach.

That's what makes walking away from Josey High School so hard for Georgia's winningest girls basketball coach: all the children she's leaving behind.

After 38 years she is retiring today with a 754-249 record and more accolades than you could pack into a U-Haul.

She acknowledges those, but she wants to talk about the children. Her children.

That doesn't surprise one of her former students, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, now a forward-center for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

"(She is) a great lady, with a great heart," Taj said. "I wouldn't be here without her. She took me and taught me a game that has allowed me to travel the world and take care of my family. I'm living the life I never would have dreamed of because of basketball and coach Brantley.

"Future generations will miss a great coach, a great friend and a great leader."

Mrs. Brantley remembers a much different Taj from the confident young woman of today.

"I was walking down this same hall," she said, "and I was looking up, and I said 'Where did you come from?'"

The tall young girl in front of her had just moved to Augusta from Hawaii with her mother, who was in the military. When she asked Taj whether she had ever played basketball, the young woman said no.

"I said, 'You will learn in two weeks.'"

Taj did learn to play - and play well.

"You talk about being proud," Mrs. Brantley said.

She also is proud of the thousands of students she has taught in social studies and history and coached in sports at Josey. Many have become part of her large extended family.

Mrs. Brantley and her husband, David, have two daughters, three grandchildren and one great-grandson.

"But on Mother's Day, I got 50 phone calls and more than 70 Mother's Day cards from kids I have taught and coached," she said.

Maybe that's because her teaching philosophy has always included a liberal dose of love, and she credits her time at Josey for giving her a greater capacity to love.

She says it was God's plan.

AFTER she completed her teaching degree, Lynn Brantley started working at the newly built Hephzibah High School. She was there for two years.

"I loved it," she said. "We built a new house in Hephzibah. So two years later, the Board of Education and God had another plan for me. That's when the schools integrated. I had less seniority than any other coach at Hephzibah, so I got sent to Josey a week before school started."

The board told the teachers who transferred they could stay a couple of years and then probably transfer back.

"I have never tried to go anywhere else," Mrs. Brantley said. "This was not my plan to begin with. This plan, it has been God's plan, and it became my plan to stay and remain.

"I found out along the way it doesn't matter what color you are. You could be black, white, pink or polka dot - all children respond to someone who loves them and someone who will be fair and consistent with them. I would put my children that I have coached and taught up against anybody's children.

"I tell them that I have a motto that everyone can learn. It might be at a different pace and it might be in a different way, but everyone is capable of learning.

"You aim for the moon, and if you fail you still land among the stars."

ONE STUDENT SHE wanted to succeed has done so. DeShawne Blocker is at East Tennessee State University as an assistant women's basketball coach and a member of the ETSU Sports Hall of Fame.

But back in 1987, she was a teenager trying to juggle basketball with her responsibilities for her two younger brothers, whom she had to baby-sit while her mother worked.

Mrs. Brantley was determined that DeShawne was going to play basketball and would let her leave practice to go get her brothers and bring them to the gym. She also allowed them to travel to games with the team, and DeShawne would watch them while she played.

"(Mrs. Brantley) was a great grandma for us. She is a wonderful person who would give the shirt off her back if she needed too," DeShawne said.

Mrs. Brantley laughs about that.

"My husband said we'll be much better off money-wise with me not teaching, because if my kids didn't have it, I made sure they did."

Just as she's celebrated her students' achievements, she has had to mourn, too.

In March, Mrs. Brantley had to speak at the funeral of one of her former players.

Kenya Thompkins died of a heart attack at age 25. She was a 2000 graduate of Josey and a member of the 1998 state championship team.

Kenya had been especially dear to Mrs. Brantley's heart.

"I took her home every day for four years. Some days we'd talk all the way, some days we'd argue all the way," she said.

When Kenya died, Mrs. Brantley was distraught. But she had to come up with something to say at the funeral.

"Why isn't it me in the casket; the only way I could justify it was the Lord was starting a basketball team up in heaven.

"And so I told him, 'I was a good point guard back in my day,' and he said, 'That's the key term, back in your day.'

"I said, 'Well, I'm a pretty good coach,' and he said, 'Well, I've got better.'

"He said, 'I need a post player, and Kenya Thompkins is the best post player I've ever seen."

SO WHY IS SHE LEAVING the profession she loves so much?

"I tell people I would probably be here until the day I died. But you know, we have plans and then God has plans for us," Mrs. Brantley said. "I have a great mother-in-law, and she's sick. She hasn't been doing well; and so my husband is the only one that can take care of her; and he needs some help.

"He has stood by me for 38 years and let me have my dream, and so I need to help him now.

"The administration has been very supportive, and I've had offers to go other places. If I could stay in teaching and coaching, it would be right here with the Lady Eagles.

"It just goes to show you that we have plans, and God has other plans.

"Thank goodness, I let God have his way and send me to Josey."

Reach Amy Allyn Swann at (706) 823-3338 or amy.swann@augustachronicle.com.