November 22, 2017 at 4:24 p.m.
’Husker on the hush
East Jay hoops coach keeps quiet about career
’Husker on the hush
Standing a head or more taller than everyone else on the court — except maybe the guy he refers to as Big Country — Brian Carr shuffles back and forth near the top of the key, calling out instructions to his players.
As the ball shifts around the arc, every once in a while he’ll zip a no-look pass into the corner or the post. Those moments reveal a glimmer of the distribution skills that have him still cemented in the University of Nebraska record book three decades after he last wore a Cornhusker uniform.
The boys who play for Carr, the coach of East Jay Middle School’s seventh grade squad, know he went to Nebraska. That detail would be hard to miss. The red flag with a giant ’N’ on it — he jokes with his students that it stands for “knowledge” — is a dead giveaway, especially in Hoosier country.
But he’s not big on sharing the details of his career on the hardwood for the ’Huskers.
“I don’t talk a whole lot about individually what I did,” he said. “I talk about it more about it from a team aspect, but we just don’t talk much at all about it. Because it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t make any difference.”
Maybe those 123 games don’t mean much now as he teaches the Chiefs the finer points of zone defense. But they meant a lot to Nebraska in the mid-1980s.
Just take a look at the records section of Cornhuskers’ media guide and scroll down to the assists section. Carr isn’t just among the leaders, he owns virtually every school record related to passing:
•Career assists (682)
•Conference career assists (297)
•Average career assists (5.54)
•Conference average career assists (5.3)
•Assists in a game (18)
•Assists in a conference game (13)
•Assists in a half (10)
•Season assists (237)
•Conference season assists (113)
•Season average assists (7.9)
•Conference season average assists (8.1)
The only passing record he doesn’t own is for freshman assists. That one belongs to a guy named Tyronn Lue, who went on to win two NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and coach the Cleveland Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA championship.
••••••••••
Growing up in Muncie, Cornhusker basketball was hardly on Carr’s radar.
He was a student at Burris for kindergarten through 12th grade. During his high school years, he played baseball, basketball and tennis.
In basketball, he led Burris in scoring for each of his four years, averaging 23 points and six assists per game as a senior. He was an All-Mid-Eastern Conference and all-city — in the days when Muncie had four high schools — player every year as well.
When it came time for the recruiting process, Miami (Ohio) was chasing Carr. Several others were interested on and off. But it was a connection to Muncie — Central coach Bill Harrell — that created the path to Lincoln.
Fourteen years earlier, Harrell, who won three state championships leading the Bearcats, had spent a season as an assistant coach for the Cornhuskers. And when they were searching for a point guard from the 1983 recruiting class, Harrell passed on Carr’s name.
“They were looking for a point guard,” he said. “I happened to be available at that time. I was very, very, very lucky to have that opportunity.”
••••••••••
Carr chose Nebraska, expecting to head to Lincoln and sit for his first year or two, maybe get on the court as a junior and possibly start as a senior. That didn’t quite pan out.
He not only got on the court during his freshman year, he played every game. As a sophomore, he started every game, a feat he achieved again as a junior and senior. That’s 123 collegiate games played, 93 games started.
Carr led the Cornhuskers in assists three times. He was top on the team in steals, free-throw percentage and minutes played twice.
When thinking about his proudest accomplishments from Nebraska, he starts with getting his degree. But on the court, he was all about passing.
“That was so much fun. To help a guy score — I spend a lot of time in the classroom talking about being nice and kind … And really on the basketball floor, that was one of the things I was. I was nice and kind,” said Carr. “I helped people get shots. I helped people get open. And I hit people when they were supposed to catch it. …
“You can’t just make a good pass. The ball has to be delivered when they need it, when they have to have it, to get a shot, to make a shot. …
“The first part of the shot is a pass.”
If that’s the case, Carr contributed the first part to more successful shots than any other Cornhusker. His 682 career assists aren’t just the record, they’re more than 200 above anyone else in school history. (Cookie Belcher, who is a 2001 Nebraska graduate, is second on the list with 477.)
That encounter taught him not to underestimate any opponent.
Porter is one on a list of big names Carr played against while at Nebraska. It also includes future Indiana Pacers Reggie Miller and Wayman Tisdale, Kansas star and future No. 1 draft pick Danny Manning, Mitch Richmond and Jeff Hornacek.
Carr, a 1,000-point scorer who now ranks 19th on the Cornhuskers’ all-time points list, helped lead Nebraska to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1986. That same season included a 66-64 upset of the 10th-ranked team in the country.
“We beat Oklahoma that year — I accidentally hit a shot at the buzzer — that was fun,” said Carr.
And during his senior season, the Cornhuskers defeated Marquette, Arkansas and Washington to make the final four of the NIT. They lost 82-75 to Southern Mississippi in the semifinal, but bounced back to beat Arkansas – Little Rock in the third-place game at Madison Square Garden.
“Nebraska is dear to my heart,” said Carr. “It was something very special. It gave me the opportunity to be a professional teacher and to be in a profession that I’ve cherished for 29 years.”
••••••••••
Carr’s basketball playing career continued briefly in the professional ranks. He spent about two months playing for the Vancouver Nighthawks, who were part of a 6-foot-4-inch and under league created by former Boston Celtic Bob Cousy.
He quickly decided professional basketball wasn’t for him.
So, he returned to Indiana and got a job at Monroe Central, where he was the eighth grade boys basketball coach. A year later, he was running the varsity program.
He spent four years coaching at Monroe Central, and then in 1997 took over the program at his alma mater. He stayed there for 14 seasons, winning sectional titles in 2002 and ’03 as his teams put together a combined 42-7 record.
He took the 2011-12 season off before returning to coach the Burris girls for a year, and then served briefly as the athletics director for Burris before deciding to return to the classroom in Jay County.
This will be his fifth year teaching at East Jay and fourth coaching the seventh grade boys basketball team. With his record-breaking college career decades behind him, it’s a role he feels suits him at this point in his basketball journey
“I got my fill. I got my chance to be the leader of a program, to develop my program … I fulfilled that,” he said. “Now I’d like to work with some kids and develop them, see them start to understand the game of basketball at a young age and show them that even though you’re in seventh grade you can run the same stuff that they run on the high school level and understand why you’re running it.
“I’m really, really happy.”
As the ball shifts around the arc, every once in a while he’ll zip a no-look pass into the corner or the post. Those moments reveal a glimmer of the distribution skills that have him still cemented in the University of Nebraska record book three decades after he last wore a Cornhusker uniform.
The boys who play for Carr, the coach of East Jay Middle School’s seventh grade squad, know he went to Nebraska. That detail would be hard to miss. The red flag with a giant ’N’ on it — he jokes with his students that it stands for “knowledge” — is a dead giveaway, especially in Hoosier country.
But he’s not big on sharing the details of his career on the hardwood for the ’Huskers.
“I don’t talk a whole lot about individually what I did,” he said. “I talk about it more about it from a team aspect, but we just don’t talk much at all about it. Because it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t make any difference.”
Maybe those 123 games don’t mean much now as he teaches the Chiefs the finer points of zone defense. But they meant a lot to Nebraska in the mid-1980s.
Just take a look at the records section of Cornhuskers’ media guide and scroll down to the assists section. Carr isn’t just among the leaders, he owns virtually every school record related to passing:
•Career assists (682)
•Conference career assists (297)
•Average career assists (5.54)
•Conference average career assists (5.3)
•Assists in a game (18)
•Assists in a conference game (13)
•Assists in a half (10)
•Season assists (237)
•Conference season assists (113)
•Season average assists (7.9)
•Conference season average assists (8.1)
The only passing record he doesn’t own is for freshman assists. That one belongs to a guy named Tyronn Lue, who went on to win two NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and coach the Cleveland Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA championship.
••••••••••
Growing up in Muncie, Cornhusker basketball was hardly on Carr’s radar.
He was a student at Burris for kindergarten through 12th grade. During his high school years, he played baseball, basketball and tennis.
In basketball, he led Burris in scoring for each of his four years, averaging 23 points and six assists per game as a senior. He was an All-Mid-Eastern Conference and all-city — in the days when Muncie had four high schools — player every year as well.
When it came time for the recruiting process, Miami (Ohio) was chasing Carr. Several others were interested on and off. But it was a connection to Muncie — Central coach Bill Harrell — that created the path to Lincoln.
Fourteen years earlier, Harrell, who won three state championships leading the Bearcats, had spent a season as an assistant coach for the Cornhuskers. And when they were searching for a point guard from the 1983 recruiting class, Harrell passed on Carr’s name.
“They were looking for a point guard,” he said. “I happened to be available at that time. I was very, very, very lucky to have that opportunity.”
••••••••••
Carr chose Nebraska, expecting to head to Lincoln and sit for his first year or two, maybe get on the court as a junior and possibly start as a senior. That didn’t quite pan out.
He not only got on the court during his freshman year, he played every game. As a sophomore, he started every game, a feat he achieved again as a junior and senior. That’s 123 collegiate games played, 93 games started.
Carr led the Cornhuskers in assists three times. He was top on the team in steals, free-throw percentage and minutes played twice.
When thinking about his proudest accomplishments from Nebraska, he starts with getting his degree. But on the court, he was all about passing.
“That was so much fun. To help a guy score — I spend a lot of time in the classroom talking about being nice and kind … And really on the basketball floor, that was one of the things I was. I was nice and kind,” said Carr. “I helped people get shots. I helped people get open. And I hit people when they were supposed to catch it. …
“You can’t just make a good pass. The ball has to be delivered when they need it, when they have to have it, to get a shot, to make a shot. …
“The first part of the shot is a pass.”
If that’s the case, Carr contributed the first part to more successful shots than any other Cornhusker. His 682 career assists aren’t just the record, they’re more than 200 above anyone else in school history. (Cookie Belcher, who is a 2001 Nebraska graduate, is second on the list with 477.)
That encounter taught him not to underestimate any opponent.
Porter is one on a list of big names Carr played against while at Nebraska. It also includes future Indiana Pacers Reggie Miller and Wayman Tisdale, Kansas star and future No. 1 draft pick Danny Manning, Mitch Richmond and Jeff Hornacek.
Carr, a 1,000-point scorer who now ranks 19th on the Cornhuskers’ all-time points list, helped lead Nebraska to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1986. That same season included a 66-64 upset of the 10th-ranked team in the country.
“We beat Oklahoma that year — I accidentally hit a shot at the buzzer — that was fun,” said Carr.
And during his senior season, the Cornhuskers defeated Marquette, Arkansas and Washington to make the final four of the NIT. They lost 82-75 to Southern Mississippi in the semifinal, but bounced back to beat Arkansas – Little Rock in the third-place game at Madison Square Garden.
“Nebraska is dear to my heart,” said Carr. “It was something very special. It gave me the opportunity to be a professional teacher and to be in a profession that I’ve cherished for 29 years.”
••••••••••
Carr’s basketball playing career continued briefly in the professional ranks. He spent about two months playing for the Vancouver Nighthawks, who were part of a 6-foot-4-inch and under league created by former Boston Celtic Bob Cousy.
He quickly decided professional basketball wasn’t for him.
So, he returned to Indiana and got a job at Monroe Central, where he was the eighth grade boys basketball coach. A year later, he was running the varsity program.
He spent four years coaching at Monroe Central, and then in 1997 took over the program at his alma mater. He stayed there for 14 seasons, winning sectional titles in 2002 and ’03 as his teams put together a combined 42-7 record.
He took the 2011-12 season off before returning to coach the Burris girls for a year, and then served briefly as the athletics director for Burris before deciding to return to the classroom in Jay County.
This will be his fifth year teaching at East Jay and fourth coaching the seventh grade boys basketball team. With his record-breaking college career decades behind him, it’s a role he feels suits him at this point in his basketball journey
“I got my fill. I got my chance to be the leader of a program, to develop my program … I fulfilled that,” he said. “Now I’d like to work with some kids and develop them, see them start to understand the game of basketball at a young age and show them that even though you’re in seventh grade you can run the same stuff that they run on the high school level and understand why you’re running it.
“I’m really, really happy.”
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