The gloves have come off.
If fact, no one even knows where they’ve gone. If you believe Emporia High boys basketball coach Rick Bloomquist, they were thrown out a long time ago.
No, Emporia High junior Troy Pierce didn’t shed any boxing gloves looking for a fight. That wouldn’t go over so well on a basketball court.
Instead, the metaphorical “kid gloves,” as Bloomquist calls them, were tossed away last year, leaving the 6-foot-5 Pierce to grow into a physical force down low for the Spartans.
And so far, he’s doing a pretty good job without those gloves. Through Emporia’s first five games, Pierce is averaging 9.8 points and 8.6 rebounds per contest, numbers that have nearly doubled from a season ago.
“It’s been a great story with him,” Bloomquist said. “You have to gamble and you have to throw the dice and hope it works, and with Troy, obviously, he bought into the program and bought into the system and it is showing.”
Pierce began playing basketball when he entered the fifth grade, and immediately, Bloomquist took notice. It was kind of hard not to.
“When I first saw Troy run the floor when he was in fifth grade, the first thing I noticed was that he was just huge, and his arms were bigger than most kids’ bodies. I said to myself, ‘He’s got potential,’” Bloomquist said with a grin. “But Troy was absolutely horrible as a fifth-grader. He was a jovial little kid, but he was horrible.”
The fact that Pierce “couldn’t run the floor, couldn’t get his knees up by his waist” as a fifth grader didn’t discourage Bloomquist from believing that Pierce could one day be a pretty good basketball player. Because Pierce, you see, had passion.
“My motivation comes from the love of basketball — loving to play the sport,” Pierce said. “I’ve had that motivation probably since I started playing in the fifth grade.”
As Pierce came up through the grade levels, the more he grew as a basketball player. Trips to AAU tournaments with fellow teammate Caydrick Bloomquist, where he even occasionally got to play, were at times humbling learning experiences, Rick Bloomquist said, but learning experiences nonetheless that have carried over into high school.
“Through the program and the system, he just kept working,” Bloomquist said. “When he got to be a freshman, we put him on our travel squad. We picked and chose where we played him, so as not to get him discouraged. We handled him with kid gloves.”
However, through the middle of Pierce sophomore season, it was evident that Pierce was ready for more. And that’s when the kid gloves were trashed. That meant less coddling and more pushing.
“Once he got hooked, we started to really push him,” Bloomquist said. “But he handled it well.”
Bloomquist gives much of the credit for Pierce’s development to Tresa Pierce, Troy’s mother. Understanding what it would take for her son to mature as a basketball player, Tresa turned over her son’s basketball development to Bloomquist and the EHS coaches.
“She (Tresa) said, ‘I trust you to take care of him. Whatever he needs to get done, I believe in you,’” Bloomquist said. “She has done a good job of raising him, and the thing I admire and respect about her is that she trusted our system and program. She’s the ideal parent. She said, ‘Take him, coach him and mold him. I trust you.’”
Troy credits his mother for instilling in him a love and a passion for the game of basketball, which has helped spur his growth in the sport.
“She’s helped me with everything,” he said. “She has helped give me that motivation to play basketball.”
“She loves the game too, even though she doesn’t always know what’s going on,” Troy added with a smile.
It’s not hard to see the kind if effect Troy has had on the Spartan basketball team this season. In Emporia’s three victories, he has averaged 13.7 points and 10.6 boards. In the two losses, those numbers dip to 4 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
Pierce is quick to point out that it is not his numbers that ultimately determine the success of the team. It is, Pierce said, the team itself playing as a team that will lead to greater things for the Spartans.
“We have to come together as a team and focus more on what we need to do as a team, not as individuals,” he said. “We’re getting closer to the mentality of how we can work together more as a team. I think we’re close, and I think we’ll be all right.”
But Pierce’s teammates have enjoyed the added production that he has displayed this season, including his low-post mate, senior forward Dillon Cox.
“I enjoy playing with Troy a lot,” Cox said. “He’s always in a great mood, and I think we just work really well together.”
Pierce and Cox have a friendly wager between them this season: Whoever ends the season with more rebounds gets $5 and bragging rights. While the two joke about it during practices, come game time, it’s no joke, Cox said.
“When it’s game time, we’re serious,” he said. “I really do want to get more rebounds than Troy. If the whole team sees us competing for that, maybe it will make everyone compete a little more.”
Pierce admits that there is still a lot for him to work on. “I think I could be playing a lot better,” he says, and the fact that his production has dropped so much in Emporia’s two losses brings an ever-so-slight grimace to his otherwise smiling face, making it clear that he will work that much harder.
But, Bloomquist said, if one stopped and looked at the big picture and saw just how far Pierce had come from his days as a gangly fifth grader, the transformation would be quite a sight to see.
“He’s still got a long ways to go,” Bloomquist said, “but to see where he’s come from, he’s just been incredible.”