This season’s men’s basketball team has players from all across the nation, from New Jersey to Arizona. Some of those players explained how they came to Bakersfield College and what it feels like to be on the team.
Sophomore Gary Felices said that he first heard about BC while in his freshmen year at Lincoln Trails College in Illinois.
“I wasn’t getting along with the coach there,” he said. “It was more on the court issues than off the court.”
After BC coach Rich Hughes saw him play, arrangements were made for Felices to attend and play at BC. During the beginning of the season, very little of Felices was seen on the court. Felices recalled why he was not able to play, even after having one year of college experience on the court. “The coaches expectation for me was too high, there was too much pressure on me to play,” he said. “I wasn’t practicing hard enough, and I wasn’t producing.”
Felices explained that he was later put on the court to play because he stopped being lazy in practice and reached the coaches expectations of him.
Felices explained his playing strategy. “I try to stay focused, just play, and do what the coach asks me to,” he said.
BC returnee Jimmy Scroggins, who is from Phoenix, Ariz., came to Bakersfield after graduating from high school. BC assistant basketball coach Aaron Chavez was a good friend of Scroggins’ high school coach who informed Chavez about Scroggins.
“There were other junior colleges that I could’ve went to, but I wanted to go away,” said Scroggins, who explained that there was a lot of turmoil going on that he needed to get away from.
While Scroggins chose to leave home, he admits to missing his family and his twin sister.
Though Scroggins has been away from home and family, he explained that being on the basketball team has become a family in itself.
“There are a lot of different personalities and people,” he said. “We have our differences because we’re from different places, but we’re like a family, and we all have each others backs.”
This close bond is formed from the players as well as the coaching staff. Scroggins explained that Hughes has been a father figure to him while in California. “Coach Hughes has been like a dad away from home, I have had conflict with him at times, but he tells me the truth no matter how I feel about it. He’s like a mentor.”
The truth may also be the reason Scroggins was seen sitting on the sidelines at times, out of uniform. On one occasion, “there was a misunderstanding between myself and the coaching staff, we had different viewpoints,” said Scroggins, who said that he tries to keep his confidence up but tends to steer away from this by putting too much confidence in himself.
Scroggins, a member of last year’s team that was ranked highly in the state during the regular season, explained the differences between his two years.
“The league is harder this year,” he said. “We’re smaller physically, and in height, so we have to make it our mission to play our hearts out.”
Scroggins said that because of the successful season the team had last year, many players both old and new, felt that they only had to show up to games to win. Felices also added “As a team, we thought we were better than we really were.”
Nevertheless, it may be because of the close bond that the BC basketball team has formed that Scroggins feels honored to play for BC.
He explained that he is a first generation high school graduate, and the only person in his family who is attending college.
“BC is like my UCLA,” he said. “Being in Bakersfield has been pretty cool, and being at BC is a big accomplishment.”
Both Felices and Scroggins plan on continuing their basketball career at a four-year university but remain undecided as to where they will attend.
BC’s last regular-season game is scheduled Feb. 23 at Citrus, a team they lost to in overtime 115-100 on Jan. 30. The Renegades went into Wednesday’s home game against Glendale with a 6-4 record in the Western State Conference.