DCCC: From Pete’s Potbellies To Ron’s Racehorses

Just a few year’s ago, basketball at Davidson County Community College consisted of Pete’s Potbellies against Sam’s Slewfoots, or whatever else those Wednesday night intramural games could be labeled.

Today, basketball at DCCC consists of rebound, run, shoot, all faster than you can say “DCCC.” Plus one other important element – winning.

For today, three years after basketball qualified as a non-sport at the community college, basketball is a winning proposition.

The Davidson County Community College Cavaliers have won 13 of 16 games. They stand in a tie for first place in the Western Tarheel Conference. That’s the only place the run-and-gun Cavaliers have been all year.

DCCC doesn’t just run up and down the court, they seem to travel by SST. Twice the Cavaliers have scored 130 or more points; five times they have broken 100. Never have they scored less than 80 points. They’ve caused more burned-out scoreboard lights than ice storms.

So who created all of this basketball madness on 1-85?

The answer is Ron Frederes, who arrived on campus from Jamestown, N.Y, in the fall of 1976. At Jamestown he was the coach at Southwestern High School, winning a couple of championships in seven years of work.

A graduate of Brockport (N.Y.) State, Frederes’ only association with the state of North Carolina was a stint of graduate work at the University of North Carolina. After that he fled back to New York.

How did he get the DCCC job? He answered an ad in a placement bulletin, reportedly not the same way Dean Smith ended up at UNC.

“I wanted to get into college coaching,” Frederes explained. “I knew what kind of college basketball they played in North Carolina, so I came.”

What he found was a patchwork basketball team, a squad resurrected the year before after DCCC had dumped intercollegiate basketball altogether several years before.

“When I got here, the team the year before had given up 97 points a game,” Frederes recalled. “No team of mine was ever going to give up 97 points a game.”

Frederes immediately produced a winner. “It was a team of walk-ons, but it was 10 basketball players that played about as hard as they could and did about as well as they could. Two guys – Terry Leonard and Tim Sapp – really carried us. That team gave more than 100 percent every night out.”

But it was obvious the Cavaliers could use a little more talent, so Frederes started recruiting.

Recruiting at the community college level isn’t exactly the high-powered art of Lefty Driesell and Norm Sloan. It consists largely of correspondence – The U. S. Mail in other words.

New York City is the world’s most fertile recruiting ground, so naturally Frederes wrote to some prospects there. And they weren’t form letters, either. They were hand-written personal letters and they managed to leave an impression.

As a result, two Brooklyn natives – Darnell Francis and Danny Griffin – headed for DCCC. They were from the same school – Franklin Delano Roosevelt High.

“Darnell has some scholastic offers from a lot of different schools and he chose here,” Frederes said. “He and Danny believed in me. It wasn’t a shot in the dark for me to take a kid, sight unseen, from Brooklyn. It was a shot in the dark for them to come down here.”

Francis – 6-4 forward who is the team’s leading scorer – and point guard Griffin have greatly aided returnees Leonard and Sapp. The four together have turned DCCC into a strong junior college basketball club.

Monday night the Cavaliers knocked off the league’s other first-place club, Surry Community College. Tonight they play Caldwell CC, at 7:30, in the DCCC gym. It might be worth your time.

Thus far, the Cavaliers have gone largely unnoticed, both by the local media and college scouts. That, however, is changing.

“Our kids have been wondering about the lack of crowd support,” Frederes said. “Interest on campus (prior to the Surry game) is practically nil. The kids are winning – what more do they have to do?”

The interest from scouts is picking up.

“We’re coming out of nowhere, but now some four-year schools are starting to notice. I’m getting phone calls and letters from them. It’s a matter of us winning. People are wondering why – their curiosity has picked up.”

If you decide to pay some attention to DCCC, take along your “quick” pair of eyes. You made need them.