The Biology Teacher

Inside the science of Alcoa’s championship season

By Stefan Cooper
Editor
Blount Press Row

He’d just completed a state championship run with the school’s football team. A promising senior season with the track team lay just over the horizon.

Maybe it was time to walk away.

Jaylen Penson gave it a lot of thought. Late one morning at school, he received a text from Alcoa basketball coach Ryan Collins, asking, “Can we talk?”

The things discussed in that meeting, more importantly, the end result, goes to the heart of the 2025-26 Tornadoes, Collins said during a luncheon with the Alcoa Kiwanis Club last week at the Airport Hilton.

Accompanying Collins were Alcoa seniors Jacolby Cooper, Jack Tarwater, Kamden Lanxter and Penson, with a fifth, Jibriel Koko, unable to attend.

Each gave their thoughts on this year’s championship run. Alcoa claimed its third state championship in four seasons with a 57-48 win over Fulton in the Class 3A title game at Middle Tennessee State University. It marked the fourth consecutive season the Tornadoes had reached the championship game.

At midseason, Penson felt his days with the Tornado basketball team were done. Minutes were tough to come by. He didn’t feel he was contributing.

“He (Collins) saw it in my practices,” Penson said. “I was sluggish, like I really didn’t care. At that point I was ready to hang up the shoes.”

During the meeting with Collins, Penson said, his coach asked him to give it some more thought.

“When I walked out of the room, I said, ‘I can’t do it,'” he said. “He said he appreciated me talking to him about it man to man, face to face.”

Something Collins said during the meeting stuck, though. It kept coming back the rest of the school day: “It’s not with each other but for each other.”

As the school day wore on, Penson had a change of heart.

“To drop everything, treat myself over them and actually quit on my brothers, I really couldn’t,” he said. “So when 3:30, 3:45 hit, I was in there with my shoes on, warming up, ready to practice.”

Collins never divulged the meeting with Penson to the rest of the team. Only a couple teammates knew Penson’s thoughts beforehand. The season went forward. It was anything but smooth sailing.

“The best stories to tell are not the ones that are easy,” Collins said. “Our journey this season was not an easy one.

“At the end of the day, championships are fleeting. What can last forever is the relationships.”

None more so than the one Tarwater shared with his teammates. If any of the Tornadoes had a reason to call it a day at midseason, he was that guy.

Over the course of his sophomore and junior seasons, the Alcoa sharpshooter had torn the labrum in his shoulder twice. Finally healthy, he was motivated to go out on a high note his senior year. During practice for a holiday tournament in December, he broke a bone in his hand. His playing days as a Tornado had come to an end.

“It was truly disappointing,” Tarwater said.

Hang up his jersey and watch the rest of the season from the stands?

Not a chance.

“I got to see the team from a different perspective,” he said. “Once we started playing for each other …

“I feel extreme gratefulness for my teammates who did play for me. After the last four losses, I feel like we did start to play for each other.”

If anyone had reason to “give in, give up” and go their separate way, it was Tarwater, Collins said.

“Some of the words are my words, but these are the kids that have kind of brought it all to life,” he said. “Words without meaning and without them becoming the lifeblood are worth nothing.

“I did not do that. These kids did that.”

It’s worth noting only Cooper was a starter for the Tornadoes among the luncheon speakers, an impressive fact considering what Lanxter brought to the table.

A tall, athletic guard with, at times, deadly accuracy from the 3-point line, Lanxter’s skills finally began to blossom his senior year. Perhaps becoming a starter could have helped with college recruiting. Maybe his game could have developed that much faster.

Those things never concerned him, he said.

“Everything we do is for the city,” Lanxter said. “The main reason we play and how we got this far is the fans.

“In the state championship game we were down by nine to Fulton, and the energy from the fans just never wavered.”

When Lanxter finished his remarks, it was left to Cooper to bring it home.

“Before we ever step on the court, before we put on the jersey, we know there were others that built the program, made it a winning program, created a legacy,” he said. “We just wanted to continue that legacy.

“They showed up early, stayed late. They gave everything they had. I feel like they set the standard, created the culture and showed what it means to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

“Because of them we don’t just play basketball, we carry a legacy, every practice, every game, every moment. Today I’m thankful for the ones that came before.”

Normally the most reserved of all the Tornadoes, Cooper’s words from the podium left his coach stunned.

“He killed that,” Collins said. “He’s a quiet kid, and that’s the most I’ve ever heard him speak.”

In only seven seasons at the Tornado helm, Collins has now won more state titles than any boys coach in Blount County history. Only late Porter girls coach Galen Johnson equals his three.

That said, Collins was quick to credit Alcoa icon Vernon Osborne, the architect of the program who won a pair of championships and built the Tornadoes’ winning legacy in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

“I’m humbled to even be mentioned in the same sentence with someone like ‘Coach O,'” Collins said.

Like Osborne, Collins teaches biology at Alcoa, which begs the question: Is there something about that particular course of study that makes for a good basketball coach?

Hard to argue with the results.