Brooks guards enjoy sharing the hype

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:22AM

When you have two talented guards on a team like George Marshall Jr. and Mike Powell, quite often somebody feels that they are getting the short end of the shaft.

Once these problems got ironed out and realized that together they pose a threat that no other team in the city could handle. Brooks got on a roll that took them to a 64-57 victory over Young that captured the schools' first Chicago Public League Championship.

Marshall appeared to get the lion share of the publicity making All-City by his sophomore year. Even though Powell was no slouch, at times he went unnoticed or referred to as the "other guard." It carried over to their junior year where the team performed badly missing the city playoffs. After making All-City as a sophomore, Marshall failed to earn a spot as a junior.

"Mike and I have always been friends. Our competitiveness sometimes was mistaken because we both went after each other so hard and people sometimes thought we didn't like each other. But it was never like that," said Marshall.

The turning point for both players came in their senior year when former coach Chris Head was replaced by Bobby Locke. Locke, himself a former great player from Young, recognized right from the beginning how valuable the two guards were. "The first thing I did was bring them to the office and sat them down and told them what we needed to do to be successful. When you have two guards like that, with both being triple threats and willing to listen and learn, it made my job very easy," said Locke.

A stroke of misfortune for Marshall turned into a blessing in disguise as Powell emerged and carried the team on his back during the 14 games that Marshall sat out gaining Marshall's respect even more as he watched his counterpart from the side line as Powell went on to earn All-City honors. "I saw what he was doing and how he was holding the team together. Any confusion that anybody thought or tried to create is all behind us," said Marshall.

Powell said one thing that really helped him was listening to coach Locke. "When coach came in, he told us that we reminded him of a left handed and a right handed version of himself. And that was a big compliment because everybody was always telling us how good he was," said Powell.

They both know there is a lot more basketball to play. "We have under achieved for three years, we want to go out with a bang, and the city championship is just the first step," said Powell.

Marshall scored 23 points and Powell scored 15 points, five rebounds.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.