Evergreen should name Chris Hines as the city's 'ambassador' to China

Evergreen's Chris Hines

Conecuh County basketball legend Chris Hines was in town earlier this week and stopped by the radio station in Evergreen Monday morning for a nice visit.

Luther and I always enjoy talking with Chris, and Chris also got to meet Terry Dailey for the first time. Terry is a big Alabama fan and told Chris that he remembered when he used to grab all those rebounds at the University of Alabama. Chris, who was wearing an Alabama warmup jacket, just smiled and gave Terry a big “Roll Tide.”

Chris told us that he’s spent the better part of the last year in Atlanta working with the Atlanta Dream professional women’s basketball team. He said the team had a great season, noting that first-year head coach Nicki Collen had led the team to the Conference Finals. I told him that I’d never been to a WNBA game before, and he said I should check it out because they play a pretty good brand of basketball.

He also weighed in on the NBA playoffs, which entered the Conference Finals round earlier this week. He said that early on, he was pulling for the Houston Rockets, but they got put out by the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors. Now that Houston is out of the picture, he looks for Golden State to win it all.

We also talked about the recent announcement that Hillcrest High School boys basketball coach Chenson Griffin was leaving Hillcrest to be the head coach at Alma Bryant High School in Mobile County. Chris and Coach Griffin go way back. In fact, Chris was a freshman on the varsity basketball team at Hillcrest the year that Griffin was a senior on the team.

Chris said he looks for Griffin to do well at Alma Bryant. Chris also looks for Hillcrest to remain a dominant force in high school basketball. Hillcrest has never had a shortage of athletic talent, he said, but they’ll need to get the right coach to replace Griffin to keep the program moving forward.

Chris also reported that his sister, Natalie, and her husband, Harrison Mims, were doing well. Both are former coaches at Hillcrest, and Natalie, a former college player, even served as Hillcrest’s head girls basketball coach for a while. They are living in Andalusia now and are both working at schools in that part of the state.

While in town, probably for the summer, Chris said he planned to contact Evergreen city officials to see what he could do to help breathe new life into the city’s summer rec program. Not only does the program give local kids something to do, but it also helps them sharpen their basketball skills in the off season. Chris said he has fond memories of the city’s summer program and would like to help with it while he’s in town this summer.

Chris noted that he’s hoping to travel to China later this year to help play or coach in the professional basketball leagues over there. He said that he’s worked over there before and really enjoyed it. He said he would jump at the chance to return, but only time will tell.

In the end, it was good to see Chris. Not only is he a genuinely nice guy, but everywhere he goes, he’s a great ambassador for Conecuh County and Evergreen. Also, he’s still young, so there’s no telling what sort of success lies ahead of him.