http://www.sandmountainreporter.com/story.lasso?ewcd=bd07a5225fd724e8

Excerpt of the article::

C.K. Gant played his high school basketball under “Red” Horton, an all-time great at Geraldine and the man who put Pisgah on the basketball map.

Gant and the longtime Butler of Huntsville coach T.E. “Cotton” Rogers were teammates at Pisgah. Gant started for the Eagles in 1938, 1939 and 1940. He performed as an all-county and all-district guard.

According to the coach, back then there were no size divisions. “We played all day for two or three days at a time,” Gant said.

The 1939 team lost one game before losing to Guin 29-14 in the state finals. The next year, Pisgah lost to Scottsboro 11-9 in the finals of the district.

After serving in the U.S. Army armored tank division and receiving four major battle stars in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, Gant attended Jacksonville State on scholarship.

Jimmy Smothers of The Gadsden Times wrote of Coach Gant, “There is no denying that he was once the top coach in Alabama, although his teams never won a state championship.”

Gant was a head basketball coach for 17 years, winning an average of 23 per season. Those 17 years were at Springville, Geraldine, Alexandria, Fyffe, Ringgold (Georgia) and Boaz.

During one five-year streak, Gant’s teams went 124-12. He coached 10 years before a team failed to win 20 games, and in his worst year, his team went 12-12.

Gant never had a losing season, while posting a 398-135 record. He took at least one basketball team to the state tournament at each school he coached.

Twenty-two of Gant’s players signed college scholarships, with eight of those going to the Southeastern Conference. Those great players include Hob Armstrong, Fred Edmondson and Billy Smothers, all from Geraldine and offered scholarships to Georgia; Rena Watts from Alexandria, who played at LSU; and Tommy Wheeler of Boaz, who received a scholarship to Vanderbilt.