Harding manager Zach Slone goes viral with his shots

MARION - The members of the Harding boys basketball program wanted to give their manager a special moment.

With the help of his teammates, coaches and opponent, Zach Slone turned it into THE moment of the season.

"You always have support personnel in your program and kids who work really hard for you, and you always want to honor them," Harding head coach Don Worstell said.

Before the season started, Slone approached Worstell and asked whether he could suit up for the Senior Night game.

"I told him we would honor him in the appropriate fashion," Worstell said. "He does a lot for us. He’s our film guy every game. He gets water ready for every practice. He runs the clock in every practice and keeps me on pace. He’s here every Sunday to help me with the little kid program. Every open gym, he’s here doing anything we ask.”

Slone, who has worked as a manager for six years including middle school, was introduced before the game like the rest of the senior players. But when it was game time, he went to his perch across the gym to film it. Little did he — or anyone else — know that Worstell put his name in the score book and had a uniform waiting in the locker room.

At halftime, the coach broke what he hoped to do with the team, asking them to stretch out a lead so their manager could turn into a player for a moment.

"Once we heard that, it was go-time," senior Tyler Longstreth said. "We had to push the lead and really get Slone in."

At the end of the third quarter, Worstell felt comfortable enough to send his junior varsity coaches over to break the news to Slone and get him dressed in the locker room.

“It was just kind of spur of the moment. I didn’t know anything about it," Harding Athletic Director Sean Kearns said.

The AD caught wind of the plan at halftime and at the end of the third quarter told the student section they might want to hang around until the end of the game because something special was coming. He never could have guessed how special.

The crowd got loud when they saw Slone go to the bench in uniform. Later, they started a "We want Slone" chant. Soon Worstell obliged.

“When we put him in, one of the Fairbanks coaches came down and said we’re going to let him score," Worstell said. "I get goosebumps just talking about it. I thought that was so unselfish of them.”

For his part, Slone knew what to do.

“Shoot it," he said. “Both teams were involved and so was the crowd, so I knew to shoot it.”

He uncorked four 3-pointers from the top of the key, but couldn't connect. Then the Presidents forced a turnover and set him up for the uncontested layup the Fairbanks coaching staff said they'd give him. The crowd roared its approval when they saw the ball go through the rim.

“It wasn’t just him experiencing it, it was all of us experiencing it together. It was phenomenal, really,” Harding senior Jesse Ansley said.

But the story wasn't close to being complete. Fairbanks missed a layup and Harding came up the court for a final possession, setting up Slone from the right wing. He missed his first two shots, with Colton Green, of Fairbanks, getting the rebound with a few seconds left.

In a spectacular display of sportsmanship, Green threw the ball to Slone for one last shot. As the buzzer sound, the ball arced into the bucket for a 3-pointer, sending his teammates into a frenzied scrum with Slone happily at the bottom and the student section joining in.

"It was just pure excitement, seeing the look on Zach’s face when he hit the shot and how happy he was,” senior Roger Hamon said. “It’s awesome. He’s been happy the last couple days. It’s making his life. He’s going to remember it forever."

Everyone associated will remember it forever. The final moments of an otherwise unremarkable 66-45 Friday night game in the Mid Ohio Athletic Conference Red Division were caught on video. A Facebook post at Good News Marion with one of the videos was picked up by central Oho media outlets, and it went viral.

Through Monday evening, it drew more than 7,200 likes, 575 comments and 574,000 views.

“I’m very surprised actually," Slone said of his sudden fame. "To see it get one hit, then a thousand hits in 12 hours, and I think it’s up over a half-million.”

He's reportedly set to do an interview with ESPN's Jay Crawford, an Ohio native, at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday on "SportsCenter."

“It’s been a very special year, and that shot couldn’t have happened on any other night like senior night,” Slone said.

His teammates said they were glad to witness someone so loyal get a Hollywood ending.

“I was just really happy for him. Everyone was," Harding senior Jordan Scott said. "You could feel the energy in the gym, but he practices that shot every day so I knew he was bound to make it. For it to be the buzzer beater was amazing, especially with the sportsmanship the Fairbanks player had to pass it to him, it was something amazing and incredible to be a part of.”

Added Worstell: “It’s amazing to all of us with how this has blown up. We were just trying to do what felt right to honor our special guy.

“It was pretty cool. He’s a great young man, and we love him, and we were just trying to let him have a moment.”

Instead, it turned out to be THE moment.

rmccurdy@gannett.com

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Twitter: @McMotorsport