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Sports
Trenton ISD's Rick Foreman retires
By Allen Rich
May 22, 2020
I'm sure I can't remember all the ways Rick Foreman elevated sports in Fannin County, first as an athlete and then as a coach, but here are just a handful of memories that stand out for me. I'm not sure people realize how good a sportswriter Rick is...when I saw how good he was, I was grateful he chose a different profession! For fifteen years now, anytime I wrote that a team had an unusually high number of scorers that "scratched the scorebook," it was a line I stole from Rick...although I prefer to think it was "borrowed."
Trenton quickly became a special school for me because enews could always count on Rick, Josh and Big Mike to help me keep up with the Tigers and Lady Tigers.
Many years ago, I went to cover a boys junior high basketball tournament in Honey Grove and I stumbled across a Trenton team that was ringing up 80+ points a game during only six-minute periods. As soon as I got home, I called a friend from Trenton and said, "Go ahead and make reservations in Austin...I just watched a junior high team from Trenton that will play in the state tournament." And, with Rick at the helm, that's exactly what happened.
It was such an exciting time for sports in Fannin County because as good as the Tigers were that year, it was another team that took home the championship trophy from the 2004 Trenton Holiday Tournament. Weston Bush buried a deep-in-the-corner, falling-out-of-bounds triple to give Ector a 72-71 overtime win in the finals. I still remember the shot and I'll bet Rick does, too.
Two of my favorite memories are of Rick coaching against Rivercrest in 2005 and 2006.
In 2005, a great-shooting Trenton team topped Rivercrest, 58-45, in the regional finals played in Honey Grove. Rivercrest was big inside, but late in the game I remember seeing Trenton spread the perimeter with five pure shooters...then I looked at the bench. Rick was leaning forward, studying the game and sitting beside him was Ryan McTee, the three-point champ at that year's holiday tournament. Trenton had so many deadly outside shooters that you couldn't get 'em all in the game at the same time.
Rivercrest came out on top in a rematch in 2006 in a regional finals game played in Greenville, but here's what I remember about that game. As Rick led the Tigers out onto the court, I was sitting in a section that Greenville reserves for sports photographers. To my left was Jessica Kirkpatrick Taylor, the editor of the Bonham News. To my right was Chris Jennings, a remarkable photographer for the Sherman Democrat. It dawned on me that all three of us were there for the same reason...the same reason the Tigers always played their hearts out. We all felt like Rick Foreman deserved it.
