Video: Hebron Christian’s Bruce Franks Facing Biggest Challenge Yet

PHEBA, Miss. (WCBI) — Standing 6’7″, there aren’t many things bigger than Hebron Christian boys and girls head basketball coach Bruce Franks.

The only thing taller may be his list of accomplishments. Throughout his time coaching for Calhoun Academy, Wilkinson Christian Academy, Houston High School, and Hebron Christian School, Franks has won six state championships, more than twenty district titles, and more than 1,000 career wins in boys and girls basketball.

Franks’ biggest challenge, however, comes beyond the court. The Eagles head coach continues his battle against Leukemia.

Due to his health, Franks is stepping away from the game he’s coached for 37 years.

“Right now my record is 1,398 and 646, so 1,400 would be a pretty good milestone,” Franks said about the only thing keeping coaching in the back of his mind, “but that’s okay. My health is what’s important right now, and I have to get back to where I need to be.”

Franks also said that if his health were to improve, he would return to help Hebron Christian hire a new head coach, and assist the program in any way.

“I’ll just put an asterisk by the first two wins and say, ‘he helped’,” Franks said with a smile.

The gentle giant is well known in the Eagles community. As a teacher of third, fourth, and fifth grade P.E., Franks has a special relationship with the kids that call him, “Big Daddy.”

“In the morning, instead of coming up and hugging because I couldn’t make contact with the chemotherapy and my immune system was a really low, they’d open the door and say, ‘Good morning, Big Daddy! How are you?’, and it just kind of caught on,” said Franks.

“At first when we saw Coach Franks,  he was kind of intimidating because he was really big
but once we got to know him he’s more like a big teddy bear,” senior center Millie Hudson said.

The Lady Eagles senior class has spent the last five year playing for Coach Franks, winning back to back state championships.

Senior forward Holly Hudson said this year’s state title meant something more.

“It was a lot more difficult this year because Coach Franks got cancer, he wasn’t here
with us,” Holly said, “but I think we won the second one mainly for him.

“He was more worried about missing games than actually being sick. He didn’t want to miss practice. He tried his hardest not to miss practice, even when he was feeling absolutely awful…he was still here when he didn’t have chemotherapy.”

Senior guard Rebekah Falkner said being there to see Franks’ struggle with the illness was something she personally related to.

“It’s really hard to see him go through it. My grandmother had cancer and so I kind of
knew what to expect,” Falkner said.

“I’d like go and give him a hug every day and build him up because you know that they’re down, I mean they have cancer and they don’t know if they’ll make it through the day.”

It’s the simple hug or the pat on the back that helps Franks day by day, but the biggest support comes from his biggest fan, his wife, Linda.

“She’s my best friend, she is my worst critic. I think she’s only missed one game in 37 years but it was my fault…but we got over that,” Franks said with a shy smile.

Although “Big Daddy” will be stepping down from his post as head coach of boys and girls basketball at Hebron Christian, he leaves behind lessons that go far beyond the x’s and o’s.

“You have to fight for what you love, and Coach Franks definitely loved basketball and
he’s fought to be here, and he’s fought for it, and he hasn’t let cancer hold him back
at all,” Hudson said.

“I’m a fighter, I’m not a quitter,” Franks said, “I’m not ever going to quit at anything. Anybody
that’s been in sports, I’m going to play to that last second.

“I hope some kids saw that, ‘he didn’t give up’ and the same may happen to them a little later on and they’ll say, ‘If coach can do it, I can do it.”

Franks said he has three more scheduled appointments with doctors to hopefully defeat his illness.

The Hebron Christian community held a benefit this past Saturday, May 20th, raising more than $7,000.