INDIANAPOLIS – The Austin Peay Governors are in the house, so be ready for two sights you don’t see every day in college basketball.
The guy sitting on the bench in full military attire? He’s the head coach, Corey Gipson. Can you think of any other Division I coach who goes to work looking as if he just came in from airborne exercises? Not even at Army.
No. 24 in red, playing at the top of the trapping defense, poking the ball away from Butler for a steal and then slamming home a dunk at the other end? He’s 6-6 junior forward Hansel Enmanuel. Oh, did you notice he has only one arm? No? He’d be happy to hear that.
Yeah, here’s a team with some novelty to it, but at the end of the day-- and the end of February -- the Governors want what everyone else wants: Earning a chance to dance in March. They came within a three-point loss in the ASUN championship game last season and were picked second in this year’s preseason league poll so they should be in the hunt again. They barged into venerable Hinkle Fieldhouse Friday night and took down Butler 68-66, the first time Austin Peay had beaten a current member of the Big East since 1989.
The Bulldogs had no answer for guard LJ Thomas who scored 29 points and the defense had nine steals and forced 16 turnovers and that was that. The program won only nine games two seasons ago but then Gipson and Enmanuel and other new faces arrived and they won 19. So Gipson can coach and Enmanuel and his mates can play and we should begin with that. “We have a group of young men that understands what the name on front of the uniform means. Not often can you be around a group of young men that understands that in today’s landscape,” Gipson said. “Today people say, with NIL and everything going on that it’s pretty much impossible . . . That’s not true. It’s like finding a spouse. You know when you’ve got the right one.”
But it’s hard not to focus on the coach in camouflage gear and the only player in Division I with no left arm.
First, Enmanuel. Born in one of the poorer parts of the Dominican Republic, he lost his arm at the age of six when a wall came down and trapped him for two hours. It took six months to get out of the hospital when he had to start learning how to be a little boy again, The first time he could tie his shoes again is a keeper memory. A landmark in life at the age of seven. But the basketball court was where he quickly grew a legend, learning to go by defenders with his right-only dribble. When a shot of him dunking went viral on the internet, the world of basketball first suspected it was on to something. He was noticed.
He ended up playing high school basketball in Florida, then signed to go with Northwestern State and its new coach, Gipson. The first season went well and both moved last year to Austin Peay, where Gipson is an alum and they are both now can’t-miss pillars in a tale of inspiration. In one dizzying flurry against Butler, Enmanuel had a steal, a dunk, a rebound and a blocked shot. There were those in Hinkle Fieldhouse amazed, just like they are everywhere. No wonder he has a fat NIL deal and an enormous social media following.
“I just be myself. I’ll always be playing hard because I don’t know who is watching me,” he said.
“God chose me to do this job to send a message to everybody and that’s what I’m going to do. I can’t complain about it. I came from nothing and I’ve got a good heart. I’m glad that God chose me. I realized that. I really appreciate God that put me in this position and chose me. He likes to choose people that inspire to do the good thing and the right thing.”
Strangers reaching out have become common. “I get it every day,” he said. Since bringing bis game to the United States, he has had to be at home among strangers. His family back in the Dominican has never seen him play in person. Maybe one day because, after all, you need only watch Emanuel on the basketball court for 30 seconds to be reminded that anything is possible.
“He’s one of the most amazing young men that I have ever met in my entire life," Gipson said. "He inspires me every day. I don’t know how to say this, but his global presence is second to none. He doesn’t see himself as having a challenge. He sees himself as a guy that has an opportunity and he’s seizing the moment.
“I visited him in the DR (during recruiting) and I got a chance to see the social economic status of that community. He looks at me and says, `Coach Gip, you see? It’s not about this, it’s about me coming out of this.’ When he told me that I had tears in my eyes. He’s not excited about doing this on his own, he’s excited because he made it out of the DR and these people have something to look up to. He belonged out there tonight. People ridiculed me and the staff for taking him. They said it was a dog and pony show. Everybody saw tonight that he belonged (two points, three rebounds two assists, a steal and a block). He’s earned the right to be considered one of the biggest inspirations in collegiate athletics right now.”
He earned that respect in a hurry from his teammates last season, including the day of the now-legendary pushups. The Governors had been sloppy in practice with too many turnovers and that’s something Gipson cannot abide. He ordered fingertip pushups as punishment, except he told Enmanuel he could so something else. Enmanual wasn’t having that, and the next thing everyone knew, he was grunting out his fingertip pushups one-handed. The sight will stay with his teammates forever.
“(Forward) Sai Witt broke his hand in the first conference game last year. He didn’t tell me, he didn’t want the staff to know because he had played in too many games to redshirt,” Gipson said. “The end of the season, he said, `Coach I just want you to know my hand has been broke all season. I only had one hand.’ I said `Why didn’t you tell me big fella?’ He said, `Coach, Hansel changed my life. He played with one arm every game. My hand was just hurting. I thought if he played I should play.
“That right there shows you how much has impacted and changed lives.”
Hansel understands that, welcomes that, even though it’d be nice if sometimes people just looked at him for what he longs to be – a hard-playing, big-dreaming basketball player. “I don’t think about my past because I grow from my pain,” he said last year in an interview. “I’d like to be a regular guy, like a normal human being that is just playing basketball. That’s not the message God is trying to send. He is trying to send the message if I can do it, you can do it.”
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Now about the coach in fatigues.
Austin Peay is in Clarksville, Tenn., and just 13 miles up the road across the Kentucky state line is Fort Campbell, a major U.S. Army base since World War II. The news has not always been good from Fort Campbell. In 1985, a plane carrying 248 soldiers back to base from the Middle East crashed in Newfoundland, killing all aboard. In 2023, nine members of the 101st Airborne died in a helicopter crash during training. They prepare for serious, deadly business at Fort Campbell.
Moments such as that convinced Gipson what he should wear during games.
“We’re in a military town. We have basketball camps, kids, young girls and young boys, they come to camp and they have deployed parents. You can see the energy on their faces that my mommy and daddy aren’t here, my mommy or daddy might not return. We have to always in life be about something bigger than ourself. There may be one young kid that says `my mommy or daddy, my uncle, my aunt my grandaddy was a cool guy’ because they see me wearing this fatigue. We don’t do that enough in life.”
He first checked with a retired general from Fort Campbell to make sure nobody would have a problem with him coaching in Army gear. The last thing he wanted was to disrespect anyone. “He looked at me and said `Gip, I want to tell you something. You’re doing the right thing. I ain’t never seen nobody do it before. But why not you?’
“I just want them to feel appreciated. I just want them to feel the unconditional love. I want them to feel the respect they deserve. So often times we don’t do that while people are living. We show up at their funeral when they don’t even know we’re there and the family gets the respect. The ones that passed away earned the respect. This is the way for paying homage and showing right now that hey, we’re for you and it’s not about us.”
Who could not root for Austin Peay? Even the Butler fans were interested in the Governors after they beat the Bulldogs. Some asked for pictures. One little boy in a Butler shirt came up and asked Gipson why he was dressed that way. Gipson was glad to tell him.
So imagine what it would be like to see the coach in camo and the player in one arm in the NCAA tournament.
“It needs to happen. Some people still don’t know what time it is with him. It needs to happen,” Gipson said of Enmanuel making it.
“It would be a special story,” Enmanuel said. “This year we’re going to get there. We’re going to make it special.”
The journeys for young people in athletics can be so remarkable in their adversity. Butler was running an inbounds in the first half Friday night and Enmanuel was defending the Bulldogs’ Patrick McCaffery on the wing. A player who lost his left arm at the age of six was guarding a player who had to overcome cancer at 13. One passing moment in time.
Sometimes, you don’t need a scoreboard to see how wonderful college basketball can be.
