By Thomas Sellers Jr.
The Tipton-Rosemark Academy Lady Rebel Soccer and Basketball record books have been rewritten the past five years.
The author behind the pen inking all-time stats and team success was Brianna Hall. She graduated from TRA as the second leading all-time scorer in basketball and during her junior campaign was a part of the first Lady Rebel Hoops squad to reach State.
Some say soccer was her primary sport and she guided that team to more wins every season while racking up a school record 126 goals.
Already one of the greatest Lady Rebel athletes of all time, Hall added her name with other TRA legends Bethany Berger (2015 West 10 Media Athlete of the Year) with a postseason honor associated with The Millington Star. Hall is the latest, joining Julanne McCommon (2012), Taylor Beasley (2016) and Abby West (2019) as the Millington Star Female Athlete of the Year.
“It feels great winning it and have this honor,” she said. “I want to thank my coaches, my teammates, my friends and my parents.”
Ron and Stacy Hall laid the foundation and paved the way for their daughter to reach new heights at TRA. Hall’s efforts in 2020-21 as the leading scorer for Lady Rebel Soccer and Basketball helped her finish in a tie with reigning Athlete of the Year Maiya Reed of Munford.
Hall’s path to the 2021 Female Athlete of the Year Award began at 5-year-old when her parents put her in youth soccer and basketball. Following behind her big sister Brittany, Brianna kept growing physically and as a player.
There to motivate her with tough love was Ron.
“He would always push me and always tell me what I needed to work on,” Brianna recalled. “Let’s say I just finished playing a game and I did something wrong, literally right after that basketball he would take me outside and say do layups. ‘You need to stop getting pushed around. You’re too weak.’ We would run around the backyard and he would push me down. We would run hills. He would just push me a lot.”
There to balance the father/daughter relationship was Stacy. The matriarch was always there to add the right verbiage for every situation.
“Her words were encouraging,” Brianna said. “If she knew I was upset or my dad was getting onto me, she would like it’s OK. You’ll do better the next time. But sometimes in the stands, she would be LOUD. Louder than my dad. My dad would have to tell her to be quiet sometimes.”
At one point the Halls were shouting and cheering for both their daughters during TRA soccer and basketball games. When Brianna got to the call to varsity in the eighth grade, she went to a familiar face in the locker room to overcome fears and concerns.
“She was hard on me and we would argue a lot,” Brianna said. “That’s what sisters do, siblings do. Through all of that she would still love on me. If I was down, she would tell me it was OK. If I was crying, she would comfort me.
“It was very comforting having her there because at first I wasn’t starting,” she added. “And that made my confidence go down. I thought I wasn’t good. And toward the end of the season I was starting and scoring a lot. She was out there helping me and she was one of the reasons I enjoyed playing my eighth year.”
In both sports Brittany would pass her sister the ball to increase her confidence. And she would even put her arm around her during the lows.
“It felt good knowing she was on my side just as my parents were and everybody else who believed in me,” Hall said. “And my coaches who moved me up at that time, I wanted to make them all proud.”
Steven Starnes was the coach of the Lady Rebel Soccer team in 2020. He knew the weapon he had with the younger Hall.
“It (the program) grew a lot since my sister played and when I got there,” Hall said. “It was good seeing it grow the way it did. We were not very good and at first weren’t known. This year we came out and beat some times nobody expected us to beat like ECS. We made a name for ourselves.”
Hall’s name is atop the all-time soccer scoring list at Rosemark.
“I put in the time, work and effort for it,” Hall noted. “The coach would always have stuff set up for me and some of the times it didn’t work out so I had to improvise.”
On the hardwood, Hall’s last two seasons were under the direction of Cedric Anderson. Coach Anderson inherited an emerging program from former Head Coach Cameron Pridemore.
“The process was hard at first,” Hall acknowledged. “We would have to be in the weight room and I would not lift anything. I was not strong. I could barely bench the bar. Then I grew and we grew all together. I was always last in sprints and now I’m like one of the first. Mainly the coaches build up my confidence because they knew the potential I had.”
When Anderson took over the Lady Rebels prior to Hall’s junior season, the point forward as familiar with his coaching style. When she was 6-year-old, Hall had to join in with Brittany’s peers doing Anderson’s drills at a camp.
“He made me workout with them,” she recalled. “When he came to my school he pushed me again and harder. And I thank him for that because I would not be where I am today.”
One moment when Anderson’s tough love approach tapped into Hall’s greatness helped the Lady Rebels reach State in 2019-20.
“We had a game in Knoxville and we were playing Knoxville Webb,” she said. “And I was doing horribly. Coach Ced set me on the bench and yelled at me. Then he made me cry in the locker room.
“Then I came out, I maybe had two points at halftime,” Hall continued. “I ended the game with 30 points. I was like that was crazy, I helped that team. He was believing in me. I knew if he was believing in me I had to believe in myself.”
Historic team marks and having her name atop the record books in soccer and basketball, Hall is one of the best athletes to ever pass through the halls of TRA.
“I feel proud of what I did at Rosemark,” she said. “With my legacy, It will make me happy seeing that kids will see that and work hard to be like that someday.”
Hall’s next chapter in life is attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville joining her big sister. She won’t pursue any athletic ventures at the moment.
“Because I played those sports for so long and I was getting kind of burned out,” she acknowledged. “Even though I love these sports, I didn’t want to make it a job in college.”
For now Hall will settle for a legacy of being the best soccer scorer ever, an all-time basketball great and the latest Millington Star Female Athlete of the Year.
“I hope they think and reminisce about the times I had at Rosemark and the things I did at the school and the community,” she concluded. “And that I made a name for myself and Rosemark at the same time. And that Rosemark grew not only for sports but for the leaders in the school and how we led the kids and the school.”
PAST WINNERS
2006 Whitney Robison Brighton
2007 Amber Gatewood Brighton & Whitney Malone Munford
2008 Cali Overbeck Munford
2009 Michele Brown Millington
2010 Crystal Williams Munford
2011 Britt Sanford Brighton
2012 Julanne McCommon TRA
2013 Sami Jo Schulz Munford
2014 Jodie Duncan Munford
2015 Maddison Welch Munford
2016 Taylor Beasley TRA
2017 Gabby Crawford Munford
2018 Paige Hall Millington
2019 Abby West TRA
2020 Maiya Reed Munford
