Two Spain Park High School basketball stars stem from impressive athletic family trees
Jamal Johnson, left, and Austin Wiley are carrying on family traditions with their athletic successes. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr./Alabama NewsCenter)
As the Spain Park High School boys basketball team looks to earn the school’s first state basketball championship, two Jaguars are trying to add another trophy to their households.
Jamal Johnson is the son of former University of Alabama and NBA star Buck Johnson, who won back-to-back state championships in 1981 and 1982 at Birmingham’s Hayes High School.
Austin Wiley is a double basketball product. His mother, Vickie Orr Wiley, led Hartselle High to back-to-back titles in 1984 and 1985. And while Aubrey Wiley, father of the Spain Park center, didn’t earn a state crown, he went on to lead the Southeastern Conference in rebounding in 1994 while playing at Auburn University.
Vickie Orr Wiley also played collegiately for the Tigers, leading them to a pair of national championship games and earning All-America honors. She also played in the Olympics.
Both Buck Johnson, now the athletic director of Birmingham City Schools, and Vickie Orr Wiley are members of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
The center’s mother said no pressure was placed on their son to play basketball, saying it took him a while to decide if he wanted to play.
“He’s always done his own thing,” she said. “As a mom, I was the one who worried he would feel a lot of pressure but he just never has.”
Aubrey Wiley, the women’s basketball coach at Lawson State Community College, is secure in his basketball legacy. That said, he has long dealt with references to being “Vickie’s husband or Austin’s dad.”
“I think my son’s going to be better than me,” the father said this week. “He has the potential to be better than me. He’s 6-11, 245. I’m 6-6 (and) I was 255.”
Spain Park coach Donnie Quinn said the younger Wiley stood out as a shot-blocker in youth basketball.
“He always had a knack for timing those things without fouling,” he said. “He’s brought that to another level now. But his offensive skills, his ball-handling and some of his perimeter game is getting better and better.
“His strength is the biggest thing,” Quinn continued. “He loves the weight room. You can tell his body has changed over the last year. If he keeps that up, there’s no telling what he’s going to be like when he graduates.”
The younger Wiley said he feels no pressure to match or exceed his parents.
“I just try to play my game,” he said. “It would be good to have the same accolades as them. I’m trying to reach that goal but there’s no pressure, for real.”
The Jaguar junior ranked himself above both his parents. “I just feel like, one-on-one, against both of them in their prime, I would win, easy,” he said.
Johnson says he feels no pressure from his hall of fame father.
“He just gives me confidence to try and be the best player I can be and work extremely hard,” he said. “Of course I want to live up to my dad’s potential but I’m really not putting that in my mind now. I’m just playing hard and trying to get the W.”
Quinn said Johnson doesn’t have to deal with comparisons to his father.
“They’re different players, different positions,” he said. “His dad was more of a post, small forward and Jamal is a point guard, shooting guard. But as far as skill and basketball savvy, when you’re raised around it your whole life I think it’s had a big outcome on Jamal’s success.”
The younger Johnson has received attention from Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Wake Forest, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Auburn and Florida. The taller Wiley has committed to play at Auburn.
The Jaguars face Central-Phenix City at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Legacy Arena in a Class 7A boys semifinal at the Alabama High School Athletic Association State Basketball Finals. The victor takes on the winner of the 10:30 a.m. Thursday meeting between defending champ Hoover and McGill-Toolen.
The title game is 5:45 p.m. Saturday and Quinn says the focus now must be on the whole team, not its individual parts.
“At this point in time, it’s not about them,” he said. “It’s about everybody doing his part.”
