Basketball is more than a game to the Pouncy family.
It’s a family tradition.
For over 30 years, from Covington to Taylor Mill to Union, there’s been at least one Pouncy dribbling, shooting, rebounding and defending.
You can find the newest generation of basketball-playing Pouncys – Shaun and younger brothers Jakare and Josiah – at Cooper.
Shaun Pouncy, a 6-foot-6 senior, averages 14.4 points and 9.5 rebounds a game. Jakare, a 5-8 junior, and Josiah, a 6-2 freshman – better known as “JoJo” – come off the bench.
Their dad, Alphonso Pouncy, graduated from Holmes in 1989. One uncle, Burt Pouncy, graduated from Holy Cross in 1989, and the other, Corey Pouncy, graduated from Holmes in 1991.
Eric Pouncy Jr. is Scott’s girls basketball coach. Alphonso, Corey and Burt are his cousins, Holmes alumnus James Pouncy, who is now a basketball official, is his uncle, and Eric Pouncy Sr. is his dad.
“It’s amazing,” Alphonso Pouncy said. “… It’s amazing to experience it, and then to see that I have boys that could have a chance to play football and basketball together.”
While Shaun Pouncy hasn’t watched videos of Alphonso’s games (Jakare has watched Corey), he knows Dad was pretty good on field or court.
“I have seen a lot of awards and records, old newspapers that they saved,” Shaun said.
JoJo Pouncy loved hearing his dad’s stories, especially when Alphonso set a Holmes record for 3-pointers.
“He was always hard on his teammates, and his brothers were always hard on him about basketball,” JoJo said.
‘Groundhog’
What the Pouncy family became athletically actually started decades ago.
The late Donald “Groundhog” Johnson – grandfather to Corey, Burt and Alphonso Pouncy – played in the Cincinnati Reds minor league system and later the Negro Leagues. He was a longtime youth baseball coach in Greater Cincinnati; a field at the Reds Urban Youth Academy at 2026 East Seymour Avenue in Cincinnati was named after him in 2015.
“Swing at that ball, swing at that ball,” said Johnson, who passed away in 2016 at age 90, in a video the Reds Community Fund produced. “I love it … you say baseball, you’re talking to me.”
According to nlbemuseum.com, Johnson’s baseball career started at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, in 1949, when he was 22.
“I had paid $1.50 to get into the see the Indianapolis Clowns play the Chicago American Giants,” Johnson said in a video. “I was recognized by Pat Patterson, a Chicago catcher. He had seen me play fast-pitch softball for the Cincinnati Hottentots.
“Chicago’s manager, Winfield Welch, told Patterson to have me go to the bus and put on a uniform. They asked me to join the team. I got my money back too!”
‘I thought they were gods’
Cooper coach Tim Sullivan (Holmes 1996) sees similarities between young and older Pouncys – he watched Alphonso, Corey and Burt as a child; he lived on 47th Street in Latonia and hung out at Holmes’ Madison Avenue campus while his mom, Linda Sullivan, coached cheerleaders.
“When I was a kid, I thought the guys in the red and white uniforms for Holmes, I thought they were gods when I was growing up watching them,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the 6-foot-6 Shaun possesses the same athleticism in football and basketball as his dad. Shaun missed his senior season with a torn ACL he suffered during the 2022-23 basketball season, while Jakare and JoJo were on the varsity roster.
“Jakare, the middle son, is built a lot like Corey and actually plays and moves a lot like Uncle Corey,” Sullivan said. “And … JoJo, he is a little more like Shaun.”
Alphonso Pouncy believed nobody could stop him on a basketball floor in high school; he said Shaun is a bigger version of himself who wants to dominate any game. He said Jakare is as good a shooter as him, as calm as Corey and excels at dribbling like Burt, while JoJo reminds him of Corey.
“Just everything about JoJo reminds me of Corey,” Alphonso said. “He’s the hardest worker because he wants to be better than his brothers. It’s not that he’s competing with them; they showed him how to get better, how to want to be better, how to be great instead of just good.”
The elder Pouncys knew something about postseason prowess, too.
Alphonso was part of the Bulldogs team that won the 1988 Ninth Region title and reached the state semifinals before falling to eventual champion Louisville Ballard.
Former Holy Cross and Scott coach Jeff Trame recalled the 1989 semifinal; the Indians eliminated the Bulldogs, 96-95, when Burt Pouncy scored 30 points and Corey had 19.
“Burt was incredible that night,” Trame said. “… He could handle the ball, he was quick. You couldn’t press him; good outside shooter, good free throw shooter, could use both hands.
“He really was a pleasure to coach.”
Andre McClendon, a 1991 Holy Cross alumnus, lived three blocks from the Pouncys, played with Burt and against Alphonso and Corey.
“Alphonso was a great shooter,” McClendon said.
McClendon likened Corey Pouncy to Rumeal Robinson, the point guard on the Michigan team that won the 1989 NCAA tournament.
“Not a great shooter, but able with his strength to get to the hole and finish around the rim,” McClendon said.
And Burt Pouncy?
“I will go to my grave saying this: Burt was probably one of the best point guards nobody talked about,” McClendon said. “Burt was able to do a little bit of everything. (He) didn’t talk much, but he let his play make up for anything he didn’t do.”
Push-ups and sit-ups
Alphonso Pouncy teaches his sons a style of basketball that favors fundamentals over flash – to be the strongest players in the gym.
“You don’t have to be the prettiest, you don’t have to have the best handles, the best jump shot, but no one’s gonna work harder than you,” Shaun Pouncy said.
To build their bodies, before they could do anything else, the younger Pouncys had to do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups. Jakare, who also played football and basketball, said push-ups were harder, while JoJo believed they were good for him.
“Shaun always had us beat,” Jakare said. “It was kind of annoying.”
Shaun Pouncy’s senior football season ended on March 1, 2023 – he tore an anterior cruciate knee ligament early in the first round of the Ninth Region basketball tournament, a 68-62 win over Highlands.
Pouncy remembers the play: Early in the third quarter, the Jaguars’ Yamil Rondon brought the ball up court, the ball is stolen, and Pouncy chased the play, hoping to pin the shot against the backboard and prevent a dunk.
“So I tore it right there,” he said. “In the moment, I wanted to keep playing.”
Blood, fights and missed chances
Holmes and Holy Cross are just 1.2 miles apart, and in their day, the older Pouncys’ basketball games were as heated as any Duke-North Carolina contest you name.
Corey Pouncy battled in the 1991 Ninth Region finals – the Indians’ 75-73 double-overtime win over the Bulldogs at what is now Campbell County Middle School. He scored 22 points in a game that featured blood (Holmes’ JR Marshall gave Holy Cross Denny Hungler, five stitches with an elbow to Hungler’s eye), a fight (Holmes’ Lamont Hayes was ejected for punching Holy Cross’ Todd Houston) and missed chances. (Pouncy missed a 5-footer at the end of regulation.)
Shaun Pouncy would like to play both basketball and football in college. For football, he’s talked to Cincinnati, West Virginia, Marshall, Thomas More and Judson University, a Christian college in Elgin, Illinois. (He’s also spoken with Morehead State and a couple Division III schools for basketball.)
And if he can only play one sport?
“If I had to choose one,” Shaun said, “it would probably be football.”
Jakare Pouncy, a cornerback on Cooper’s state Class 5A runner-up football team, had 16 tackles in seven games last season. JoJo Pouncy plans to be on Cooper’s track team; he wants to run sprints and compete in the high jump, triple jump and long jump.
Football is JoJo’s favorite sport because he can visit any anger upon opponents; he wants to continue in college someday.
“I just don’t want my parents paying for it,” he said.
There is one more wish: for Shaun, Jakare and JoJo to play basketball at the same time – which hasn’t happened yet.
“I think it will happen,” Shaun said.