When Go Forward Pine Bluff relaunched the King Cotton Holiday Classic in 2018, the community improvement initiative helped make the wish of a young Jada Briggs come true.
Diagnosed with liver cancer at age 9, Jada underwent chemotherapy and a liver transplant. Tasha McGown, Briggs’ mother, said Briggs was always playing organized basketball in her early years, even when she was first diagnosed.
“She had a setback after she had cancer and went through the treatments,” McGown said. “Her body just changed a lot from the different medications and stuff like that. So, she had to work herself back, her strength and everything. If you were to see her then to now, you wouldn’t even believe she was the same person. So, I feel like she had to work extra hard because, like some of the players, they played AAU, but Jada didn’t get to play because she was delayed a while.”
The next year, Tavante Calhoun, now CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Jefferson County, reached out to Go Forward, which presented her with a $500 donation and worked with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to grant her wish of going to see Russell Westbrook play for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“He’s still my favorite player,” Briggs said of the nine-time NBA All-Star now with the Sacramento Kings. “The way he plays on the court, it excites me.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
With cancer in the rearview mirror, Briggs followed through on her own hoop dreams, playing the game she loves and becoming a high school standout. Seven years after her wish was made, Briggs returned to King Cotton on Saturday as a senior starting guard for Watson Chapel, which took on Oak Grove, La., in a showcase game.
Briggs totaled eight points and three rebounds in 26 minutes, but Oak Grove — headlined by Louisiana Player of the Year Caroline Bradley — went ahead in the final minute to take a 58-55 victory inside an electric Pine Bluff Convention Center.
“That was exciting,” Briggs said. “I was nervous, being in a bigger setting, but I feel like my team, we did amazing.”
Watson Chapel Coach Lenell Brown first came across Briggs at Pine Bluff High School, where he was an assistant boys coach and Briggs was a standout player. She transferred to Watson Chapel for her junior season, shortly after Brown was hired, with aspirations of being a key contributor on a traditional powerhouse, but she endured another bump in the road.
“She played one game, and I told her, ‘Jada, this is for the betterment of you,’ and I kicked her off the team,” Brown said. “Last year I kicked her off the team because she wasn’t bought into what we wanted to do.”
Briggs explained she came from a school where she was the star of her team and had plenty of playing time, but she was coming into a team with many standouts.
“It was different for me,” she said. “I’m just now starting to be able to handle being in a different setting. Last year, I did have a problem with not getting as much playing time.”
Bringing an intense coaching style to a program that’s won five state championships since 2008, Brown has encouraged Briggs to play her game while taking his instruction.
“I’m going to do my job. I’m going to fuss. I’m going to yell,” Brown said. “But you have to listen and don’t let it hurt your game. That’s what she has done. She really bought into everything we want her to do and not try to get outside of her role. We’re just happy to have her.”
The difference in Briggs from last year to now, Brown said, is night and day. She averages about eight points per game, but Brown thinks Briggs is sometime passive in shooting the ball. (She made 3 of 8 shots from the floor.)
“I see a total, different young lady who’s thriving not only on the court but in the classroom, the community,” Brown said. “You’re talking about a 3.5 student, like she has turned it around, and I’m just so happy for her right now.”
And Briggs accomplishes things on and off the court while still working extra hard physically and mentally, according to her mother.
“For an adult diagnosed with cancer, it’s heavy,” McGown said. “But for a child that doesn’t really understand everything and all these changes in her body, it was a big change for her. I don’t know if people really realized how much her life changed, but she is a real overcomer. It is a big deal for her to go from standing there with that check to actually being able to play in the game.”
A year from now, Briggs expects to study biomedical engineering at either the University of Tulsa or University of Memphis. She hopes to design prosthetics with her degree.
“I just know I want to be able to make a difference in somebody’s life like they made a difference in mine,” Briggs said.
She hasn’t ruled out trying out for the basketball team at either school. For now, she’s living out her basketball passion on the high school court, having conquered one personal challenge after another and learning the lessons from them.
“It helped me to realize that there’s a brighter side to every situation, to what we may go through,” Briggs said. “But as I said before, keeping faith in God has helped me tremendously to push through life. Whatever is thrown at me, I know I can get through it because I have faith in God.”
