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In basketball, a floor general is someone who can run the team’s offense to near perfection, and that is who senior point guard Corey Boston was throughout his four years on the LaFayette boys’ basketball team. 

Boston was a guy that ran the team’s offense, usually calling the team’s plays because he had earned that right from head coach Obadiah Threadgill.

With Boston running the offense, the Bulldogs reached the state semifinal game. When Boston fouled out with about a minute and a half left in the game, the Bulldogs’ offense completely changed.

While having stellar stats, Boston’s impact on the floor is what made him the All-Valley boys’ player of the year.

“It means a lot. It motivates me to go harder, because if I win MVP, then I’m going to keep wanting to win  MVP,” Boston said. 

Boston averaged 15 points a game and was one of the team’s best defenders, finishing with four steals a game. 

The point guard is a numbers guy. He can recite his own or a teammate’s stats from games throughout the year and previous years. To him, his 6.6 assists per game were his best stat of the year.

“I know a lot of people say that the best player is the one that scores all the points, but for me, I try to be a true point guard, being the one to get my teammates involved,” Boston said. “I was talking to Trevond [Barnes], and he told me to try and get my assists up to seven a game. 

“That was my goal and I was pretty close to it, so I didn’t care about the points.”

Even though the Bulldogs fell short of their goal of a state championship, the 2019-20 season was special. They finished with 31  wins, a program-high, made it out of Jacksonville State for the first time since the 2014-15 season, when the Bulldogs won the state championship and swept arch-rival Lanett for the first time in Threadgill’s nine years as the head coach. 

“I look at all the good things we did but I look at all the bad things too. By looking at our box scores and our stats, you might not see many bad things, but if watch it on film, you’ll see the bad things too,” Boston said. “So for me to reflect back on the season, it just helps me grow as into a better player helped me be a smarter player for next year.” 

Boston has a drive to be better. One day after losing in Birmingham, the senior was at Southern Union playing against some college guys. By the next Monday, he was back in the gym working on his craft, putting up shots and watching film. 

Boston has been one of the guys that Threadgill has been forced to turn the lights off so he will go home after practice and games. On New Year’s Eve, he was at practice an hour early working on game moves and putting up shots. 

Boston’s film studies have changed a little since he doesn’t have a next opponent in sight to break down, so he breaks down his own team’s film, watching for mistakes that could have cost them a game.

“I’m not really watching what we did well, I’m watching all the mistakes, so I can be ready to coach up around me so it won’t happen again,” Boston said. 

Boston picked out a moment in the Bulldogs’ loss to Barbour County for an example. He recited that late in the fourth quarter, Barbour County’s  De’aunjai Willaims had the ball and was able to find Javier Walker, who was wide open under the basket, for a layup to put the Jaguars up one point.

The next step for Boston is to sign and play basketball in college. 

“Right now, I’m just waiting to see how these next couple of weeks play out,” Boston said. “I’m trying to get to a couple of tryouts, so hopefully [recruitment] will speed up once spring kicks in.”

Overall his dream is to be a professional basketball player, which Threadgill tells coaches all the time that he believes will happen for the senior.

“I  know when I was younger, I used to think it would be hard to come from a place like LaFayette and play college basketball,” Boston said. “I’m one of the guys the young people in [Eastside Elementary School] look up to. If they see that I can go to college and take that first step to reach my goal, that can motivate them to do the same thing.”