Goose Creek High's basketball team honors Emanuel 9 with new uniforms

[embed-1] The Goose Creek High School men’s basketball team will play the rest of the season in uniforms that honor the nine lives lost at Mother Emanuel in June 2015.

Blake Hall, who has coached the team for the past six years, ordered the uniforms back in August. He specifically asked Nike to use the iconic palmetto dove design created by local graphic artist Gil Shuler.

“I placed that logo on the belts of two of the uniforms and on the leg of another set, all three had that logo or symbol,” Hall told CP in a phone interview.

Hall says he was partially inspired by Charleston’s resiliency in the shooting’s aftermath. His main inspiration, however, was former Goose Creek High student and basketball player Chris Singleton, whose mother Sharonda died in the church that fateful June evening.

“I thought it was like a subtle tribute to Sharonda and whatnot,” Hall said. “I was very proud of how Chris handled himself during that situation a couple years ago, and I think it sums up a lot about Charleston and the community we live in.”

Chris Singleton played in Hall’s team for two years before moving on to Charleston Southern University. He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in June 2017 and leaves for spring training in Arizona in about a month and a half. Until then, Singleton says he will stay busy with speaking engagements.

“I speak on a lot of things: forgiveness, overcoming adversity, and racial relations,” he told CP on the phone. “I just got back from a church in Florida. I’m going to University of Texas at Austin and I’ve got one in Michigan coming up soon.”

Singleton, whose brother and sister currently attend Goose Creek High, first saw the uniform when a friend sent him a photo via Twitter.

“I think it’s awesome,” Singleton said. “Me and Coach Hall are pretty close. He’s one of the people I keep in my corner. He’s very wise and a great coach. I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but I think it’s a good look.”

Hall says he plans on using the uniforms for “the next few seasons.”

Shuler, the designer, says he wasn’t contacted about this specific use, but that he did get a call about possibly using the image for uniforms at Charleston Southern University a couple years back.

“It sounds fine with me,” Shuler said. “I’m good with it. I’m glad someone’s using it.”