A Journey Back To Prominence, With A Familiar Name

Charles Manning Jr. is living a charmed life.At 16, he’s the leading scorer for the 14-1 Bridgehampton boys basketball team. Most recently, he tallied 40 points in a win over Southold, 34 points in a win over Shelter Island, and no fewer than three monster dunks in the first quarter of a recent blowout of the Ross School.

His team is heavily favored to make its first appearance in the New York State Final Four since the heady days of 1998, when the Killer Bees won their third straight Class D state championship.

The player who led those vaunted teams to glory nearly two decades ago still attends every game—except now he’s watching from the stands, as his son dazzles the crowd, while wearing the same Killer Bees black and gold.

For Maurice Manning, there is always a powerful concoction of emotions at work when he watches his son, Charles, on the court. Because he has been there before, quite literally—in the same uniform, playing for the same coach, with the same label of “star,” and all the expectations, highs, lows and disappointments that come with it.

And he knows that charmed lives don’t always stay that way.

Bridgehampton has been on a different level than its League VIII opponents this year, winning most every game comfortably. Over the weekend, they traveled seven hours upstate in search of a true challenge, facing a pair of talented Class B schools in non-league games, where they suffered their first loss of the year in one contest and scratched out a victory in another.

Those games were in sharp contrast to a 75-43 win at winless Ross on January 23, where Manning spent plenty of quality time on the bench in the second half with teammates Josh Lamison and Tylik Furman—the “big three” for the Killer Bees—sharing jokes and smiles as they let their teammates close out the game.

Maurice Manning had a hard time watching that.

“When he laughs on the court, I’m, like, ‘What are you laughing at?’” the elder Manning said during an interview in his Bridgehampton home, alongside Charles and Charles’s mother, LaShanne Dozier, an hour after the Ross game. “There ain’t nothing to laugh at. You can laugh later.”

It might sound like the drumbeat of a typical overbearing sports father. But there’s a whole lot more to this father-son relationship than meets the eye.

Bridgie Destiny

Charles Manning Jr. has a basketball physique that college scouts drool over. He’s tall and athletic enough to dunk with ease, block shots, and mix it up in the paint, but has the kind of shooting and ball-handling skills that make him more of a natural guard. It’s not hard to picture him playing for a Division I college basketball program.

Manning Jr. does not hesitate when asked about his goals.

“I want to be in the league—I want to go to the NBA,” he responds quickly, before adding, nearly as quickly: “I want to play college ball. That’s really my dream.” He speaks openly and unabashedly about what are very lofty goals for himself and his team—anything less than a state championship, both this year and next, will be a disappointment—but he does so without a trace of the typical male teenage athlete smugness or bravado. He’s confident, but still in possession of a boyish innocence and naivety, still growing into his role as a high school hoops star, nearly as swiftly as he’s growing out of his hemline—a detail that did not escape his mother’s attention when he sat down to have his photo taken and his ankles were clearly visible.

It would seem that Manning Jr. was destined to wear Killer Bees black and gold, but it only became a reality this season, when he moved from Riverhead, where his mother lives, and into his father’s Huntington Crossway home. Ms. Dozier admits it was not an easy choice, but it’s one she has made peace with, saying that Bridgehampton High School is providing a much better environment for learning and growth than Riverhead did, evidenced by the fact that Manning Jr. is currently on the honor roll at Bridgehampton.

“It was tough at first, because he’s my baby, 16 and all,” she said. “But he’s grown even in this little bit of time. So it’s kind of bittersweet. I always knew he was smart, but he didn’t always apply himself. But I see that he wants that, and he’s working for it.”

Winning a state title, playing in college and fulfilling NBA dreams aren’t the only motivators for Manning Jr., though. Perhaps the strongest of all is his desire to make his father happy, a pursuit that can be daunting, understandably. But the feeling seems to be mutual.

“It’s big, big shoes to fill,” he said when asked about his father’s hoops legacy. “But my dad always tells me, ‘Don’t try to be like me—be better than me.’ So that gives me an extra push. He pushes me to the limit in everything. But right now, I’m just trying to do everything I can to be what he wants me to be, and to be successful for my mom and for everybody.”

Manning’s intense desire for his son to achieve the same dreams he had when he was his age, but which ultimately eluded him, is palpable. He admits that it sometimes manifests as tough love, but the emphasis is clearly on “love.”

“I’m always pushing him to the limit,” the elder Manning said. “But I love him, either way it goes. All I want is for him to do his best, and however the dice fall, they fall.”

Full Circle

For Manning, the dice did not fall the way he or anyone else expected they would when he was heavily recruited by big-time Division I schools after leading the Killer Bees to three straight state titles and earning Suffolk County Player of the Year honors as a junior in 1997.

His ups and downs post-high school were well-documented in local and even national news outlets—a failed attempt at prep school, during which time Charles was born; a disappointing hiatus from the game; trouble with the law; and, finally, a return to stardom, as he led Suffolk County Community College to back-to-back national junior college championships in 2003 and 2004.

While guiding his team to national titles was a redemption of sorts, the dominant narrative of Manning’s life has largely been one of unfulfilled and wasted potential. The newspaper clippings filed under that theme are nearly as numerous as those chronicling his on-court successes.

Making sure his son avoids a similar fate is clearly of grave importance now to Manning, as he finds himself in the position of delivering the same words of advice he received—and often ignored—at the same age. It explains why something as simple as a few laughs with teammates during just another blowout win doesn’t sit well with him.

“You can be here one minute,” Manning explains, lifting one hand above his head. “Then you can be here the next,” he finishes, swiftly dropping that hand below his knee. “It’s that easy.” He 
snaps his finger. “It’s the blink of an eye. I’m someone that actually lived that and can understand that. That’s why I’m so hard on him. I don’t want him to go through the same thing I went through.

“I look at the game like a game of life,” Manning continued. “There’s winning and losing, and you always want to stay a winner. When you’re always winning, you don’t understand what losing is all about, until you actually start losing.”

Inevitable Comparisons

The Killer Bees certainly didn’t do much losing with Manning in the 1990s, and they aren’t doing much now with Manning Jr. on the court. Comparing the two is inevitable, and there is no one more qualified to do it than Carl Johnson, who has coached both of them in his long tenure at the helm of the Killer Bees program.

“Charles’s physical attributes remind me of Maurice, and they can both play inside and out,” Johnson said. “I think Maurice was more accomplished on the inside, but Charles is definitely more athletic. Maurice’s shot was more consistent and he was more aggressive on the court.”

Differences in their personalities come through in the way they play as well, according to Johnson. “Maurice had that inner drive—he was just burning to be the best,” Johnson added. “Charles shows flashes of that once in a while. He doesn’t like to lose. But Maurice would play like that for all four quarters.”

What they all seem to agree on is that Manning Jr. is on a better path academically than his father was at that age. Manning Jr. seems to grasp the importance of that aspect of life, with constant reminders from influential people in his life, mainly his parents.

“The first thing they tell me is, school work before everything,” Manning Jr. said. “Then it’s ‘Stay focused.’ And then, one of my dad’s favorite lines: ‘Someone’s always working harder than you.’ Everything they tell me is really right, so I just try to do everything they tell me.”

The dynamic between the father and son is not lost on Johnson, who is and has been a father-type figure to both generations of Mannings.

“Maurice, as a father, he’s trying to tell him to stay on 
track, that’s what drives him,” Johnson said. “And with Charles, he doesn’t want anything 
more than the approval of his father. He might not say it, but I can see it. They both have 
that inner drive to please each other.”

A Second Chance

An early Christmas gift—that’s how Johnson described what it felt like when he learned last summer that Manning Jr. was moving to Bridgehampton and joining his team, making an already talented squad, with the one-two punch of Lamison on the inside and Furman in the backcourt, even stronger.

But Manning Jr.’s presence on the team has meant even more than that to Johnson, who spoke candidly about what it was 
like to watch the elder Manning fall short of the sky-high 
expectations that had been set for him.

“I always think about that—what could I have done more?” Johnson said. “He was focused and everything you wanted in a player, and he worked harder than anyone in practice, so I thought he was ready for that next step.

“When you look back, I was kind of devastated by it. I just don’t want that to happen to anyone else, not Charles or any player. So I have a second chance, as I look at it.”