By Mike London
Salisbury Post
CHINA GROVE — There can be some anxiety attached to reaching 1,000 career points.
Sometimes layups roll off the rim and free throws clang as an ordinarily reliable player nears the coveted milestone, but Carson junior CP Perry, who scored his 1,000th point for the Cougars on Saturday in the Central Cabarrus gym in a victory against Mallard Creek, may have had the calmest voyage to Thousand Island of anyone in county history.
“Had no clue I was so close to it until after Friday’s game against Salisbury,” CP said. “I was talking on the phone to my sister, finding out when she would be home from Greenville (S.C.) for Christmas, and she tells me I only need 18 more points, and I’m like, ‘What!’ I hadn’t seen it posted anywhere, and it’s not like my parents were going to tell me because they worry about things like that getting in my head.”
After finding out he was close, CP didn’t have much time to get worried. After Carson survived a fierce struggle with Salisbury, the Cougars were playing again against talented Mallard Creek 20 hours later. Mallard Creek focused its defense on Perry in the second half, but he scored 20. The milestone came on a fourth-quarter free throw. He now has 1,002 points.
“Mallard Creek was the most physical game we’ve been in all season and coming as it did right after the battle we had with Salisbury, I was worn slap out,” Perry said. “This was the tiredest I’ve been since a game we played against Robinson my freshman year. Robinson put pressure on the ball and was physical with me for 32 minutes.”
Perry has had some time to recover this week. Carson had a rare Tuesday without a game, although the Cougars practiced long and hard.
“I know everyone is already talking about the Christmas tournament, wondering if we might play Salisbury again,” Perry said. “But you never know how things will work out. Salisbury is really good, but there are lot of good teams in that tournament. It’s not like it’s just us and Salisbury. West Rowan is good. Central Davidson is good. East Rowan is playing really well. Right now, all we’re thinking about is our next practice and our next game. That’s North Rowan on Friday, and North is tough.”
Perry’s father is 6-foot-3 Brian Perry, the only head coach Carson basketball ever has had. Brian gained some coaching experience as an assistant at West Rowan. He started from scratch at Carson with the 2006-07 season and weathered some rough patches as he put in the foundation for a program. He now has coached the Cougars to 238 victories, including this season’s 8-0 record.
Brian was quite an athlete at East Rowan in his day. He was the first Mustang to do some things — the first to score 1,000 points (in three seasons) and the first to play hoops for Catawba College. He averaged 10 points as a sophomore and averaged 20-plus as a junior and senior. He scored 1,172 career points and grabbed 516 rebounds. He had over 100 assists and 100 steals and blocked 64 shots. A big guard, he was a terrific defender. When he signed with the Indians, East coach Rick Roseman declared Brian to be the best player in East’s history. He chose Catawba over offers from Wingate, Pfeiffer and Queens.
Brian was a state-level youth runner in the 400, but then he learned how to high jump as one of Ed Dupree’s Faith Flyers. That feeling of clearing the bar, lying on his back in the pit and hearing the crowd roar as the bar stayed in place, was even more thrilling for young Perry than basketball.
From age 10 to age 16, Brian won the high jump gold medal in seven straight North Carolina Junior Olympics competitions. That was an era of superb jumpers in Rowan County, and Brian was among them. There were track and field meets in which he won the high jump, long jump, triple jump and 110 high hurdles for the Mustangs. As an East senior in 1991, he high-jumped 6 feet, 9 inches to break the meet record for the Rowan County Championships.
Brian overcame complex medical issues as a youngster to accomplish what he did. He earned a degree from Catawba and teaching certification from NC State. Brian’s father is Joe Perry. Brian lost his mother, Linda, to cancer (at age 47) in 1999. In 2001, UNC Charlotte graduate Lisa Haynes became Lisa Haynes Perry in a wedding on the beach.
Brian and Lisa’s children are Colbie, who scored 1,000 points for the Carson girls, was one of the stars of Brooke Stouder’s undefeated 2021 state champs and played college ball for Converse; Caden, who is known universally as CP, and Cambrie, who is a freshman on Carson’s girls team.
“I’ve been CP as long as I can remember,” CP explained with a laugh. “I had a grandpa people called CL, and I guess they wanted me to be like him. I remember a roll call, first grade, I think, and the teacher called out, ‘Caden Perry?’ I asked to be called CP. Everyone always has.”
If you had a chance to see Brian Perry play as a teenager, the things that CP does won’t shock you. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. CP jumps like a frog. What he does is soaring more than jumping. He also has a wicked first step, quick as a snake. He is what’s known in the sport as a tough cover. If you lay off him. he can drill the 3-pointer. He made eight recently against Concord. If you get in his face, he can blow by you and he can finish at the rim with a wide variety of acrobatic moves.
What CP lacks is his father’s height. The growth spurt hasn’t come, at least not yet. If he were 6-foot-3, the sky might be the limit for him. At 6 feet — “barely,” he admits — the possibilities are reduced somewhat, but there’s not much doubt he’ll be a Division I player.
He’s receiving quite a bit of recruiting interest — he was fielding phone calls all summer from App State-level schools — but he doesn’t have an official offer yet. He’s not worried about that. He figures that will happen next summer, as he prepares for his senior year. He says that the Air Force Academy is one of the schools that is very interested and he’s interested in them.
“Division I has been the dream since I was a little kid,” CP said. “I want that bad and I know how badly my dad wants it for me. He probably wants it even more than I do. I know I’ve benefited a lot from playing for him. I’ve benefited from his playing experience and his coaching experience. He’s always done everything he possibly can do to make my dream a reality. As my father as well as my coach, he critiques me a lot, at practice and at home, and sometimes I’ll get mad at him. But I always get over being mad because I know everything he does is in my best interest.”
Brian makes sure CP eats right and works out often. CP is no longer the thin kid he was a freshman. There are some muscles in his arms now.
CP wears an unusual jersey number — 55. If you’ve been wondering about that, it’s a tribute to his favorite all-time NBA player, former point guard Jason “White Chocolate” Williams. There’s some “White Chocolate” in Perry’s game, for sure, but if he throws a through-the-legs pass, he’ll probably be sitting down next to his dad for a while.
One of Brian Perry’s long-time friends is Josh Mills. Josh was a standout guard at North Rowan at the same time Brian was playing for East Rowan and went on to play at Wingate. They had sons the same age and both had expectations and dreams for them, so what came next was probably inevitable. They’d take the boys to the gym and they would compete against each other for hours growing up. Some days CP came out on top, but some days Jacob Mills did.
Jacob, also a junior at Carson, is now a sensational player in his own right. A shooting guard who can bang 3s as well as anyone in the state, he will get to 1,000 points in a few weeks. He made six 3-pointers Saturday to lead the Cougars against Mallard Creek. He has sprouted to a long 6-foot-2 and has improved his defense and overall skill set. He’ll also be a college player.
“We’re a different team this year than last,” CP explained. “Last season, we had (senior) Jonah Drye doing a lot of the ball-handling and creating shots for the rest of us. This year, I’ve got the ball more and I’m looking to create shots for my teammates as well as myself. Jacob has been a huge help because he’s become a capable ball-handler. We’ve also added two very good players to the mix this year in Will Hall and Corbin Krider.”
The third member of Carson’s core, another junior, is 6-foot-4 Drew Neve, a tough and aggressive inside-out player who looks like an ideal college small forward. Neve can dunk lobs or swish 3s equally well and he averages 17 points. CP averages 19.6, while Mills averages 18.5. You have to pick your poison when you take on Carson.
“I first met Drew playing fourth-grade AAU ball,” CP said. “We go back a long way.”
As far as school ball, CP, Mills and Neve have been an inseparable unit since they were competing in varsity ball as eighth-graders at Rockwell Christian. CP’s legend began to take shape as an eighth-grader. He had a 50-point game and scored more than 500 points that season. Neve once had a triple-double for Rockwell Christian.
The three boys began their South Piedmont Conference tussles as freshmen, and they’ve held their own. They were 15-10 as freshmen, with CP averaging 18 points, Mills 14.8 and Neve 9.0 while playing a little more than half the time.
As sophomores, they were 17-10. Mills averaged 16.2 points, with CP at 15.8 and Neve 15.7.
There is still a lot of unfinished business for the trio, as they’ve yet to win a playoff game (they’ve been on the road with tough draws the last two seasons) and they’ve yet to win a conference championship, the SPC tournament or the Christmas tournament.
This is a season when a lot of first could happen for them. And then, they’ll still have one more season.
While CP, Mills and Neve have all surpassed 1,000 career points when you include their totals from Rockwell Christian, CP is the first of the group to reach 1,000 as a Cougar. He’s the seventh in the program to reach that milestone. The career record-holder is Darius Moose, who scored 1,768 points for the Cougars. Moose graduated in 2010 and went on to play at Brevard College, when it was a D-II program.
Carson’s other 1,000-point scorers have been Jamarius Hairston, Colton Laws, Nick Houston and the Williams brothers, Tre and Jailen.
CP missed a game last season with a concussion, so he has played 59 career games for the Cougars. He’s averaged right at 17 points per game for his career. His father averaged 17.5 during his career at East Rowan, setting the school record.
CP scored a career high of 36 recently against Mount Pleasant.
He had a rough stretch earlier this season, with 11 points against Statesville and nine against West Meck before he got back on track with his explosion in a close game against Mount Pleasant.
“I was sick for a while, coughing a lot and feeling pretty terrible,” CP said. “But I’m fine now and we’re all excited about what’s in front of us.”
