Falk tries to match dad’s achievements

Madison County junior forward David Falk has finally taken the upper hand in at least one of the never-ending debates about basketball he engages in with his father, former Madison center Aksel Falk.

“We always used to joke that one day I might be able to jump like him,” the younger Falk said. “But now he always talks about how he wishes he could jump like me back then.”

That leaves just one more major point of contention between the two. Aksel Falk has a state championship ring — his son is currently working on getting one.

The elder Falk played on the 1977 state title squad that blew out J.J. Kelly in the state championship game and lost just one game — to Luray in the Skyline District semifinals. Falk started at center for the Mountaineers on the title squad.

His son, who averages 10.6 points and 8.2 rebounds per game for the Mountaineers, started to get a grasp of his father’s legacy shortly after he was cut from the freshman team at Madison as a 7th grader.

“Ever since then he was always talking to me, trying to push me to strive to be as good as they were,” Falk said.

The presence of Aksel’s former teammate, Mike Styles, on Madison’s staff has helped fill in any gaps for Falk on what it took for the Mountaineers to get to a state title in 1977 and what it’ll take to repeat the feat now. The recipe is pretty simple, but remains impressive to the junior.

“Coach Styles is always talking about how often they practiced and how hard they worked,” Falk said. “It’s crazy just all the stuff they went through to get there.”

Now that Madison is on a roll at 27-0 and preparing for the state quarterfinals, basketball dominates conversation at the Falk household more than it has before.

“That’s all we talk about anymore,” Falk said. “I go home and we’ll stay up late at night and just talk about it and talk about when he played. He’s so excited for me.”

Still, when things heat up during family shootarounds, the elder Falk isn’t afraid to play his trump card — at least while he still can.

“He’s like, ‘Oh, you don’t have the state championship, you can’t compete with that yet,’” Falk said. “We’re always going back and forth and arguing with each other about who was on the better team. It’s definitely pulled us a lot closer.”