THE

LEGEND
OF
WHITBURN
COUNTY
By Joseph Houk

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© 1999, 2000, 2006, Joseph Houk. All rights reserved.

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 I just want to go on record right now, in front of God and
everybody, that I never, ever planned it to wind up the way it did.
Things just happened.
In the end, though, I'm glad it all worked out.
See, Jared and I always wanted to play basketball. He was too
skinny and I was too short for football, and neither one of us could
throw or hit or run very well to play baseball or track.
There were endless nights playing half-court in the driveway of
Jared's family farm, shooting hoops until his mom finally flashed the
outside light to let him know it was time to come in. I would take a last
shot, he'd grab the rebound and score. We'd say our good-byes, then
I'd walk down that driveway, cross over State Highway 58, and then
take the slow walk up to our farmhouse on the other side.
That was how we grew up. We did that for years and years. Then,
when I was in eighth grade, things started to change. And the next five
years of my life would be completely different.

The first thing that happened was the farm. My mom had died a
few years before, and my dad had to sell off some of our cattle to make
ends meet. Jared's parents had helped out in that respect. However,
two things happened simultaneously (almost, I don't know which
happened first): my dad met Mary Lee, and we started having flooding
problems on the farm.
Mary Lee lived in the city of Whitburn. Whitburn was the county
seat of (surprise, surprise) Whitburn County, but in realistic terms, it
wasn't much of a city. If I remember my civics courses right, Whitburn
had a population in the last census of 8,343. It was the largest city in
the county, mostly because Whitburn County had only 28,000 or so
people in the entire county. Anyway, my dad fell in love with Mary Lee,
and they were married in our equipment shed (basically, a barn with
aluminum siding and a concrete slab that could house three tractors
and a combine).
We were going to have the wedding outside on the side lawn, but
in late April we had an absolutely torrential downpour that flooded
part of our planting area and the entire side lawn. After it had dried up
a bit, we discovered that the rain had eroded part of the soil in the one
part of the crops, and had actually opened an underground spring.
Pretty soon, a good twenty percent of our farm was a huge pond.

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 The problem with the flooding led to an obvious decision: We
were going to have to sell the farm. My dad sat down with me,
explained what was happening, why we had to do this, and all the
reasons why it was going to be all right. We would move to Whitburn
with Mary Lee, who owned a house given to her by her parents, the old
family homestead.
It wasn't bad living in Whitburn – a lot of my friends lived in
Whitburn, actually, and it was a really nice house – but it was the
other thing that happened that really affected me.
You see, the entire county is one large school district. There are
four different elementary schools, Kindergarten through 8th grade, and
then there were two High Schools. One was for the southern part of
the county (Thompsonville High School, the "Fightin' Tigers"), the
other was for the northern part of the county (Whitburn High School,
the "Panthers"). They always were a little loose on which school you
went to, though. The rules stated that wherever you went to
elementary school for eighth grade was where you'd go to High School.
Jared and I both went to Plainview Elementary, located in Plainview
(which was exactly halfway between Whitburn and Thompsonville).
My dad knew I wanted to still go to Plainview, so I could go to
Thompsonville High with Jared. I still was enrolled at Plainview, and
because of the rules, I'd have to stay where I was, or I'd end up going to
Whitburn. So we worked out this arrangement with Jared's parents
where I'd stay with them during the week, help out with chores and
what not, and on the weekends I'd go up to Whitburn and stay at
Mary Lee's house.
It actually wasn't a bad situation, since Jared and I were playing
eighth-grade basketball for Plainview, and it gave me a "break-in"
period with Mary Lee. By the time the school year ended, I was
comfortable with my new step-mom, and actually looked forward to
moving in to the house full-time. Mary Lee's daughter, Luann, was
amiable and outgoing, and we grew close over the next few years.
My dad managed to get the farm sold the first week in September,
exactly three months after he got remarried. We had a big moving day,
and Jared helped me move my stuff in to his family's back bedroom,
and then he and his dad helped us move our stuff up to Whitburn. It
was a beautiful day, right in the middle of Indian Summer, and
everything looked like it was going to be all right.
Or so we thought.

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 Now, I'll admit that I didn't hear much about what was going on
with the Whitburn School District. I knew that they were building a
second campus, right next to the existing Whitburn High School
building. And I kinda knew that Thompsonville High was dwindling
in numbers, but Thompsonville had always been the smaller of the
two county high schools.
I'd only been staying with Jared's family for a few weeks when his
dad told me that there was a big school board meeting scheduled for
the first week in October. The board had a new chairman – Mark
Petroski – who had gone to Morgantown State University, the biggest
college in the state, for his Ph.D. in Education. He had all these ideas on
how to improve things, and finally, in the last round of School Board
elections, he had managed to get elected to the chair. The old school
board chairman, Christian Wilson, had died of a heart attack after
serving on the board for something like 40 years.
Everyone thought that the big school board meeting was going to
be about renaming the elementary school in Whitburn after Wilson.
My mom had been good friends with Mr. Wilson, and had even
worked under him when he was both school board chair and principal
of Whitburn Elementary.
What actually happened was a shock. I watched it at Jared's house
on the cable access channel. Petroski opened the meeting by making a
statement that there were going to be some changes in how the school
district was going to operate. First, he said, he had found a way to pay
for the cost of the new addition to Whitburn High, and still have
finances left over to keep the district well in the black financially.
This was greeted by applause, since the district had always been
close to the financial edge for the last several years. When he explained
how he had done it, thought, the applause turned to shocked gasps.
"The District," he stated, "has entered into an agreement with the
Diocese of St. George's Catholic Church in Thompsonville, and with
Riverton Developments, to sell the buildings and land of
Thompsonville High School. The original main building of
Thompsonville High will be sold to St. George's, for the purpose of
opening a Catholic School; the newer building will be sold to Riverton
Developments for the purpose of building a retail and office center."
Then Petroski dropped the bombshell – "Since Whitburn High
School will have double the capacity for the next school year, all
students grades 9 through 12 in Whitburn County will go to Whitburn
High, starting the next academic year."

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 "WHAT???" screamed Jared's dad at the TV set. Jared and I just
exchanged blank looks.
Petroski, oblivious of Jared's dad's ranting, presented the proposal
to the board. Then, one of the other members – I think he was the
financial officer – called for a vote on the proposal. There was a massive
outcry from those observing the meeting in Whitburn. The voice vote
on the issue, not surprisingly, was 5-4 in favor. All five votes for the
measure were from Whitburn-based board members; the other four
were from Thompsonville.
"So approved," Petroski gaveled on the table. "The proposal will be
put forth on the November ballot for final approval by the entire school
district."
And then, after all the noise had died down, did he announce that
the Whitburn Elementary School would be renamed for Wilson.
Jared's dad went ballistic. He started cursing left and right at
Petroski.
He had a good reason to curse. See, something I didn't tell you
about Jared – his last name is Thompson. His great-great-grandfather
was the man who Thompsonville is named for. His great-grandfather
was the mayor who built Thompsonville High School. And his uncle
was the current mayor of the city (his grandfather never went into
politics – he was a farmer whose land Jared and his parents lived on
today).
When the phone rang, Jared knew instantly who it was. "Uncle
Jerry," he said without missing a beat as he grabbed his coat and a
basketball. He motioned for me to come with outside – he knew that
we wouldn't want to hear all the cursing and swearing.
Jared's dad and his uncle talked on the phone for a long time. I
know they were, because when we came back in, he was just hanging
up the phone.
"It's settled," his dad told Jared. "If this measure passes, you're
going to St. George's School."
I asked him if he knew whether or not the measure would pass.
"It'll pass," he said bluntly. "There's too many people in Whitburn
who would rather consolidate the entire school district instead of
paying to send half the county to a smaller high school." He sighed and
shook his head. "We'll talk about it more in the morning, Jared. Why
don't you and Billy get your homework done."

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 As the weeks went on, it was clear that Jared's dad was right. Too
many people in the northern part of the county wanted the cost
reductions; a poll by the Whitburn Intelligencer projected the measure to
pass with a 60 percent approval. It wasn't quite that big. The measure
was passed by about 3,000 votes, with the approval only topping 9,000
votes.
But it was settled. Thompsonville High would no longer be a
public high school. Saint George's, which to that point had run a small
elementary school out of their parish hall, would actually have room to
expand their classes.
The change was going to affect a lot of things – most of all, the
Northern Lakes Athletic Conference. The conference was an eight-
team conglomerate of high schools from the four counties around
Whitburn – Woodfield (Woodfield and Newsburg), Shoreland
(Shoreland and Oxford Lakes), Chemequon, and Marshall. The
Conference was aligned with the state High School Athletic
Association, which was strictly for the public schools in the state.
Private schools were in the Inter-Scholastic Athletic Association.
In December, just as we were starting our eighth-grade basketball
season, the ISAA and HSAA came to an agreement to allow the
Northern Lakes Conference to keep St. George's as a member. It made
sense, since there was only one other private school in the five-county
area – St. Michael's in Woodfield, which was a good two hour drive
away, and they didn't have an athletic program. The ISAA announced
that the new school would only be allowed to play in their state
tournament if they qualified for the conference tournament. The
HSAA, however, stated that if St. George's qualified for the Northern
Lakes Conference tournament, they would not be allowed to play,
since the winner of the tournament automatically would advance to
the HSAA state tournament.
Jared's dad still was insisting that he'd be going to St. George's.
For the first time since we were in first grade, we'd be going to
separate schools. At the end of the school year, I was going to move up
to Whitburn with my Dad and my step-sister Luann.
I was feeling sad about it, but Luann (who was two years older
than me) agreed to drive me down to see Jared on a regular basis. I
found out later that Luann actually had a crush on Jared's older
brother, Jerry – something that was confirmed when they got married
after I graduated from Whitburn.

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 Basketball was a pleasant distraction during this tumultuous time
in my life. It was basketball that had helped me through the pain of
losing my mom years ago, and it helped me again in this whole
whirlwind of changes. But there was something that I noticed as I
played endless one-on-ones with Jared – he was getting better and
stronger and faster.
The year my mom died, I had a decided advantage on him in
ability. I could shoot; he couldn't. I could hit those outside jumpers,
where he was having trouble laying it in on me. He kept working,
though. When we played a pickup game with me and a few of my
cousins before the wedding, he put moves on me that were just
incredible. He head faked, drove, pulled up and put a little jumper right
in, nothing but net. He did a few other things to me, like nailing an
outside 20-footer, even hooking one right over me. Now, I knew he'd
grown faster than me (he was already 5-foot-11 when we entered
eighth grade; I was only 5-4 on a good day), but he finally realized that
he could outmaneuver me. My cousins were making comments, like,
"Billy, I thought you were a better player than this!" And "Jeez, Billy,
where'd you find this guy, the NBA?"
I didn't think much of that game until Jared, Jerry and I entered in
this three-on-three tournament down at Lakeside. Lakeside Tech was a
NCAA Division II school that was big for its basketball, and they were
sponsoring this tournament. The premise was that Jerry (who was
going to be a senior at the new St. George's High that year) was going
down to Lakeside Tech to check out the campus, since Jerry wasn't a
bad basketball player himself. Jerry also knew we'd be able to test
ourselves against other players throughout the state.
Jared and I were the youngest kids in that tournament. The
bracket we were in was open to anyone 14-18 who lived in the state,
and there were some kids who played for the best teams in the HSAA.
We took them all on, and kept winning and winning and winning.
Finally, we went up against the only other undefeated team in the
bracket, a threesome from Riverton (the largest city in the state) with
two players from Riverton North and a kid who was the only other kid
close to our age – Mitch Jordan. The two older kids would end up
going to Morgan State University (the NCAA Division I powerhouse in
the state). In that game, though, we just demolished them. They kept
waiting for Jared to dish the ball off to Jerry inside, leaving him wide
open at the three-point arc. He nailed about three treys before they
started getting in his face. Then he just started dishing it to me and to

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Jerry, and pretty soon we were up by about a dozen. We won the
game, then defeated the winner of the consolation bracket game to
take the tournament title. One of the organizers was the head coach of
the Lakeside Tech basketball team, and he asked Jared how old he was.
When he told him he was only 14, the coach's eyes popped open wide.
"Kid, keep your grades up," he told him. "You keep playing like
that, and we'll definitely find you a place at Lakeside Tech."
Jerry told me later that while he was talking to the coach about
possibly coming to LTU, he kept saying, "That brother of yours could
start for me right now. That's how good he is."

My freshman year at Whitburn was interesting, to say the least.

Some of the classrooms in the new building hadn't been completely
finished when we started school in late August, so I had some of my
classes in the cafeteria. They sectioned off parts of the cafeteria with
these cubicle-type walls, and you'd hear one class talking about algebra
and equations while another class was talking about the Punic Wars –
and yet another class was listening to a French-speaking lesson from a
videotape. It was distracting, to say the least.
Making the basketball team looked like it was going to be hard
sailing – there were at least thirty kids there for the tryouts in late
October. Whitburn, however, had lost five seniors to graduation, and
two of the junior players from last year were academically ineligible
after flunking two classes last year. That left the head coach, Roger
Mason with one senior, one junior and four sophomores with a total
number of seven games played between all of them. The JV was even
worse – all of the players on the team had been freshmen, and they
went 0-14 on the season. Half of the JV from last year weren't coming
back (some of them because they just couldn't, or didn't want to, play).
So there we all were, thirty guys wanting to take 13 spots on the JV and
varsity roster.
Half of the players were from Thompsonville, who had maybe one
decent player and a lot of so-so players. Thompsonville hadn't played
in the Northern Lakes tournament in over a decade, and last year had
only two wins on the season – one against a non-conference team from
Oxford Falls, and the other against Whitburn.
During the tryouts, I made a good impression on the coach by
nailing a few treys and doing some quality driving down the lane. I
even tried to dish a few passes out for shots, but the guys on the
receiving end either dropped the ball or missed the jumpers. At the end

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of the tryout, he rattled off the names of 15 guys who would be back for
varsity practice on Friday. I was on that list.
I was so excited, I talked about it all the way home with Luann.
She was happy for me, and so were dad and Mary Lee. After dinner, I
called up Jared and told him the news. He wasn't as happy, though.
"You remember we thought Coach Halvorsen was going to stay on
as the coach here at Thom… Saint George's?" he told me over the phone.
"Well, turns out Halvorsen only stayed on to collect his pension. The
team's going to be coached by some guy named MacGwire. He's got a
policy that says no underclassmen will play on the varsity team."
MacGwire, apparently, didn't know his head from his posterior
region. Jared tried his best to show off his talents during the drills, but
after MacGwire laid down his policy about underclassmen before even
starting the tryouts, Jared's heart wasn't exactly in it.
"He didn't want me to come back for practice, but he only had 21
kids there, besides me," he told me. He told me that I had to improve
my game if I wanted to play. Improve my play! This guy never saw me
play, dammit! He doesn't know crap about anything. I asked him if he'd
seen any of the YMCA 8th grade league games in Thompsonville – he
didn't even realize there was a YMCA league!
Jared and I had played in the YMCA boys 8th grade league. There
was no state-wide association for elementary school basketball, so we
had to play in the Thompsonville YMCA league. Jared had just torn
things up on occasion – I seem to recall a 50-point night once – and
Halvorsen had seen it and liked what he saw in Jared.
We found out later that Halvorsen was forced out as coach at the
new Saint George's for one very significant reason – he wasn't
Catholic. Shaun MacGwire was not only Catholic, but he was a Notre
Dame graduate, with a Masters Degree in Coaching. He probably was
looking to eventually take on a coaching job at St. Mary's Immaculate
University in Riverton, if their coach (Roger Mayers) ever retired. He
didn't have time for a kid's league in a podunk town.
Jared was so caught up in his furor over MacGwire that he never
did ask me how I did in my tryouts. It's a good thing; he probably
would have never spoken to me again if he had found out just then.

I managed to stick with the Whitburn varsity as a freshman, but I

didn't really get into a whole lot of games. The varsity had gone 10-10
the year before, but we were going to be lucky if we won four games

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this year. We won two non-conference games, one with Oxford Falls
and another with Washura. Washura had a two-hour bus trip, and
were physically wiped when we whipped them, 85-14. Unfortunately,
it was something they wouldn't forget when they beat us at their
fieldhouse the next week… and the next six games we played against
them. We hit the conference schedule, and couldn't buy a win.
MacGwire refused to schedule Whitburn until March, for some
slightly irrational reason, so we played everyone else in the Northern
Lakes conference – and lost. By the time we faced the St. George's
varsity, we were 2-16, and in last place in the conference.
As the year went on, Jared talked about how MacGwire constantly
ranted about life in Thompsonville. He didn't like the IGA store, he
didn't like Marty's Hardware – he didn't even like the Hardee's
downtown. His poor attitude showed in the amount of time he spent
with the JV team – which was next to nothing. He let his basketball
manager run JV practice in the small gym of St. George's while he ran
the varsity practice in the Fieldhouse.
This wasn't so bad – the manager, Jerry White, was a buddy of
Jared's, and Jared essentially ran the practice. Those nine guys started a
little slow, but pretty soon they had an 8-4 record in conference games.
The varsity was at 4-14.
The stage was set for the county championship – which was about
all it was going to be for, since both schools were out of the running for
the fourth spot in the conference tourney. Whitburn went to
Thompsonville for their first game against Saint George's – and I was
the starting point guard. Coach Mason liked how I'd come off the
bench and shoot the bombs, and our regular point guard was hurting
with an ankle injury.
It was strange to go into the Saint George's Fieldhouse. Where
they used to have the "Fightin' Tigers" logo of Thompsonville on the
wall, the sign now said "Crusaders".
I wish I could say that I had a great night, scoring left and right,
and we went on to beat Saint George's. But that night, the 2nd of
March, was the worst night I ever had in organized basketball. I took a
shot from the perimeter with a defender trying to block the jumper,
and when I turned to go back up court, our legs got tangled and I went
down in a heap. I ended up twisting my ankle, having to go to
Thompsonville Medical Center to get it checked out.
Jared, meanwhile, had lit up our JV with a 42-point game, as the
Crusader JV beat them, 56-24. He went along with me and my parents

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when I had to go to the hospital. After they put a soft cast around the
ankle to immobilize it, we heard that St. George's had won, 58-42. To
that point, I'd been averaging about 17 points a game, so it didn't take
too much to figure out that things might have been different if I had
been there – and I said so to my parents.
Jared, of course, took the air out of my balloon when he heard that
– "Yeah, but if I was playing for Saint Georgies, I woulda scored 30
more and we'd have beaten you 88-59."
The ride home was quiet after that.

The season ended three days later when the Crusaders came up to
Whitburn and pulled a repeat performance, winning this time 60-43.
As time went on over the spring and summer, the memories of that
painful night would diminish – mostly because of a friend of Luann's
who set Jared and me up on a date for the Spring Formal.
Their names were Katie and Tamara Williamson. They were
twins. Katie was a smart, serious type; "Tam" was a flighty, spur-of-
the-moment type. Tamara was my date that night, and Katie was
Jared's – but by the time the night was through, it was apparent as to
who liked whom.
I was drawn to Katie right away. She was able to talk about things
from state history to national politics to whether or not professional
sports athletes made too much money. We hit it off after Tamara went
to talk to her gobs of cheerleader friends at Whitburn, and Jared went
with her to talk to the jocks he knew that were with the gobs of
cheerleader friends. Jared wasn't exactly shy about showing his
appreciation for Tamara, either.
About halfway through the night, the two of them went off to the
ladies' room to "powder their noses." Jared and I discussed how much
we liked each other's date, and we made a decision – we were going to
switch, right there. Just like changing defenses, from the zone to a
man-to-man.
What we didn't know at the time was that the girls had made the
same decision in the restroom. When they came back, they told us that
they were switching dates. Jared and I looked at each other, and we
didn't exactly argue.
That night was the start of a great relationship. We spent most of
the rest of our high school days with each other, the four of us as some
wandering band of basketball crazy, fun loving kids. It was one of

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those relationships that would last a lifetime – and it would,
eventually. I don't think I'm giving away the ending to the story when I
say I married Katie and Jared Tamara later on.
Our sophomore year was a good one. The highlight of the year was
when Jared and the St. George's JV basketball squad arrived in
Woodfield for a game in the middle of December, expecting to play a
JV game. Instead, they saw the Woodfield varsity squad coming out
onto the court. Apparently, MacGwire had scheduled the St. George's
Varsity to play down in Riverton against St. Mary's Prep, assuming
that the game against Woodfield would be for the JV teams. The
Woodfield coach didn't understand that to be the case, and told Jared
and the kids that the varsity game would be forfeited if they couldn't
get a team there.
Jared called down to Riverton, but couldn't get a hold of
MacGwire. He suddenly had a thought – he asked Woodfield's coach,
Rod Maryland, if he knew of any ISAA rules against playing two games
against two teams on the same night. Apparently, there wasn't, and
Jared talked to the guys on the JV team: "Let's play them both. What
the heck."
So, without a coach, and with only a manager and team statistician
to oversee the team, the St. George's JV took on both the Varsity and
JV squads of the defending conference champion Woodfield Eagles.
The JV game was shortened to only 16 minutes by agreement, so the St.
George's team could rest between games. The St. George's squad won,
40-24, in the reduced time. Jared scored 32 of the 40, and it was the
JV's fourth win on the season.
Then, they came out for the varsity game. Tam told me about it
later, since she came to pick him up after what she thought would be
his only game of the night. The Crusaders won the opening tip, and
from there on out it was all Jared. Jared started hitting threes like no
one's business, and they played a tenacious defense that held
Woodfield to a mere eight points in the first period. Jared had 12 points
in the first period, but Woodfield would double-team him in the
second period. The Eagles scored twice to take a 13-12 lead halfway
through the second period.
Jared called a time-out. The team went to the bench, and Jared
told his teammates to screen him for a shot at a three – but "take your
time," he told them. The Crusaders went out and did just that. He
waited for the screen, they got a mismatch with about 10 seconds to go,
and then he lofted up a perfect 20-footer that swished through.

13
Woodfield tried to get a quick basket, but their last-second shot of the
half missed, and the Crusaders had the one-point lead at the half.
St. George's got the ball on the alternating possession rule at the
beginning of the second half. They never turned it over. The Crusaders
did launch "two or three shots," according to Jared, but they came
down with the rebound and worked it over again. Jared took a last
second shot, got fouled going up for score, and went to the line to
shoot two. He calmly sank both to give the Crusaders a 17-13 lead.
The Eagles got the ball at the start of the fourth period. They ran
the ball down, and Miguel Gonzalez, their star forward, hit a trey to
pull them within one. On the next trip down for the Crusaders, as soon
as Jared touched the ball they cleared out, setting Gonzalez on the low
post trying to funnel Jared in to him. Jared faked as if he would drive
the lane, pulled up and shot a three from the top of the key to make it
20-16. Gonzalez drove in on Jared on the next possession, took a shot
that missed but drew the foul. Amazingly, it was St. George's first foul
of the entire game. Gonzalez sank both free throws to pull the Eagles
within two.
The Woodfield coach decided at this point that he had enough. He
yelled, "PRESS!" to his team as the Crusaders in-bounded the ball. They
did, and picked up four straight fouls against Jared, putting them on
the edge of the bonus. Jared then in-bounded to teammate Chris Smith,
who had the ball stripped from him and taken in for an easy lay-up. Tie
game at 20 with under three minutes left.
Jared called for another time-out. He told his teammates to try to
clear out, he was going to drive it, see if he could get the basket and the
foul, and then they could try to play for the last shot. He got the in-
bounds from Smith, and the rest of the team dutifully cleared out. He
drove down the lane, got hacked on the arm as he went up – and the
ball still went in. He went to the line and calmly sank the bonus.
Woodfield responded by marching the ball down court, giving the ball
to Gonzalez on a perfect screen, and sank a trey to tie the game again at
23, with just under two minutes to go.
Jared walked the ball down the court, thought for a second and
surprised everyone when he drove in, took the shot and scored to take
a 25-23 lead – with a minute and a half to go.
His teammates were screaming, "What the hell are you doing?" (I
can imagine some of the priests taking in the game weren't too happy
with that, but it was the truth). Then, they watched as Jared then
stepped right in front of Gonzalez as he walked the ball down, making

14
him fall down. Second personal, second team foul. Before they could in-
bound the ball, he called another time-out.
"Foul them," he said. "We've got 85 seconds and three fouls to give.
Don't let them near the basket. If they get to the line, we get the ball
and the last shot."
He was prophetic. Smith got nailed twice reaching in on the ball
holder. Point guard Terry Martin then got called for a foul trying to
knock the ball loose. All of it done within twenty seconds. On the in-
bound, Gonzalez took the ball, and with Jared guarding him, drove to
the basket. Jared got knocked down, and the ball went out of bounds,
but he was called for the foul. (Tam insisted to me when she told me
about the game, "It was a complete charge on Gonzalez's part!")
Gonzalez sank both free throws to tie the game with fifty seconds to
go.
They didn't press this time, and Jared walked the ball up to the
time line. He dribbled around, handed the ball to Smith – who handed
it right back to him and shook his head, "uh-uh." Gonzalez was on him,
preventing the pass. He walked around to the top of the key, stopped,
and handed it off to Smith again. Smith came around, dribbled once
and gave it right back to him. The seconds ticked away: 15, 14, 13, 12…
Time running down, he set up. He eased back into Gonzalez,
trying to get him to commit. Gonzalez didn't bite. Then Jared faked to
his left, so solidly that Gonzalez followed, but then backed up beyond
the three-point arc and let loose with a perfect jumper that drained the
net. 28-25 with two seconds to go.
Woodfield tried to call time-out before the horn sounded, but the
ref signaled the game was over. Final score: Jared 28, Woodfield 25.
The manager took a photo of the shot Jared made, and it made the
front page of the Thompsonville Times. Hernandez was practically on all
fours and way out of position to try to stop Jared from driving. And all
28 points scored were by way of Jared.
MacGwire was not happy when he learned of the game. The
Crusader Varsity squad had been soundly defeated at the hands of St.
Mary's Prep, 53-26. He subsequently suspended Jared for two games –
instead of taking notice that Jared's totals added to the Varsity totals
would have meant a win against St. Mary's.
The ISAA made things worse for MacGwire, ruling that St.
George's would have to cancel a non-conference home game to meet
the scheduling requirements of no more than 20 regular season games.

15
 That, however, wasn't the ultimate insult to MacGwire. At the
next game, against Oxford Lakes at Thompsonville, none of the JV
players showed up for the game. Chris Smith's father gave MacGwire a
note, signed by the entire team: If Jared doesn't play, we don't play. Down at
the bottom, beneath the signatures, was an equation: 26 + 28 = WIN.
MacGwire responded in his typical manner: after a verbal tirade of
epic proportions, he told Mr. Smith that his son and the rest of the
team were suspended for two games. Mr. Smith then told MacGwire to
"go to Hell and stay there." Chris transferred to Whitburn the next day.
It got really bad during the game when some of the sophomore
cheerleaders (some who were friends with Tami) started putting
together "We Want Jared!" signs. The first time they pulled the signs
out (after Oxford Lakes' varsity team went up 12-3 after the first
period), MacGwire saw the sign, went out to the cheerleader who was
holding it and tore it out of her hands. The students booed him
unmercifully, and that was when the chanting started.
"We want Jared! We want Jared! WE WANT JARED!"
The chanting went on for the rest of the game – and for the rest of
the season. It got even louder in the first game back for the JV, when
Jared took an alley-oop pass from Davey Wilson on the first shot of the
game and slammed it through – something unheard of in a JV game.
The score was 21-0 by the end of the first period.
The game almost didn't go off, though. In the locker room before
the game, there was a near-mutiny when MacGwire announced who
was going to start – and Jared wasn't on the list. The starting forward,
Davey Wilson, started to take his uniform off. "If Jared's not starting,
I'm not playing," he told MacGwire. MacGwire then took the next guy
off the bench and told him he was starting. Same reaction. This kept
going until only one player other than Jared was left – George
Kryzniki, a slightly chubby kid who had a jumper and not much else.
"Don't even think about it" was all he had to say to coach. It would
have been Kryzniki's first start ever – and he turned it down.
MacGwire then threatened another team-wide suspension, when Jared
pulled out the ISAA rule book to the part about forfeits.
"Any school forfeiting three consecutive games for non-injury or
non-academic reasons shall be subject to an audit by the Association,
with a mandatory suspension of the school's program in that sport for
a minimum of two seasons," he read. He then looked up at MacGwire,
smiled briefly and put the book down.
MacGwire stomped out of the locker room into his office.

16
 At the end of the season, it had become painfully obvious that
MacGwire had become an out-of-control maniac when it came to
coaching. The school principal, Father Michael Parrish, decided only to
relieve MacGwire of his duties as athletic director. The St. George's
long-time football coach, Dante Gerrold, re-took the job.
Word of how badly MacGwire handled kids got around, though,
and not a single returning player wanted to play for him their senior
year. MacGwire had a total of 10 players – including Jared. Apparently,
he tried to convince Gerrold that he could have a JV and a Varsity team.
It was some cockamamie scheme that would have the three froshes and
the two sophs play JV, while all five juniors would play varsity. He'd
take two guys from the team not playing and put them on the bench.
Gerrold talked him out of it, and gently suggested that he simply take
the 10 players he had and play them all on the varsity squad. Marshall
wasn't fielding a JV team that year, either, so there wouldn't be a
scheduling problem.
Now, I know what you're thinking – the ISAA rule above stated
"scheduled" games. If no JV games were ever scheduled, the rule
wouldn't apply. The ISAA ruled as much on the subject, and St.
George's started the season with its first varsity team to include
underclassmen. Considering that St. George's had only played two
seasons, of course, this wasn't much of an accomplishment.
The response by the team was to roll out to six straight wins, the
last being the opening game of an eight-team invitational down in
Riverton. They then lost the semifinal against Riverton Tech, and got
whomped in the consolation game by Riverton North. Mitch Jordan of
North just embarrassed Jared, pumping in 42 of North's 60 points and
holding Jared to only a dozen.
When they came home, it got worse – Jared pulled a leg muscle
against Woodfield early in the game, and sat out the rest of the game
and the next one against Oxford Lakes. St. George's lost both of those
games. When Jared came back, they ran off a seven game streak, never
winning a single game by less than a dozen. Jared racked up five 40-
point games, and never scored fewer than 31 in any of the seven games.
I was up-close and personal for the last win. All this time that
Jared had been going through his soap opera at St. G's, I was having a
half-way-decent career at Whitburn. The team had been mediocre in
my freshman and sophomore years, but with all the turmoil at St.
George's, we were starting to get the pick of the basketball crop in

17
Whitburn County. Where the best players in the county tended to
split between the two schools, now most of them were ending up with
Whitburn. All of them, that is, except for Jared.
Anyway, the Crusaders wandered into our fieldhouse with us
leading the conference by a game over Woodfield and St. George's. It
looked like we'd be able to keep up – we were tied after the first period,
and down by only two at the half.
Jared, however, caught fire in the second half, and they just ran
away and hid from us. Jared came within a point of setting a
Thompsonville / St. George's record for scoring with 49 points against
us, but MacGwire took him out of the game with a minute to go and
the Crusaders up by 18.
MacGwire said immediately after the game to the radio announcer
on WHIT that it wasn't because of any grudge or anything, it was just
because he didn't want Jared to get hurt, with key games against the
top four teams in the conference coming up over the next week. Jared
didn't argue, however – and he got a standing ovation from the fans
when he sat down. Everyone in Whitburn County knew about Jared
Thompson.

What happened after the game I heard from three different

sources: both of the individuals involved, and from Katie. From what
each of them told me, I pieced together that this is pretty much what
happened:
Before the game, Jared and Tam got into an extended discussion
(read: argument) about who was going to win the game. Tam told
Jared that "Billy and Whitburn are gonna kick your butt." Jared, being
the type of person that he is, responded with, "Wanna bet?"
And that was what started the whole thing. I noticed when we
were leaving the court at the half, Tam had made a pantomime in the
general direction of Jared that looked like she was driving a car. It
turns out that that was what Jared's side of the bet was: If Whitburn
won, he would have to drive Katie all over the place for the next week.
And Katie was a very active girl.
That was incentive alone, according to Jared, to step it up a notch.
Turns out, however, that wasn't the real incentive. Jared and Tam had
been getting hot and heavy in recent days, which I already knew.
Apparently, Jared bet her that if St. George's won, she'd have to "put
out" for him.

18
 That night.
Katie filled me in on the details after that: The new Whitburn
Athletic Center has a strange setup, since the old Fieldhouse was
originally North of the current Fieldhouse. The locker rooms used to be
where the new pool is located. From what I understand, during
construction they decided not to connect the building where the pool
was being built with the Fieldhouse construction. After the foundation
was laid, it was realized that there was a 10 foot wide gap between the
wall where the pool construction ended and the Fieldhouse began.
This wouldn't have been a problem, if the locker rooms weren't
supposed to be connected. To remedy this, they built a hallway
between the two buildings, ending at pool maintenance room. The
problem didn't become apparent until the interior was finished – to get
from the showers connected to the pool to the locker rooms, you had to
walk across this hallway.
To complicate matters, the bathrooms were closest to the hallway,
with the coaches' offices on the side closest to the lobby of the
fieldhouse, which was on the East side of the building.
Apparently, Tam got up and left when we were down by 20 with
four minutes to go. She had planned to celebrate Whitburn's win with
some sparkling grape juice with Jared – as he drove her home. She
switched to plan B. The only way you could look into the
sauna/Jacuzzi area was from the Natatorium. The door to the hall
separating the showers and the lockers (known to Whitburn students
as "Streaker's Alley") was easily double locked. No one was in the
weight room after the game, since it wasn't open on weekends, so the
likelihood of anyone seeing or surprising them was practically nil.
She sneaked into the Visitor's lockers, found Jared's locker and left
a note to meet her by the pool entrance by the Jacuzzi. He found the
note, took a brief shower, and sneaked out into the pool area. He found
Tam in the sauna, wearing nothing more than a smile and holding a
glass of sparkling grape juice.
Without going into the gory details (which none of the three
parties cared to share), suffice to say Jared took advantage of the
situation. The two of them had sex in the Jacuzzi, right then and there.
(Now, I know what you're thinking – no, Jared told me he did use a
condom.) What's amazing is that no one noticed that Jared was
missing. He had his change of clothes back by the showers, but it
didn't look like he wasn't in the shower room. Afterwards, Jared
rushed back to the shower room, hurried, got dressed and innocently
met a slightly disheveled Tamara in the lobby.

19
 Looking back on the whole thing, they essentially got away with
one. They consummated their relationship, and no one was the wiser.
It wasn't until Katie told me about it on our date on Monday night –
the first day of spring break – that my wonder as to why Tam seemed
to smell of chlorine water made sense.
Katie and I had a long talk that night, too. We decided that we
should wait until we were married to have sex. We weren't ready for
the possible "side effects" of sex – namely, kids and pregnancy. We did
have a good kiss-and-hold session, though; then we headed back to
Katie's house, where we were going to meet up with Jared and Tam.
What we didn't know was that everything was going to be turned
upside down the moment they walked in the door.

I guess I should explain my remark about "Streaker's Alley." It

came about when, in my freshman year, the first gal saw the first guy
come out of the shower with nothing on but a towel. It gradually
evolved from that into attempts by the girls to grab the towels off the
guys as they left the showers. Some of the gals were convinced that the
guys really weren't naked under the towels, and one or two of them
tried to prove it. The first time, the guy had on underwear. The second
guy didn't, and the gal chased him all the way into the guys' locker
room. That was when it evolved into gals "cutting through" the guys'
showers en route to the girls' lockers. It got to be a sort of initiation
rite for the girls – especially for the cheerleaders.
The teachers tried to stop it, but then they devised new ways of
"sneaking and streaking," as they say. Apparently, it was Tam who did
the ultimate "streak": she ran through the guys' showers, then through
the guys' lockers (away from the offices) and then out the door. Tam, of
course, never was the bashful type. Katie always contends this was
how Tam ended up as captain of the squad; Tam downplays it as
"coincidence."
Anyway, the same night that Katie and I were talking about life,
Jared was at basketball practice. (St. George's wasn't on Spring Break
that week.) Tam was going to meet him after practice to pick him up,
then we were going to meet at her house to watch some videos. Jared
was his usual "last guy in the gym" self, shooting baskets and working
on his jumper. Coach MacGwire, his assistant and the team manager
were the only ones still left in the building.
What happened next would change the lives of a lot of people.
When Tam pulled up, she saw coach MacGwire leaving the building.

20
("I saw him get in his car and drive away," she told me later.) She
wandered inside, catching the manager as he was leaving. He told her
that Jared was still in the locker room. She then asked him if the girls'
lockers were open, since she needed to use the bathroom.
While she went into the girls' lockers to use the bathroom, Jared
was emerging from the showers next door in the boys' lockers. As he
went into the showers, Jared said that he saw MacGwire leave as he
went into the showers, but noticed that the light was still on in the
coach's office. He assumed that the assistant coach was still in there,
which he was.
Tam noticed that the locker room was laid out where the coaches
couldn't see if someone was coming in without directly looking at the
door. That was when she decided she was going to sneak in the locker
room door, "to see if Jared was almost ready to go," was her official
explanation. The unofficial explanation, according to Katie, was that
"she wanted to give him a blow-job right by his locker."
Either way, Katie sneaked in without being seen by the assistant
coach, and found Jared's locker. She nearly scared the crap out of him
by grabbing him from behind.
Meanwhile, the assistant coach is in the office, jamming away to
the radio, completely oblivious to everything and obviously unaware
that he is the only person over the age of 21 in the entire building.
Jared and Tam both contend that they did nothing just then, but
there's just barely enough of a gap in all the stories that something could
have happened. Jared contends they argued over why the hell she came
in there. Tam says that Jared told her to lay off, he had to finish getting
dressed and then let the coach know he was leaving.
They both sneaked back to the entrance of the locker room (after
he had finished dressing). He told her to get out before coach
MacGwire came back in. Tam protested, telling him that MacGwire
was gone, she had seen him pulling away in his car several minutes
before. They both saw that the assistant coach was still listening to the
radio and not paying attention to the locker room.
He then urged her towards the door, telling her, "Get out before
somebody catches you in here."
Which was the exact moment that MacGwire came through the
door. Tam turned around and was face-to-face with MacGwire.
They all looked at each other.

21
 There was a long moment of silence. Even the music stopped. That
was because the assistant coach had chosen that exact moment to
come out of the office.
"Get out of here, NOW!" MacGwire boiled. Jared and Tam raced
out the building, not even pausing to stop and listen as MacGwire
continued to rant. "You're HISTORY! You're GONE, THOMPSON!
OFF THE TEAM, OUT THE DOOR, NEVER GOING TO SET FOOT
IN THIS BUILDING AGAIN!"

Jared was expelled from St. George's the next morning, on the
"moral turpitude" clause in the student conduct code book.
It probably isn't a big surprise that St. George's basketball team
went into a nose dive after that, losing their last three games of the
season and then promptly losing to St. Michael's in the first round of
the ISAA tournament. What was worse was that this was St. Michael's
first year with a basketball program.
Whitburn didn't fare any better. Woodfield tore us apart the next
day, just as all the accusations and finger pointing started. Jared was in
the stands for our game, watching his best friend and his soon-to-be
schoolmates (since he immediately transferred after the expulsion) get
whipped by the Eagles.
It was the last year of the four-team tournament for the conference
championship, too. Back in January, they announced that six out of the
seven HSAA teams in the Northern Lakes Conference would make the
conference tournament the next season. We all suspected that the
change was made to appease some ultra-liberal in Morgantown who
wanted as many teams to be eligible for the state tournament as
possible – "to improve the self-esteem of the players."
This season, however, Woodfield walked to the conference title by
winning their last three games. Then, they won the conference tourney
by beating Newsburg (who beat us, 76-53 in the semis), and advanced
to the HSAA final four. There, they ran up against Morgantown West,
which was a basketball factory. They had at least one guy go to the
McDonald's All-American All-Star Game three years in a row. Just a
few years before, they had an alumni end up with the NBA's Atlanta
Hawks. That is how good they are. They tore apart Woodfield the way
the USA Dream Team took apart Olympic opponents. Some weren't
even as kind to compare it to that; references in the Morgantown State
Journal mentioned that the Eagles "seemed to use the defensive schemes
of the Washington Generals."

22
 Meanwhile, as you could guess, Jared was in a massive funk. He
transferred to Whitburn for two very important reasons: a.) the state
laws regarding school attendance stated that expulsion from private
schools made attendance at a public school mandatory; and b.) he had
to do it quickly or he would lose any hope of ever playing again. The
HSAA and ISAA had rules about transferring from school to school,
and in Jared's case, he would have to sit out one whole calendar year.
The one-year rule didn't apply if the move was voluntary (as in Chris
Smith's case, which meant he only had to sit out the rest of the school
year). Nor did it apply if the parents moved into the district (as in
Davey Wilson's case, when his parents moved to Whitburn from
Thompsonville – he was eligible to play for us the moment he stepped
through the door).
That summer, me, Chris and Jared went to Riverton for another 3-
on-3 tournament sponsored by Riverton State University, which had
just become a lower-tier Division I NCAA school. We lost in the
winner's bracket finals to Mitch Jordan and two other members of the
Riverton North squad. Then, we beat the winning team from the
loser's bracket, and turned around and beat Jordan's threesome by a
pair.
Only problem was, in the winner's bracket game, Jared and Jordan
had banged together going up for a rebound, and Jared twisted his
ankle. He gamely kept playing, but by the time we played our fourth
game of the day, he couldn't do much more than do the old "toreador"
style of defense (you know, "OLE!" as the offensive player goes by you).
Jared insisted that if they had just one more day, let the ankle rest,
then take them on, we could have won. This was a point well taken,
since he was fine when we finally got home the next day.

There was one last bit of justice that was served out of the
expulsion incident. Jared's younger sister, Jenny, still went to St.
George's, so Jared's dad and his Uncle Jerry (who was a trial lawyer)
brought negligence charges against MacGwire. It turned out that
MacGwire not only left his assistant in charge while there was an
underage student still in the building, but he also had no intent on
returning. Had he not stopped at the local KwikMart and discovered
that he didn't have his wallet, he wouldn't have come back to the
school at all. (That was why the assistant coach had stepped out of the
office as MacGwire came in – to hand him his wallet.) The charges

23
stuck, and he was given the pink slip as a teacher and as a coach at St.
G's. Gerrold took over as the interim basketball coach. He would
resign as AD and coach within a year.
The hearings that led to MacGwire's dismissal included testimony
from Tami and Jared. When both acknowledged that nothing improper
happened when Tami went into the locker room, the people of
Whitburn County believed them. Sympathy for Jared rose even as he
finished out the year at Whitburn. Some of the local businessmen who
were members of the Panther Pride Booster Club tried unsuccessfully
to convince the HSAA to rescind the "one-year rule" for transfer
students.
Interestingly, MacGwire managed to get an assistant coaching
position at St. Mary's Immaculate University in Riverton. When Coach
Mayers finally retired, however, MacGwire didn't get the nod as the
head coach. That honor went to – you guessed it – our head coach,
Roger Mason.

Each year, the Panther Pride Booster Club paints a schedule for the
boys' and girls' interscholastic teams, and hangs them outside the
fieldhouse at the beginning of the new sports season. The schedule for
boys' basketball was apparently altered one night, and the date
"February 27" was circled in red paint. That was the game against St.
George's – but everyone knew that it was really the day that Jared came
back. And that was the date we were all waiting for.
The wait would be a long one for both Jared and me. At the first
home game of the season, I went up for a rebound and came down
wrong on my ankle. I knew the second I landed on it that I'd broken it.
It hurt like hell, and I had to be carried off the court to the hospital.
Jared came down from the stands to help me to the cart, and even went
with me and my dad to the hospital.
The break was bad enough where I wasn't going to be playing ball
for a couple of months. It didn't help that Chris came down with – are
you ready for this? – the measles while I was gone, and Davey couldn't
take up the slack by himself. We rattled off five straight losses, then
managed to win the first game of our holiday tournament against St.
Michael's when Chris came back. Unfortunately, after the game Davey
came down with the flu, and we promptly lost to Shoreland in the
championship round. After two more losses, I was finally able to walk
without a cane or a soft cast on my foot. I went out and got high-tops
that had a Velcro strap across the top, to protect the ankle from further

24
injury. In the first game back, I scored 25 and Davey and Chris scored
21 each, and we whipped up on Marshall at their gym, 87-53. The next
game, we all scored over 20 again and beat Chemequon by 22. Everyone
at school was hyped up. Even though we were 4-9, we still had seven
games left, and four of them were at home.
The only problem was that the next game was against the team
that had won the state title two years ago, Riverton Tech. They'd lost
three in a row to Riverton North and Washura West, and were ready
to take out their frustrations on us.
It was bad from the opening tip. Chris went up to take the jump,
and the other center, Willie Green, just plucked the ball out of the air.
Two seconds later, he fired a pass to forward Marty Williamson, an all-
HSAA team member the previous season, who went up and laid it in.
He then promptly stole the in-bounds and laid it in again. We managed
to get the ball to half court, but then Williamson swiped it away from
Chris and went down for another uncontested lay-in. I called for the
no-dribble play, where we pass it up the court and try to set up a shot
on the perimeter. We got three clean passes, actually caught them
slightly out of position, and I fired a shot from behind the three-point
line. Trouble is, Green timed his leap and swatted the ball down as it
went up. The ball caromed off my good leg and shot into the stands. I
went down like a shot. The ref didn't buy it, but my leg was hurting.
Turned out that he just bruised it, but I was on the bench for the rest of
the game with an ice pack on my leg. They took the ball down the
court and scored again, and the rout was on. Tech ended up shutting
us out in the first half – yes, that's right, the entire first half – by the score
of 36-0. We actually made a few baskets on their second stringers, but
we never got within more than 40 points of them. The final score was
62-12. All 12 of our points came after halfway through the third period.
We didn't recover from that game. Woodfield promptly beat us at
home that Saturday, and three days later we lost to Newsburg at
Newsburg. On February 23, with four games to go in the season,
Woodfield beat us again to put us squarely in last place in the
conference. Marshall, who was having just as bad a season as we were,
actually beat Newsburg at Newsburg to put us one game down for the
final spot in the conference tournament.
When we got back to the locker room, there was a note on the
blackboard by the coaches' office: "MANDATORY PRACTICE
MONDAY, 11:00 PM." We all knew what it was about.

25
 The practice was on the first day of Spring Break, but no one
seemed to care much about being on vacation. We don't usually have
many people at practice, but when word got around about the 11
o'clock practice, a lot of the more supportive students showed up
beforehand – along with Tam and the varsity cheerleading squad. We
ran through some drills, but everyone knew that the real reason why
we were there so late was in the old Boys' Gym of Whitburn High
School. He was playing intramural basketball on a Monday night,
keeping himself in shape. Katie was assigned by Coach Mason to keep
tabs on him that night. While we were going through the drills, we
kept sneaking looks at the clock on the one end of the fieldhouse to see
what time it was. Everyone was getting antsy, and just about five
minutes before midnight, Coach Mason got out his cell phone and
called over to the gym.
He blew the whistle on practice, and called all the players over. He
told us that he wanted to show us something. He took out a duffel bag,
unzipped it and pulled out a brand-new Whitburn jersey. It had the
number 12 on it. We all knew who it was for.
"There's this kid who wants to play for us," he told us. "I want to
know if we should let him play on our team or not. We have room on
our team roster, so none of you have to demote to the JV for him to
play." A smile came upon his lips. "Anyone have any objections?" We all
started shaking our heads vigorously. "Then it's settled. He'll be coming
over to join us any minute."
Tam had already stationed herself over by the door of the
fieldhouse, looking up the hallway by the pool towards the main
school. "He's coming!" she shouted out. Just then, the school bell rang
to indicate it was now midnight. Jared came strolling into the
fieldhouse, arm-in-arm with Katie and Tami.
The kids let out a long cheer, then chanted, "Jared! Jared! JARED!"
Mason quieted them down for a moment, and then turned to Jared to
hand him his new uniform.
"Here you go, Mr. Thompson, you're on the team." Another
spontaneous eruption from the students. Mason quieted them down
again. "Now, as it is, you're an hour late for practice. So after you go in
there and change, you've got free throws to do." Jared shook his head as
the kids in the stands cheered him out the door.
For the next five minutes, the entire assembly started the chant,
"WE are WHIT-burn!" with the staccato claps. Jared emerged from the

26
locker room with his fresh uni's and a great big smile on his face.
Mason blew the whistle before the crowd could start up again.
"Thompson! Go up to that line and give me 10 free-throws." Mason
had a team policy that, if you were late for practice, you would have to
step up to the line and sink 10 free-throws. If you missed any of them
before you sank the 10, that was how many laps you had to run around
the court to make up for it. I remember one kid who missed 20 shots
and only made five of the free throws. After he made the fifth one,
coach just told him to go run laps until he told him to stop. The kid
collapsed from exhaustion after about 15 laps. He quit the team the
next day.
Jared knew full well about this policy, and didn't flinch at all.
Instead, he calmly went to the line and proceeded to sink one free-
throw after another. One after one, they went in like clockwork. He hit
five in a row, then six, then seven, then eight. The ninth one bounced
off the back of the rim, bounced straight in the air, and went swish right
into the basket. Everyone had stopped to watch him do this. He then
bounced the ball a couple of times, looked up, let out a breath, and
sank the last free-throw. The crowd erupted as the ball hit the floor.
The entire team went over to mob him.
Mason was still in charge of the practice, however. He was smiling
like the Cheshire Cat, but he was still in charge. "Scrimmage!" he
shouted out. "Jared, you're with White." Half of the guys went over to
the bench and grabbed red vests and slipped them over their jerseys. It
wasn't surprising that Davey, Chris and me were on the White team
with Jared.
Jared admitted he was a little tired from playing intramural ball
that night, but he was energized when he saw all the students waiting
for him in the fieldhouse. And Jared put on a show for them. Chris and
I just kept feeding him passes, and he kept shooting away and made
basket after basket. His "D" was tenacious, and when he swiped the
ball away from sophomore guard Jason Wiemer, he took the ball down
the court, launched himself and slammed the ball home with a two-
hander. I knew he could do it, but it was the force with which he did it
that energized the crowd.
At that point, Mason knew he was beat. He whistled practice
over, and told everyone to be there tomorrow night for the game
against St. George's.

27
 The electricity in the air was intense at the Fieldhouse. Everyone
knew this was it, the return of the Jared Thompson. And he did not
disappoint. He rattled off 12 points in the first period, and we
dominated against his old school, 94-28. He went for a team-high 42
points, and even Gerrold came up to shake his hand after the game. The
win put us back in a tie for the last tournament spot, but we'd have to
win our last home game of the year to clinch the tie breaker. We beat
Marshall in our previous meeting, and if we lost to them, they would
have the tie breaker of most recent win. That didn't happen. Jared had
another 40 points – in the first half. He sat out for the entire second half
as we registered our first ever 100-point game in school history, 107-53.
Davey and Chris each had 20 points, and I added 18. We didn't even
score in the last three minutes of the game, we were that far ahead.
Coach Mason put everyone in, and even Wiemer (who had warmed the
bench most of the season) managed to hit a trey for the 100th point of
the game.
The last game at St. George's was a tough one. Some of the people
in Thompsonville were still upset over Jared's tryst, and the students
even tried rattling him when he was introduced by throwing condoms
out onto the floor. Jared's response was to break the school record that
he never got a chance to break at St. George's – he scored 51 points to
lead the Panthers over the Crusaders, 98-58. Chris scored 20 behind
Jared, and actually claimed the scoring title away from Davey for the
season. He knew, however, who the real scoring leader of this team
was.
Jared felt vindicated after the game when Gerrold told a reporter
for WHIT that "Thompson is probably the greatest player ever to play
in this fieldhouse. Bar none."
The last win vaulted us into the tournament as the sixth seed. We
would have to go up against #3 Oxford Lakes in the quarterfinals, as
the top two teams got a bye in the first round. The Lakers didn't have a
chance against us, and we beat them soundly behind Jared's 38 and my
24. Two days later, we would play Woodfield in the semifinal game at
Woodfield Athletic Center, immediately after the other semifinal
between Newsburg and Shoreland. Newsburg handily defeated
Shoreland, and we went into hostile territory against the Woodfield
Eagles.
Whitburn hadn't beaten Woodfield in basketball in about a
decade at that point. But Jared, Chris and Davey all had played
Woodfield, and told Coach Mason that the way they beat them years
ago could work again. He agreed, and emphasized to everyone on the

28
team to let Jared and the St. George transfers to dictate the tempo of
the game.
What he didn't expect was how slow that tempo would be.
Woodfield was stubborn on not letting us get inside for any shots, and
they were guarding close to deny the trey. We won the opening tip-off,
but couldn't work it inside for the entire first period. Davey and Chris
took a couple of shots, but they missed and either Jared or I grabbed
the rebound and shot it back out to reset the play. The last shot of the
period we took missed, and the score was still tied at nothing after
eight minutes of play.
The Woodfield fans weren't too happy about our stalling, but
Eagles' coach Rod Maryland was getting more and more upset at his
charges. Neither team had any fouls, so Jared just suggested, "Let's let
them get into foul trouble. Maryland's gonna try to press us, we just
draw fouls and then kill them with free throws."
We went out to start the second period with Woodfield getting
the ball on the alternating possession rule. They took the ball down the
court, set up for a three on the outside with a screen that left Jose
Gonzalez (Miguel's brother) wide open. He put the shot up – and
missed. Jared came down with the rebound, and tried to wait for the
Eagles to clear out defensively. Instead, three of the Woodfield players
surrounded Jared and reached in. The ref blew the whistle for the foul,
and moved the ball to mid-court. Davey got the ball, wedged it in past
the Woodfield defender to Jared, who turned around and whack!
Another foul. Jared shot a look at the Woodfield bench at Coach
Maryland. Then he glanced over to Coach Mason, who just motioned
with his hands to settle down.
Jared looked at me, pointed to the sideline with two fingers, and
nodded. I knew exactly what he wanted to do. He slipped back to the
opposite sideline, waited, then slashed to the basket and leaped. I
launched the perfect alley-oop pass to the basket, and he grabbed it
and slammed it down. The Whitburn fans went wild.
The Eagles tried to in-bound, and Jared went right after the ball
carrier. He got whistled for the foul, and this time it was Woodfield's
turn to get the ball from center court. The pass was tipped in the air by
Davey, but the Eagles recovered the ball. They didn't rush things,
taking a page from our book. However, after two attempts at screening
out for a three and missing, Gonzalez had enough. The third time, he
took the screen and drove towards the baseline and shot. The ball
banked in off the glass, and Woodfield was on the board. We'd
managed to keep them scoreless for nearly 12 minutes, though. Jared

29
took the in-bound pass from Davey and was immediately set upon by
two Eagle defenders. Another foul, another possession at half-court.
Davey tossed the in-bound pass to me this time, and I went to pass to
Jared. Gonzalez took off and intercepted it, ran down the court and
went in for the uncontested lay-up.
Except for one thing – he missed the lay-up. The ball went clanging
off the back of the rim and back into my waiting hands. I grabbed the
ball, turned and fired a baseball pass to Jared. Gonzalez was
scrambling to get back to our side of the court, but I picked him up.
Jared drove the lane, shot and drew the foul – as the ball drained the
net.
Jared calmly went to the line and sank the free throw to make it 5-
2 with less than four minutes left in the half. Woodfield went down
the court, worked it in and Gonzalez sent up a 15-foot jumper to pull
the Eagles within one.
Predictably, the Eagles fouled us on the in-bound pass for the fifth
team foul. That was the last foul they had to give. We got the ball at
mid-court again, and Davey set up the rotation to Jared. Jared backed
the ball in, and we set up to stall. They went back into a 2-3 zone, and
tried to keep us from launching a three. Jared was patient. He knew
that we still had the one point lead. We did the stop-and-handoff play
a few times, getting the clock down to about a minute to go. The
Woodfield fans were booing us unmercifully.
Then, suddenly, with about 45 seconds to go, Maryland yelled out,
"Amoebae!" Suddenly, every Woodfield player pulled back from their
position towards the middle. Jared looked at me for a second, set up
and fired a three from the top of key. The ball swooshed through the net,
and we were up 8-4. On the in-bound play, Davey went after the ball
and hacked the Eagle player. Second team foul. We pressed them on
the in-bounds, and Woodfield Junior Tim Waterson had to call a time-
out before the five-second rule was called.
There were 39 seconds left on the clock. Coach Mason just said
one thing in our huddle – "Zone." We broke the huddle and went back
out on the court. We laid off the in-bound pass, set back in the zone,
and kept them away from the basket. They worked it around, tried to
set up for a clear-out, but couldn't do it. As the seconds ticked down,
Gonzalez tried a last-second drive to the basket, but got called for the
charge on Davey. It was the Eagles' sixth team foul, and we were in the
bonus with five seconds left. What was worse for Woodfield was that
it was Gonzalez's third personal foul.

30
 Davey went down to the free throw line, and sank both free-
throws to make it 10-4. Waterson lobbed a pass down court to
Gonzalez, who took a last-second off-balance shot that bounced wildly
off the backboard at the buzzer.
We got the ball back for the third period, and it was more of the
same. They had five fresh fouls to use, and they used them quickly. All
five of their starters had at least two fouls three minutes into the third
period. And we still hadn't taken a shot in the half. After the fifth foul,
Maryland called time-out, then put three of his bench players out on
the floor. Jared smiled when he saw these three guys. So did Davey and
Chris. I looked at Jared, sort of puzzled. He mouthed to me, "Jay-Vee!"
and put up three fingers and two fingers. It suddenly dawned on me –
these were the JV guys he and St. George's JV had beaten badly two
years ago. Jared made some hand signals to Davey and Chris, and Chris
in-bounded the ball to Jared. Chris immediately switched over to the
opposite side, where Davey had been. Both took their defenders with
them, and Jared drove the crease that opened up. Easy lay-in, 12-4.
Maryland started pointing around like a madman. Waterson in-
bounded to one of the "JV" players, and Jared just slapped the ball
cleanly out of his hands and turned and laid the ball in. 14-4. We all
came up, following Jared's lead, and pressed the Whitburn bench
players as hard as we could. I got in the face of one of them, and got
called for the reach. We kept pressing on the in-bounds play at half-
court, and one of the bench players, a tall skinny kid, dribbled the ball
off his foot and out of bounds. We took over possession, and brought
the ball in uncontested. I gave the ball to Jared, and he dribbled around
over to the right. Davey then came up, got the ball from Jared, and
executed the perfect give-and-go. Jared laid it in to put us up by a
dozen.
That was it for Maryland. He put Gonzalez back in, along with
their Senior point guard, Gary Kriesz. That didn't help them much.
They couldn't work it in, and Gonzalez got frustrated and tried to
elbow his way in to the basket. The ref called the foul, and the
recipient, Chris, went to the line. He sank both to put us up, 18-4.
Maryland sent in the rest of his starters (Marty Mathews and Abdul
Muhammad), but we were ready for them. We dropped back, and
Jared even struck a "bring it on" pose, beckoning the ball carrier to
come down the court. They worked it around, launched a three and
finally scored their first points of the half.
We had confidence on our side, though. Davey brought the ball up
the court with purpose, then passed it over to Chris. Chris dribbled,

31
worked it in a bit, then passed it to me. I worked it around to Mike
Martino, our "big man" in the middle. He made a perfect pass to Jared
in the clear, who let loose with a trey – and made it. 21-7, Panthers.
They scored once more, and Jared sank another trey before the period
was over, making it 24-9 through three periods.
Woodfield got the ball on the alternating possession rule to start
the period. Waterson made the in-bound pass to Gonzalez, who took
it up the court. And that was when things blew up for Woodfield.
Gonzalez went up for the shot and was called for a rather obvious
elbow to the face of Mike. The ball went in, and when the ref waved off
the basket, Gonzalez went absolutely freaking nuts. Mike was on the
floor, holding his nose, while Maryland was trying to restrain
Gonzalez. After a while, the ref had enough and slapped the "T" for
technical on Gonzalez. It was his sixth, so he was gone, regardless.
Two assistant coaches had to nearly drag Gonzalez off to the locker
rooms.
Coach Mason called a time out, and our trainer and some EMT's
from Woodfield Rescue Services worked on Martino. Mike got up,
with blood droplets on his jersey, and managed to walk dazedly back
to the bench. The EMT's walked him over to the side door where the
ambulance was waiting, and they took him to the hospital.
The rest of the game wasn't pretty. Jared took all four free throws
for Mike, and sank all four to make it 28-9. We exchanged possessions
and baskets, and when the buzzer sounded, the final was 42-21. Jared
had 30 points, he dished off four assists in the final period to get Chris,
Davey and me all up to four points each.
The best thing was, we were heading for the conference finals
against Newsburg.

The finals were a dénouement (that's one of those big words I got
from Katie) for us, of sorts. We came out gunning against Newsburg,
and won it handily, 56-38. Jared didn't play the last six minutes, since
we were up by 18. We were awarded the conference trophy, cut down
the nets and had a healthy post-game celebration over at Jared's place.
Best thing of all was that Mike's broken nose was healing properly.
He'd be ready to play in the State Tournament (even though we started
calling him "Jason" for his protective mask).
Then we found out who we'd be playing in the first round of the
tourney: Lakeside Washington. They were undefeated on the season, a
perfect 24-0 on the season. They also hadn't lost a single game by less

32
than eight points all season. We were ranked as the number eight seed
in the tournament, and thus drew the number one seed in the first
round. Unlike the ISAA Tournament, the HSAA didn't re-seed pairings
after each round. Instead, the winner of 1 vs. 8 played the winner of 4
vs. 5, while the winner of 2 vs. 7 played the winner of 3 vs. 6.
Lakeside had a lot of decent players, but the scary guy was Conrad
Horton. He was already an All-American player, and he had a
scholarship to go to North Carolina to play for Dean Smith. Horton
was the one who just dazzled everyone. When we went down to
Morgantown for the tournament, the State Journal listed him as one of
the top three players in the state. The other two were Morgantown
West's Barry Thomas and Jared's old foe, Riverton North's Mitch
Jordan. Not a word was said about Jared.
The tempo of the game was set from the opening tip. We got the
ball, and Jared took the ball in. Horton guarded Jared closely, but
didn't really see him as much of a threat. Jared gave him a head-fake,
juked and drove and sank the lay-in. Horton took the ball down the
court, and did the exact same thing. This went on for most of the rest
of the game: the rest of us touching the ball momentarily, then Jared
and Horton going into their game of one-on-one. The score was tied at
16 after one, then 24 after two, then 40 after three. All of the points
came from the two of them.
Before the fourth quarter, Jared pulled me, Chris and Davey aside.
"I don't know if he's got much of a supporting cast," he told us. "I'm
going to try to work the ball to you guys, then clear him out. See if you
can get around the others."
Washington took the in-bound for the fourth quarter. Horton
brought it down, and instead of finding Jared on him, I was guarding
him. He half-sneered at me, and promptly drove the basket. Jared
planted himself at the side, and Horton didn't see him. Wham! The two
of them went crashing into the Whitburn cheerleaders behind the
basket. Tami managed to catch Jared, but Horton went barreling into
the post of the basket. He stepped back, woozy for a moment, then
turned around to see the ref pointing at him.
He then walked over to the bench, apparently groggy from the
encounter with Jared. The coach hastily called a time out, then grabbed
Horton by the shoulder to try to ask him why he was leaving the game.
That was when he passed out, right into the arms of his coach.
After that, we lit up the rest of the Washington squad. We ran off
a dozen unanswered points before Washington could even realize

33
what happened. They managed to get Horton back to his senses, but he
didn't have the same effect when he went back in. He managed to get
off a jumper to get back within 10 points, but then we went on another
tear. We scored 10 more unanswered points, without Jared taking a
single shot. After we took a 62-42 lead, Jared signaled for time and
took himself out of the game. Horton seemed to think it was going to
be his time to take the game over, but Chris, Davey and me put on a
clinic, scoring another dozen points. The final score was 74-44. Horton
had scored all 44 of his team's points. Jared also scored 44 – but it was
the rest of us who beat Lakeside Washington.
Afterwards, it was discovered that Horton had a mild concussion
from the collision with the basket, and couldn't concentrate for the
rest of the game. The concussion was what eventually led to him losing
his scholarship at UNC. He apparently developed double vision, and
couldn't tell which basket to shoot at.

Morgantown West had won their quarterfinal game against

Marbury Central, and it looked like it was another case of one great
player (Barry Thomas) and 11 other guys. Jared tested that theory early
instead of late in this contest, and it became painfully obvious that
Thomas was the only offense Morgantown West had. Though the
partisan crowds at MSU Fieldhouse were vocal, Thomas couldn't
shake Jared's tenacious defense. He limited Thomas to only 12 first half
points, while we lit up the rest of the West squad for 24. Jared was
working so hard at containing Thomas that midway through the third
period, he only had 10 points. Thomas, however, was stuck at a dozen,
and would get only four more. The rest of the West squad only had
four points, while Chris, Davey and me poured it on. With a minute to
go, we were up 50-24. Coach Mason sat all of us down and put in the
reserves. The reserves promptly scored four times in the last minute to
give us a 58-24 win. Jason Wiemer scored twice, including the last
bucket on a steal of – amazingly – Barry Thomas.
We went nuts when the horn sounded. We were going to be the
first Whitburn High team to play for the state title in basketball in
school history. What's more, we were going to be going up against
Riverton North – and Jared had a score to settle with Mitch Jordan.
The joy of victory wasn't going to last long, though.

The Morgantown State Journal was the first to publish the

information about Jared's "expulsion" from St. George's. They even

34
found out that Tami was "still" on the Whitburn cheerleading squad.
They had the photo of when Jared had fallen into the crowd after
colliding with Horton, and noted that "the girl who was apparently
involved in the incident causing his expulsion was the one who caught
him."
As soon as Jared heard about this, he gave a copy of the Journal to
his Uncle Jerry. Mr. Thompson proceeded to call up the paper and
inform them that they were being sued in Whitburn County court for
libel against a minor.
The revival of the whole incident turned a time that should have
been special into one of anger. Phone calls to Tami and Katie's house
were coming from various papers who wanted to confirm the story.
Some TV reporters, including this Geraldo Rivera-like creature from
Riverton's WRTN-TV who tried to "ambush" Tami as she was leaving
for Morgantown for the championship.
Jared and I managed to find a few quiet moments in our hotel
room in Morgantown. Coach Mason and my dad had arranged that
we'd be alone, away from the throngs of reporters and other people
who wanted to grill Jared.
We talked for a long time. He told me that he was going to
propose to Tami at the graduation ceremony in June. I laughed. "How
romantic," I told him. "After all of this grief."
"Hey, why not," he told me. "She's stuck with me through this, the
rest of our lives should be a cinch."

I started this whole story by saying that things just happened the
way they did, and that I never planned for things to wind up the way
they did. Well, I never planned that we'd be in the state finals. I didn't
plan that we'd win it on a last-second buzzer-beater shot over
Riverton North.
I didn't even plan on taking that shot.
I also didn't plan on Jared not being on the court with me when I
took the shot. Jared had fouled out of the game moments before, which
led to Riverton taking the lead with four seconds left. Jordan had
contained Jared pretty well, but Jared had taken Mitch off his game at
the same time. The game was close, and when Davey lobbed the pass
down the court to me, I just tried to get a clear shot away.
It went in.

35
 I still have that photo today, showing me lofting the ball towards
the hoop, looking for all the world like Greg Louganis about to do a
jack-knife dive for double difficulty.
I remember landing on the floor, seeing the ball go in, raising my
arms in triumph, and being mauled by the entire team. I remember
having one of the nets draped around my neck like a scarf, and
squeezing Jared hard while our pep band kept playing the school song.
All these years later, the framed photo of the team around the
trophy hangs in my office. The kids look at the photo, and usually make
some comment about how goofy I looked. But then, when they step
outside the PhysEd office and the boys' locker room and look at the
Whitburn High School trophy case, they see the State Boys' Basketball
Championship trophy sitting there, large as ever.
And I can tell they are really in awe.
A voice behind me brings me back down to earth:
"Ah, Mertzen, I'd have made that shot if Jordan hadn't been in my
jockstrap all day."
And I turn to laugh at the snide remark of my boss, the head coach
at Whitburn High School.
"Yeah, Jared, but don't forget that I took that shot – and made it."
"Bet you a soda I can take you in one-on one," he says. I laugh again.
"You're on." And we both jog into the fieldhouse for another game
of impromptu hoops.
Just like old times. Just like it's always been.

36
AFTERWORD
I wrote this for a friend of mine who happened to work at the
Whitburn Intelligencer. He was from Lakeside, and I had met him when I
went to Lakeside Tech for my degree in education.
We kept in touch after we graduated, and last year, he managed to
get the position of Sports Editor at the Intelligencer. It wasn't a move
upward, but he knew it was a step in the right direction.
Anyways, once he set foot in the county, he was inundated with
stories about Jared. The people of Whitburn and Thompsonville were
still abuzz over his performance and how he was seen as the primary
force behind the Panthers' state tourney championship run. He knew
that I was a good friend of Jared, so he asked me to write the truth
behind the stories he was hearing.
So, I got on my computer and started typing away. When he read
the finished product, he raised his eyebrows a few times, and shook his
head several more times.
"This isn't a biography, Bill," he told me. "This is a legend. There's
no way all this stuff could have happened to one guy." I laughed,
because I knew it did. So that was where the title came in: The Legend
of Whitburn County.
I let Jared take a look at the story, and though he wasn't too
thrilled about the little bet that he and his future wife made back in his
junior year, he gave his approval. The story was published in the paper,
and many people involved said it was accurate. MacGwire, of course,
had no comment.
The story was chosen as a feature of our 10-year high school
reunion a year ago. So many people were influenced by Jared's life and
our state championship, and they said as much in our reunion memory
book.
There was one thing I was asked about frequently, however: What
happened to the other people I mentioned in the story? Well, I think
you know what happened with me and Jared, and Tami and Katie –
and even Luann. But some of the other people had very strange twists
of fate.
MacGwire, for example, moved out of state after he lost the job at
St. Mary's Immaculate to Coach Mason. We haven't heard much about

37
him since then – last time I heard anything, he was a coach at some
Indian reservation school in Arizona or such.
As for Mason, he's had a relatively successful run at SMI, getting
the team to the NCAA Division II title game a few years ago. Most
notably, it was Coach Mason's move to St. Mary's that gave Jared the
head coaching position here at Whitburn.
Petroski made an unsuccessful bid for the Congressional seat that
was open in the Whitburn County area. Most notably, he was faulted
for wasting the surplus over the sale of Thompsonville High on his own
salary. He managed to get a job at a political think-tank in
Morgantown, a group called Focus On Education. I get mail from them
every now and again – and it's somewhat laughable the ideological
stuff they throw in these pamphlets.
Jared's uncle, Jerry Thompson, successfully ran for County
Supervisor a few years ago. He's been one of the best County
Supervisors we've had in the county in a long while.
A couple of years ago, the ISAA, as a result of budget problems,
ceased operations as an organization. The HSAA took over supervision
of all public and private interscholastic sports in the state, and
consolidated the state team sport tournaments into separate divisions.
By doing this, unfortunately, Whitburn will never get a chance to
go up against Riverton North for a rematch of the state title game –
Riverton's high schools are classified as Division A schools, and we are
a Division B school – barely.
As for some of my teammates: Chris Smith is now an investment
advisor for Morgantown State Bank's Whitburn branch. Davey Wilson
is partnering with his dad in the family business of home building and
real estate. Jason Wiemer is in the furniture business. Mike Martino,
after his brush with Jose Gonzalez, ended up becoming – what else –
an EMT. Jerry White is the news director of WHIT radio, dabbling as a
photographer for the Intelligencer. Of course, George Kryzniki had the
last laugh on all of us – he was elected Mayor of the city of Whitburn
this past November.
And what of some of our opponents? Well, the Gonzalez brothers
are executive VP's of Save-All Foods down in Riverton. I already
mentioned Conrad Horton – last we heard he was living down in the
Carolinas, but no one was quite sure what he was doing. Barry Thomas
and Mitch Jordan both went on to play at Morgantown State, but
neither managed to get any sniffs from the NBA. Jordan is now the

38
Head Coach at his alma mater, Riverton North. Thomas is an assistant
coach at Morgantown State.
Father Michael Parrish is still the principal at St. George's, and
Rod Maryland still gets upset as Woodfield's head coach when Jared
employs the slowdown against his team. Maryland got the last laugh,
though, when Woodfield finally won a state title two years after our
run.
A few other things – the "Streaker's Alley" has been remodeled so
the hallway doesn't exist anymore. The renovation project was one of
the many reasons why Petroski was run out of town on a rail after the
election. HSAA rules now prohibit coaches from leaving the school
building while students are still under their supervision. Also, the
HSAA has eased restrictions on transfers, especially ones regarding
disciplinary actions. Essentially, if a transfer results because of
disciplinary action, and it is proven that the student did not violate any
state statutes, the student may transfer to another school without
penalty.
Our championship trophy, however, still sits in the trophy case of
Whitburn's Fieldhouse. And Jared and I still smile when we walk past
it – even if those who weren't there still find it hard to believe the
Legend of Whitburn County.

39
40