The Legend of Whitburn County

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 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 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. 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.