House Broken husband

It's hard for the average guy to relate to the media mania that is currently surrounding Jimmer Fredette, the basketball scoring machine from BYU.

I'm probably one of the few that can understand how it feels to be a big scorer in a basketball game.

After playing as a freshman and sophomore in high school, the varsity coach at Palo Verde HS didn't have the same assessment of my game as I did.

That didn't stop me from scoring. After not making the varsity team as a junior, I signed up for the high school division of the Blythe City League and formed my own team. I called the team "Jaywalker and the Pedestrians".

I recruited four freshmen and told them they could be on my team...under one condition. They had to give me the ball all the time. See the Fredette similarity yet?

It worked. After almost 45 years, I still hold the Blythe City League High School Division scoring record of 106 points in a game.

Fredette may have had his ESPN Sports Center moments for lighting up San Diego State for 43 points, but I had my moment in the sun also. My scoring splurge earned me 1/2 inch of 6 pt agate in the weekly Palo Verde Times.

I can tell Fredette from experience that fame is fleeting so he better enjoy it while he can.

I can still remember suiting up as a frosh for the PVHS Yellow Jackets. One of my most vivid memories was making the road trip to Calexico HS to play the Bulldogs.

Calexico is on the California side of the Mexican border and sits adjacent to Mexicali, a pueblo of over a million people.

I got a taste of recruiting at an early age.


 I remember playing Calexico and they pummeled us. Seemed to me that they were bigger and much more physical than we were. They also had very nice mustaches. We barely could spell puberty, let alone experience it as freshmen.

Anyway, after the game was over I remember showering and coming out to wait in the gym to load the bus and make the 100 mile trip back to Blythe.

I can still recall seeing some of those Calexico freshman we had just played, come out of their locker room and head up in the stands to pick up their wives and kids and then head back to Mexicali.

As the popular book said, all I need to know about mustaches, wives and winning basketball, I learned on the gym floor of Calexico High School.