SPOKANE — One conversation with Adrik Jenkin and you’d never be able to tell what his life has been like for the last week prior to the Class 2B state championship.
He’s all of 6-foot-5 and still smiling. He’s got his classmates Gunner Brown, Brayden McNeilly, Ledger Kelly and Dillon Thompson right beside him. He’s got his younger sister — a budding basketball star herself – Allie Jenkin on the bench too. He’s got his mom, Bre, who’s been alongside the ride every step of the way.
And he had his dad, Bulldogs head coach Reece Jenkin, still in his head coach chair. Although it was only a picture frame, his quarter-zip jacket on the chair and his shoes on the floor, Adrik knew.
So did the rest of the Colfax community.
“I know he’s feeling really good up there right now. He’s not so nervous and he’s very relieved,” Adrik said. “I know he’s pain free. I’m doing good knowing he’s doing good.”
Colfax overcame the biggest loss to complete a season where it never lost.
The top-seeded Bulldogs went 27 up, 27 down and a celebration made for television in beating Adna 69-56 to claim the 2B title inside Spokane Arena on Saturday night, their second in three years and seventh in school history. They won every game by double digits except squeaking by Central Valley, a 3A opponent, by one point.
Anyone looking around the arena saw tears, purple shirts and smiles. It felt like the end scene of a movie. It’s a story that resonated with the entire nation. It got national attention on SportsCenter.
Outside of media members and Adna players/coaches/fans, the rooting interest was for Colfax.
“To be honest, being around my guys helped,” assistant coach Ben Aune said. “It happened at a really bad time, but it also happened at a great time because we could be around (each other). We kept things the same way we’ve always done it.
“Just trying to keep things as normal as possible in a non-normal situation. This is for him.”
Coach Jenkin passed away on Feb. 27 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He learned he had cancer on Dec. 11, which came a day after Colfax blew out Upper Columbia Academy by almost 60.
Five games into the season and the Bulldogs’ world was rocked.
All they did was keep on winning. By significant margins. And the state rallied around them.
Napavine and Adna put on a “Purple Out” for the second C2BL game of the season between the two biggest rivals in Lewis County. Schools like Reardan, Freeman and Okanogan were paying their respects to Coach Jenkin with warmup shirts or their student sections having some purple.
“I reached out to (Luke) and thanked him,” Aune said. “There have been coaches that I don’t know that have reached out.”
Adna wore its purple warmup shirts before every game in Spokane. When the Pirates played Colfax in the Round of 12 on the girls' side, each player and coach handed a purple rose to Allie Jenkin. Chris Bannish gave Allie a hug before heading to the locker room.
Aune and Luke Salme had a long chat on the sidelines before tipoff. For a program on the complete opposite side of the state to want to make an impact, it means something.
“One of the coolest things in the coaching world is you become buddies with other coaches,” Salme said. “It became phone calls once those 16 seeds come out, we would talk and share information. You automatically connect.”
Small town to small town having each other’s backs. More importantly, a victory for human decency. In a world as divisive, toxic and jostling on who is the cream of the crop, being a good person still matters.
“We care for each other, holding each other’s hands,” Allie said. “I know he’s smiling. I know he’s happy.”
When asked on how he would describe Coach Jenkin to someone who was meeting him for the first time, Aune didn’t hesitate on a single adjective.
Genuine.
“He’s a very, very, very good guy,” Aune said. “He’s been nothing but extremely loyal to me.”
Allie has been a team manager for the boys and still did it this season while juggling her own varsity schedule. In Spokane, she was sitting in the third chair, next to Aune and two away from where her dad was.
Just a reminder: Allie is a freshman. And like her brother, she’s got a never-ending smile. She donned the fully cut down net around her neck after the title game.
“Since my dad’s diagnosis, I ended up being on the bench more to be around him and the basketball family,” Allie said. “I love being around it all. Those boys are like family to me.”
Aune doesn’t know if this will turn into a movie down the road. Adrik or Allie weren’t asked the question either. Salme on the other hand, may have given a slight pitch to the hot shots in Hollywood.
“It is like a movie script,” Salme said. “It’s a sad movie, but there is happiness at the end. I am so happy for those kids. There are bigger and more important things.”
There will be a celebration of life for Coach Jenkin on March 14 at Colfax High School at 10 a.m. There will be more tears, more smiles and without a shadow of a doubt, more purple around the school.
For the Jenkin family, life will go on. They’ll have each other and Reece now becomes their guardian angel. Before their three games, the Bulldogs had long-sleeve shirts that had the following Bible verse from Exodus 14:14:
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
The perfect Bible verse to lean on. For the team that ended the season, in honor of Reece, in perfection.
“You see it as time is ticking down, you kind of have the feeling in the back of your mind,” Adrik said. “We did it all for Coach.”
