|
This page is part of the
Tourneytown.com archives and is no longer updated. |
| Originally
published December 25-26, 2001 :: Home |
A Season of Change
Chapter Six: Going to the Store Duane VanderYacht was asking who all still wanted to walk to the store; the team had had a pre-game dinner because of the late game-time, but that was nearly five hours earlier. In the post-game locker room, that had been a major topic of conversation: Anybody game for a walk to the store for munchies and pop? Now, though, VanderYacht wasn't getting any takers. Bill DeHoog, athletic director Anton Mellema and assistant coach Harold Terpstra -- younger than DeHoog, a former Lyncs star known to the players as H.T. -- took off for the Harvester, a local restaurant, to make plans for how to deal with Lake Roosevelt in the semifinals. The top-ranked Raiders had an excellent 6-foot-5 center, boasted the state's best fast-break offense and had won 22 straight games. Road roommates Timmer and Weg were joined in their room by Dykstra, and the three were reveling in how far the team had come, reliving the numerous highlights in the victory over Orting. "They were picked to beat us. I think they were surprised, too," Timmer recalls. "Everybody was pretty pumped about it." Ron Kok and Jeff Jansen were in their room talking with a couple of cheerleaders. In his own room, Mark Bratt told his roommate, Bob Huizenga, that he'd go to the store and try to buy a six-pack. Years later, Bratt doesn't remember why he would have made such a suggestion; although he looked older than most of his teammates and might have been able to pull it off, he says he doesn't remember ever actually buying beer as a high-schooler. "Might have just been a boast," Bratt says. "I don't know." At any rate, although Bratt left the room on this questionable mission, he ended up not going to the store after all. And when he returned a short while later, Huizenga was gone. VanderYacht, unable to generate any interest in going to the store for snacks, had decided to hit the sack. He was in bed when his roommate, Bryan Korthuis, stuck his head in the door and said, "Hey, looks like we're heading down to the grocery store now." "Tell everybody to wait up," VanderYacht said, and began to pull on some clothes. By the time he got dressed, though, that group of teammates was already heading out the door and was disappearing around the corner. VanderYacht raced after them but had to wait for traffic as he crossed the street. By the time he reached the other side, he'd lost his teammates. "Hey!" he heard someone call out. "Duane!" There they were, back from the street in a little breezeway outside a church. He walked over to the group, five of them in the semi-darkness there, and saw the deep glow of a hand-rolled cigarette -- a marijuana joint -- as one boy took a drag and passed it to the next in line. VanderYacht, who'd thought the group was going to the store, looked at Korthuis, who shrugged with an expression that said, Yeah, that's what I thought, too. VanderYacht considered his options for a moment and decided: What the heck. He sat down and joined his buddies. "It was just kind of a second-thought thing: a 'Hey, we're away from the guardians' type thing, and here's our chance to celebrate," VanderYacht says. "At that point you don't think about getting caught." And, at that point, it was already too late. TO BE CONTINUED ...
ADVERTISEMENT
©
2002-2008 All photos, content and design |
|
