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Stakes of the Game
Chapter Eight: Hard Choices In 1976, the athletic code was nothing more than a concept, really. "But it was understood," says Garris Timmer, then the school's principal, "that drinking or drugs was not the thing to do, and there'd be punishment if you did it." But what would the punishment be? Even when athletic director Anton Mellema called Timmer that night -- the principal had not come down for the weekday games -- the answer wasn't yet clear. This much was clear: The six would have to be disciplined. Mellema called tournament director Doug McArthur, then the athletic director at the University of Puget Sound, where the tournament was held. Could Lynden Christian replace the six with junior varsity kids who weren't on the roster the school had submitted? No replacements, McArthur told them; that was in the state tournament by-laws. Well, Mellema told him, we might have to forfeit out of the tournament. No team has ever done that, McArthur said; besides, the Lyncs still had six players. But, Mellema said, if we have a couple of kids foul out ... That was a definite possibility. Without their two tallest players -- both among the six confessors -- the Lyncs would be shorter than any team they might play, and would almost certainly run into foul trouble fending off taller opponents in the paint. What would Lynden Christian do? Rumors were circulating all over the Tacoma Motor Inn that Thursday night. One prevalent rumor -- in which the team was forfeiting the rest of its games and going back to Lynden -- had the Lyncs cheerleaders crying in the hall. There were also rumors about which players were involved, about whether there would even be enough left to field a team. Just as ubiquitous as the rumors were the suggestions being foisted upon Mellema, DeHoog and Terpstra -- from parents, from rooters, from tournament officials -- that the six boys be disciplined in a different way. The most common suggestion: Why not suspend them during spring sports? Most of 'em play baseball or do track ... The coaches' answer -- indeed, the school's answer -- was simple: What about the ones who don't participate in spring sports? What do they learn from this? What does anybody learn from this if we don't make the hard choices when it means something? Principle. Hard choices. At a Christian school, Timmer says, "There's an added pressure on the administration and the staff to do the right thing. If you're not going to do the right thing, what do you have your kids in a Christian school for?" Perhaps the only ones who knew for sure what would happen, almost from the outset, were the players themselves. "We were busted for it," Kingma says, "and we accepted whatever they told us to do." All 12 players knew, even before it was announced, that their lineup would be cut in half for the duration of the tournament. Earlier that season, Bratt had been suspended for a game for something as innocuous as throwing a snowball inside the gym during an assembly. Also that year, six players -- including four starters -- had been suspended for a league game after they'd fessed up to pilfering ice cream bars from the gymnasium concession stand after practice, something Lyncs teams had been doing for so long it was almost a tradition. Some parents -- thinking it laughable to suspend kids over such a minor transgression -- actually bought a box of ice cream bars and had them delivered during the game to the penitent players. Still, the players sat. The Lyncs lost the game. Just as virtually everybody expected the Lyncs would do after that Thursday night in Tacoma. "Going down there," Glen Dykstra recalls, "I'm sure nobody thought we would win it, even with 12 guys." And now, on the eve of the state semifinals, Lynden Christian had only six.
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