'Supporting them from Heaven': How Colfax rallied behind its basketball teams after tragedy

As the final buzzer sounded, Allie Jenkin and the Colfax girls basketball team had to accept that their season was over.

After her father and the Colfax boy’s head coach, Reece Jenkin, died of pancreatic cancer last Friday, Allie went on to score 41 of her team’s 61 points against the Okanogan Bulldogs the same day. She scored all 29 of the team’s points in the first half of that game. The Colfax crew were hoping to keep that momentum going Wednesday, but unfortunately for the team, Jenkin and the 10th-seeded Bulldogs fell, 53 to 30, to the seventh-seeded Adna Pirates. Jenkin, a freshman, led the team in scoring with 19.

But for the Colfax locals adorned in blue and purple, this year’s State 2B tournament goes far beyond the numbers displayed on the scoreboard. And it didn’t take much searching in the crowds to find evidence of that. A wall of students in the first four rows wore violet shirts that read, “All for Coach Jenkin,” as did the entirety of the band.

Parents wearing jeans and baseball caps with the letter “C” for Colfax had purple ribbons on their lapel. Although the game wasn’t particularly close, Colfax residents cheered for every bucket even when there were only two minutes left on the clock. And when the game was over, a mass of people gathered outside the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena to pay tribute to a sad, yet special, season and the players who persevered.

Chevy Booth, a sophomore on the Colfax girls team, said that while the end result wasn’t what they hoped for, she was moved by the number of parents, students, families and friends who came out to support the team. Her mother, Shawnda Booth , has kept the scorebook for the girls team for the past 15 years.

“It was really cool to see our whole town come out and just support our whole team and also Allie,” Chevy said.

For the past 23 years, Jeff Robinson has called Colfax home. A former employee at a fertilizer company in town, Robinson spent a few years working as an assistant basketball coach under Reece when he first took the reins as head coach 17 years ago. While peering down at the court below, a hint of nostalgia seemed to glisten in Robinson’s eyes. He remarked how Reece got better at coaching year after year, but his intense passion for basketball was there from the very beginning. That same kind of love for the game is something he sees in both Allie and her older brother, Adrik.

“It’s certainly special,” he said, of both the boys and girls team. “I just wish (Reece) was here to enjoy it.”

On Friday, when Allie scored 41 points for the team, Adrik scored 34 points in a 96 to 49 win against Liberty Bell. The siblings combined for 75 points on the same day their father died.

“With Adrik, you expect it, because he’s the best player I’ve ever seen in this league,” Robinson said. “He’s a senior this year, but Allie’s a freshman. It was almost like Reece was directing the ball in the basket. (That day) was very emotional. Adrik broke 2,000 points.”

Robinson said the Jenkin siblings have mental toughness and a resilience that isn’t just due to the lessons from their father, but also their mother, Breanne. While the girl’s season is over, Robinson is confidant the 2B State Championship will end up in the hands of the boys team.

Although Reece led the boys team to a 24-0 record and the No.1 seed in the tournament, Robinson said there are many people who have benefited from the way he developed his players.

John Lustig is one such player. As a senior at NAIA Lewis-Clark State College, Lustig leads the Warriors in scoring at 15.6 points per game and rebounds with 7.3 a contest. He averaged 30 points per game as a senior at Colfax. He said he learned many lessons from the man he knew since he was a child, and that Reece was “a light to the whole community.”

“Both on and off the court he taught me what it takes to be successful,” Lustig wrote in an email. “He preached to his players to work so hard at your craft where it would be unrealistic for you to not accomplish your goals. He was the best at finding the balance of pushing you to your limit, but also loving and caring for you.”

Lustig said Reece was always in great physical shape, and when he wanted Lustig to move his feet or get lower in his defensive stance, he showed him how to do it himself. But the moments with his former coach he’ll hold onto for the rest of his life are the small ones, he explained. Times when Reece asked how his family was doing, for example, or the long conversations about life and those most important to us.

“One memory I have was when I was in third or fourth grade and I went to the Colfax High School Boys Basketball Camp,” Lustig said. “Coach Reece was the first person that I really remember trying to impress. I wanted the high school coach to notice me as a player, and I always tried to go out of my way to get his attention. Even from a young age, I looked up to Coach Reece so much, and I feel so lucky looking back at how much he invested into my upbringing.”

As a senior on Newport’s girls basketball team, Sammi Tellesen came to the arena on Wednesday to cheer on someone she’s forced to guard during the regular season. Her aunt and uncle live in Colfax and are friends with the Jenkin family.

Having to match up against Allie more than once during the season, Tellesen had a flurry of compliments on Jenkin’s impressive ball-handling and shot-making skills. She said that even though a good portion of the Bulldogs girls team are underclassmen (there are only three seniors and two juniors), they’re all really great athletes.

“I think it’s really cool that everybody, even the other school, came out and wore purple,” she said. “We (Newport) played a game against Reardan, because Coach Jenkin used to go to Reardan, and we all wore purple shirts.”

Mark Mackleit said Reece ‘s impact is being felt across the whole district. Having spent all 65 years of his life in Colfax, Mackleit remarked that the small-town feel of the town he was born in makes neighbors, even the ones he never sees, feel like family. In times of tragedy, he said everyone has each other’s back.

A few years ago, Mackleit, who worked in HVAC for 43 years before retiring, once collaborated with Reece and the superintendent of Colfax on a committee that eventually passed a $19 million bond for the betterment of the schools.

“He always had the kids and the school in his best interest,” Mackleit said.

Braxden Gransbery was one of many fans cheering wildly in the student section. Some students had giant cardboard heads of the players from when they were babies, others wore shirts that said, “All for Coach Jenkin,” but almost all of them wore something purple.

Dressed in his letterman jacket, Gransbery said he is friends with Adrik and remembers going over to their house when he was younger. While he’s a wrestler and not a basketball player, he remembers Reece gave him a couple pointers when he was much younger. He can’t remember what those tidbits of advice were, as he was only about 5 years old, but Reece‘s presence in the community is one that won’t be forgotten anytime soon, he said.

As for the boys team, he’s almost certain that they’ll win it all this year. The Colfax boys team play at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

“If we win the state championship, which I believe we will, I feel like it’ll be a good memory to write off a pretty bad year with losing Reese,” Gransbery said. “He’s led us to an undefeated season. I don’t think just because he died, he really stopped coaching this team. I feel like he’s been supporting them from Heaven. And especially Adrik, trying to lead them to the state championship this year. And I feel like, just because he died, his spirit in this team didn’t die.”