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Canwest News Service
Let's face it, if Scott Elzinga was going to pick a place to invite a few hundred of his closest friends, he'd have picked his old high-school gymnasium and told everyone to wear his favorite colour.
That's why last Friday, three days before the official start of the 2009-10 B.C. high school basketball season, the fans at the gym at Unity Christian School in Chilliwack created a sea of bright orange T-shirts in his honour.
Last May, just shy of a year from his graduation from Unity Christian, the school's beloved former basketball star died in a tragic farming accident.
Only 18 at the time of his passing, Elzinga had just finished his first season of college basketball with the nearby Columbia Bible College Bearcats of the BCCAA.
His death rocked the eastern Fraser Valley's basketball community. To honour his spirit, the idea was hatched to play the province's very first high-school basketball game of the season in his memory.
"We still haven't really coped with it," admits Unity Christian vice-principal Mike Campbell, whose school received special permission from B.C. School Sports to play rival Agassiz in the Scott Elzinga Memorial basketball game.
"We still face it every day we walk into the gymnasium for basketball. We still think 'Where's Scott?' because he was always, always in that gym. We really wanted to start the year with a game before any other in the province so that everyone could make it out."
At 6-foot-3, Elzinga was undersized to play his power-forward spot at the university level.
"But I told Scott that if he played in our league for three or four years, that he'd be a definite all-star," CBC head coach Mike McLaverty remembered Thursday. "He was small for his position but he was a dairy farmer, so he was strong. And there was no question about the size of his heart."
That size was evidenced daily by the schedule he kept — from his farming chores to his studies, to his basketball career and even to his outreach as an assistant for both the senior boys and junior girls teams at his old high school.
"I don't know how you could possibly have time to help coach two teams at the school, play for Columbia Bible College, go to school and then milk at his farm," says Campbell, whose school retired Elzinga's No. 23 jersey last Friday.
"And he had so many friends as well. I don't know where he found time to sleep. Getting up at 4 a.m. and going to bed at midnight was the only way."
To say Unity Christian is a small school is an understatement. Its graduating class of 2010, for example, is all of 19 strong.
"In a small school like ours, you don't just hang out with people in your grade," adds Campbell. "Grade 10s hang out with Grade 12s, and Grade 7s hang out with Grade 10s. I can tell you that everyone knew Scott."
Unity Christian's school colours are blue and green, a little curious since they are called the Flames. But its senior boys basketball team will soon unveil a fitting tribute to Elzinga by wearing long, bright orange socks this season.
Some may say that the colours clash. Scott Elzinga wouldn't have.
