When James Wei was in the fourth grade, he followed his older brother Jonathan into basketball. Playing a year up, with older kids, he entered the vast gym at Alliant University. Awed? Maybe. But “I was an early bloomer. I was always one of the younger players” on his team, Wei, a senior 6 feet 2 inches tall forward on the Country Day Torreys, remembers.
Also gaining his height early, he was one of the taller kids in the league at Alliant. “The coach knew I wouldn’t grow 6 feet 6 inches tall.” He played alongside future LJCDS teammate Chris Carrillo, a 5 feet 11 inches tall point guard, a junior who is a two-year starter.
Besides the two cogs of first-year coach Patrick Casey’s squad having been long-time teammates, “We’ve been playing together since last summer,” reports Carrillo, a savvy situational player who helped the Torreys to win the third-place game in the Torrey Pines Holiday Classic Governor’s Division over Punahou of Honolulu, 61-58, Dec. 30. This year’s squad is 14-5 overall, 3-1 in the Coastal Conference at this writing.
In addition to that gutsy win, Country Day faced Mission Bay in the Bucs’ tourney on Nov. 22. “They went up by 12 in the third quarter,” recalls Casey. Carrillo: “We stuck together. We weren’t fazed.” They came back as a unit to win by 10, 46-36. Wei and Carrillo are the captains.
Isaac Herman, a 5 feet 10 inches tall junior, comes off the bench as the sparkplug sixth man to inject energy and “keep it positive”. “When Wyatt (Tilson, 6 feet 4 inches tall sophomore front court player) gets discouraged having a hard time,” says Herman, a Knick/Kristaps Porzingis nut through his dad, “I make him feel better.”
“I don’t get too beat down. We always hype each other” in the tight-knit group, which also includes Ely Elegado, a 6 feet 2 inches tall wing/guard, Henry Kiamilev, a 5 feet 9 inches tall shooting guard, and Ekin Matanza, a 6 feet 2 inches tall wing/forward, as Casey’s crew plays small ball in a scrappy way. Wyatt Harris, a senior returning from a torn ACL, also gets in the mix.
“We talk about the four core values embodied in the acronym F-A-T-E, family, accountability, trust, and excellence,” teaches Casey, a freshman history instructor on campus. “Once a week we hold a leadership meeting among the players, where they also hold the coaching staff accountable,” unthinkable in old-school, top-down coaching of yesteryear (this writer’s experience). “When we break down a huddle, we go ‘F-A-T-E’ on three.”
Herman, the New York phile, describes in detail eating the delicacy “uni” (“ooney”), a black, spiny sea urchin, with his dad. It sounds pretty gross. But: “I love New York. The food is great. I love Chinese and Japanese food. Uni is good. It’s costly, so we get it on special occasions.”
Casey: “I’m pretty fortunate to coach such a connected group.”
Herman, the fiery sparkplug, took the Butterfly Project, remembering children killed in the Holocaust with ceramic butterflies, to the Dominican Republic last summer (described in these pages). It is a meaningful service project that he participates in.