MitchMash: Perham, Fennville and the season of team

The 2010-11 season officially ended Saturday under the hot bright national television lights of the ESPN Rise National High School Invitational.

Over the coming weeks, we'll all celebrate the individual mega stars and future college and NBA talents with All-American and Player of the Year lists.

As well we should.

But make no mistake – 2010-11 will and should always be remembered for the power of all things team.

All things community.

All parts united.

This isn't a basketball purist trying to ram fundamentals or ball sharing or a five-passes-before-you-shoot mentality down everyone's throat. Especially not after Monday night's national championship college slowdown and clank-a-thon.

This is a from any person USA who has remotely followed some of the most tragic and yet inspiring sports stories of 2011. At any level.

The most visible and heart-wrenching was told on the nightly news last month in Fennville (Mich.), where star all-around athlete, leading scorer and All-American kid Wes Leonard collapsed on the court and later died of an enlarged heart. It happened just moments after Wes made a game-winning shot to complete a perfect regular season.

With the nation following virtually its every move, Fennville (23-1) played before packed crowds and won three consecutive playoff games before losing in a Class C regional game to Schoolcraft in Vicksburg, Mich. Some 3,500 fans were in the stands and 70 more were members of the media.

Blackhawks coach Ryan Klingler was overwrought after the game but tried to put it all in perspective.

"These are 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids," he said. "To be able to do what they did. ...I think down the road they'll have a strength that will be almost unbroken."

Wes' mother Jocelyn Leonard broke her public silence that night and offered this: "You won't get over it, but you've got to get through it. We couldn't get through it without everybody helping us."

In California, following three of its 10 state championship games, tears flowed as coaches and players told harrowing stories of teams bonding and persevering through suffering.

Lutheran (La Verne) reserve guard Kevin Payne made two shots - both three-pointers in the final 1:45 - to key his team's 64-59 Division III win over Bishop O'Dowd-Oakland. After the second, he pointed forcefully to the sky. His father, Kevin Sr., was killed in a car accident in August.

"It feels like a fairy tale right now," Payne said. "From everything we've gone through, and me personally. ... Sometimes I felt like quitting, and my (teammates) would not let me do it."

Pinewood (Los Altos Hills) girls coach Doc Scheppler openly sobbed after his team's second straight Division V title. His father, Earnest, died in May following a long bout with cancer.

"These girls were the love of his life, and watching them play helped keep him alive the last two years," Scheppler said. "They were all there by his bedside (two days before) he passed."

Earnest told them to win another state title that day. The Panthers didn't talk about it until the day of the state finals, when the girls made T-shirts with Earnest's initials and the slogan "refuse to lose." The Panthers then played their best game of the season in a 67-56 win over St. Bernard-Los Angeles.

"I'm proud of how they performed today, but more so (of) who they are as people," Scheppler said.

The boys team from Windward (Los Angeles) upset Salesian-Richmond 63-57 and afterward, coach Miguel Villegas broke down talking about his team's No. 1 fan and former player Daniel Tan, who died in January following a six-year bout with multiple sclerosis. Tan, confined to a wheelchair, sat on Windward's bench the past several seasons.

"If we were resilient today and throughout the season, it's because Dan was giving us strength," Villegas said.

Perham (Minn.) also received extra strength from a fallen teammate – the team's leading scorer – who clung to life most of the season from a hospital bed.