Thank you Jimmer from the balcony at Glens Falls High
Post-Star looking for editor again; Grant Cottage opening this weekend
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It's been 20 years since I first saw him play basketball.
He was a chubby 16-year-old sophomore at Glens Falls High School, but even then he had more shooting range than any high school player I had ever seen. That night at the Glens Falls Civic Center, he missed a big free throw that cost his team the game and ended its season.
That didn't happen again that I remember, but our memories are like that with legends.
From there, Jimmer Fredette became a phenomenon and by the next fall my weekly schedule revolved around when Glens Falls played basketball.
Each night after dinner, I would quietly put on my coat and tell my wife I was off to see Jimmer. By the end of his senior year, my wife told me I loved Jimmer more than her.
I laughed, but part of her believed it was true.
This past week, 36-year-old Jimmer Fredette announced his retirement from basketball after one final hurrah at the Paris Olympics last summer.
The Associated Press story that went around the world said:
"Jimmer Fredette, the 2011 Associated Press men’s college basketball player of the year at BYU who went on to become an NBA lottery pick and then played for the U.S. in 3x3 at last year’s Paris Olympics, announced his retirement on Wednesday.
Appropriately, that story was written by Tim Reynolds, an AP writer who got his start as a sportswriter in Glens Falls when I was sports editor at The Post-Star. Reynolds made sure to mention Jimmer's roots in Glens Falls, N.Y. in the third paragraph.
Native sons are remembered by other native sons, maybe even worshipped a little bit, especially in a place where Jimmer's first name would always be enough.
During Jimmer's junior year I would tell anyone who would listen there was something happening at Glens Falls High.
Something I had never seen before.
Something special.
Each home game I positioned myself in the balcony of the Glens Falls gym and saw things I never saw before.
I dragged friends, family members and acquaintances to games to see for themselves.
At the time, The Post-Star brought in a new publisher, and lets say we had a failure to communicate. But we shared our love for all things Jimmer. When she left to become publisher of the newspaper in Provo, Utah - home of Brigham Young - she mailed me a life-sized poster the newspaper produced of Jimmer. I taped it up in the newsroom that winter.
There is something about being there at the beginning, before it all happens, before Jimmer became Glens Falls' all-time leading score, before he set the Section II scoring record, before he played in the state championship game, before he got a scholarship to Brigham Young and before he won the national college player of the year award.
Yeah, that all happened and you have to wonder why there isn't a movie.
During that unforgettable senior year at Brigham Young, the games often started late here on the East Coast and the only way to see BYU was at the local watering hole.
In those days, that was Dango's on Maple Street.
I excused myself before bedtime on Jan 26, 2011 to go watch Jimmer at Dango's while my wife shooker her head and went to bed.
The barmaids were all wearing BYU T-shirts and the bar was filled at a time when most were calling it a night to watch Jimmer and ninth-ranked BYU play San Diego State.
I had one beer.
Jimmer had 43 points.
BYU won.
For two months it was known as "Jimmermania."
I had been editor of the newspaper for 12 years by then, but I was pulled back into sports to write about Jimmer. I spent an hour or so over at Jimmer's house interviewing his parents Al and Kay.
Kay told me that late at night as she was heading to bed, she would often hear her phone ping with a text from Jimmer.
"Good night, mom. Love Jimmer."
Another Glens Falls kid just missing his mom.
He became a first-round draft choice in the NBA and his dad said he would never have to worry about money again. But he struggled in the NBA, got married, became a star in China, started a family and became an Olympian in three-on-three basketball.
Jimmer never came back to live in Glens Falls. That is neither a criticism nor anything unique these days, but I believe a little bit of Glens Falls always stays with our kids.
It's been a week now and I just felt someone from the balcony should thank Jimmer brightening our lives on those dark winter nights.
I'm not sure if great athletes every truly appreciate what they mean to those who got the chance to see them play.
I hope Jimmer gets a chance to do that now.
Another sportswriter, Jackson Payne of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, wrote a column this week titled, "Jimmer Fredette was more than just a basketball star — for a generation of young fans, he’s a lasting folk hero."
That's the truth here in Glens Falls, too.
For as much as Jimmer was a start here, his impact was even greater in Utah.
Payne said he was part of the "Jimmer generation."
"I fell in love with basketball because of Jimmer Fredette, and many of my peers feel the same way," Payne wrote. "He’s still a folk hero in Provo and always will be. You can’t go to a BYU game without seeing dozens of his jerseys scattered about, and any time he’s on campus for an event still feels like a huge deal."
To attest to that there were over 600 comments on Payne's column this weekend.
We may be of a different age bracket, but I share that feeling with this younger sportswriter. Unlike Payne, I didn't fall in love with basketball because of Jimmer, but he cemented a lifetime passion for it.
Jimmer's jersey is retired here in Glens Falls and I can still point to distant spots just over half court where he launched ridiculous shots that swished through the net.
My tradition of going to Glens Falls home games after dinner has continued afterwards. Jimmer begot Joe Girard - who became an even more prolific scorer - who begot the state championship teams of the past two years.
I saw it all from up there in the balcony.
"The game has taught me hard work, determination and grit," Jimmer wrote in a farewell post on X last week. "Basketball has taken me all around the world: From Glens Falls NY, to BYU, the NBA, China, Greece, and even Team USA at the Olympics."
Thank you Jimmer for taking us along on the ride.
Editor opening
The New York News Publishers Association pointed out in its Friday newsletter that The Post-Star had an opening for editor.
What was so unusual was the newspaper just welcomed a new editor, Lisa Reider, on March 21 after dismissing its previous editor.
The ad on journalismjobs.com said the position was for "a one-year period starting June 1, 2025."
When I checked the newspaper's masthead on the opinion page Saturday, there was no mention that Reider was editor.
Grant Cottage opens
Grant Cottage, where President U.S. Grant spent his final days, is one of the great historical sites in our region.
It reopens on Saturday, May 3. If you haven't been before, or you haven't been in a long time, you should check it out.
The cottage is open Wednesday thru Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Santos sentenced
Former Long Island congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison last week after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identify theft.
Santos, who was enthusiastically endorsed by Rep. Elise Stefanik when he ran for office, became a national punch line for his serial lying.
The judge in the case handed Santos the maximum punishment.
You may also remember that when the House of Representatives moved to expell Santos, Rep. Elise Stefanik voted to keep him in Congress.
That speaks to her moral center.
Santos was voted out of Congress anyway with 100 Republicans voting against him.
Chapman golf
The Chapman Museum's annual golf tournament is scheduled for Friday, June 13 at 1 p.m. at Top of the World Golf Resort.
This is one of the Chapman's big fundraisers for the year.
For an individual golfer, the donation is $125. The donation for a foursome is $480.
The museum is also looking for sponsors.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Santos is rightfully kicked out of the House, yet we have a convicted felon in the White House and an assortment of other despicable characters running this country. Thankfully we can look to Jimmer Fredette and others among us who give us hope.
Hey Ken, the job that is advertised at the Post-Star is to replace for one year the news editor, Andrew Valenza, a guardsman who is going on deployment for a year starting in late May. That ad has been running since last fall when I created it for the company. When I was let go in December, and the ad had been running since at least October maybe September (my boss wanted to make sure the line for it stayed on the shrinking budget and October starts the new fiscal year), we had gotten exactly zero decent applicants. By now, they may have gotten one or two.
I had been talking to local journos, asking them to apply, and just two wanted to apply, both friends of mine who would apply only because I'd be their boss and because they wanted to fill a year before making another job/life switch. Neither will apply now.
I'm guessing that Lisa Reider's name is not on the masthead because Lee Enterprises is terrible at onboarding people from outside the company, so bad that they cannot even do the obvious, easy thing and put her name on the masthead for her--it would take her boss about one minute to get the job done for her.
I went weeks without my name there as I did not have time to figure out who I needed to contact for that change to be made permanently. I was lucky that Mike Goot handled the daily correction for me. At the same time, Reider is an out-of-town editor working from her current home as she seeks to find one up here and she probably is just buried and doesn't have time herself to figure out who she needs to contact to make that change--or if she is smart, she's looking for another job. --Steve Thurston, the most recent Last American Editor of the Post-Star.