@dcassilo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nJimmer Fredette is not a very good golfer. Last July, at the American Century Championship, a celebrity golf tournament near Lake Tahoe, Fredette finished dead last\u2014in a field that included Charles Barkley.<\/p>\n
But regardless of his score, when he\u2019s out West, Jimmermania is still in full swing. Fans follow him with signs and swarm him for autographs. He\u2019s the Michael Jordan of the Mountain Time Zone. Speaking of Jordan, the six-time World Champion was present at the aforementioned golf tourney. Fredette, a Jordan admirer like most basketball players, was all set to meet his idol.<\/p>\n
MJ was surely well aware of the accomplishments of the newest Sacramento King; after all, the 6-2 guard from Brigham Young was college basketball\u2019s must-see show last season. Fredette averaged 28.9 points per game during his senior year, on his way to being named National Player of the Year.<\/p>\n
Never the fastest, tallest, strongest or most athletic player on the floor, the average-sized Fredette captured America\u2019s imagination with his otherworldly range and electrifying scoring ability.<\/p>\n
But on that July day in Lake Tahoe, most important of all was that Fredette had enough street cred to go up to Jordan and introduce himself. So what did Air Jordan say to Thin Air Fredette?<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to talk to him because they had started the lockout,\u201d Fredette says.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the life of an NBA rookie during the lockout.<\/p>\n
Before there was a lockout and before there was a golf outing and before there was Jimmermania, there was a basketball court in the backyard of the Fredette home in Glens Falls, NY.<\/p>\n
At the time, Jimmer Fredette was far from a household name; he was still just trying to earn his household chops as a 4-year-old against his 11-year-old brother, TJ, on that court. Things did not go well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would block me every time,\u201d Jimmer says. \u201cI would kick the fence and yell and scream to make sure he knew that I was upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
The younger Fredette wanted to win, needed to win. And as he got older, he altered the way he played to make sure he ended games less frequently with screams and fence kicking. As the shortest kid on the floor going against his brother and his friends, Fredette avoided rejection by sticking with long jumpers and scoop shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was almost like a mother that would lift up a car to save her child,\u201d TJ says. \u201cHe wanted to win so bad that he would do things he shouldn\u2019t even be able to do physically.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even that wasn\u2019t enough to make up for the height and age gap at times. So one day Jimmer\u2019s father, Al, came outside and drew a line on the court. His accompanying instructions: No one blocks Jimmer when he\u2019s behind this line. The intention was to stop the blocked shots. The result was the unlimited range that now has him in the NBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was basically the only way I could get my shot off,\u201d Jimmer says. \u201cI knew I could shoot it from the outside, and I think since I was able to do that, it increased my range.\u201d<\/p>\n
That ability to hit a jumper made him a local sensation from an early age. When he was about 7 years old, he would show up at Glens Falls High School JV games and shoot around during halftime. \u201cI\u2019d see this short, pudgy little kid out on the court shooting three-pointers, and the crowd would cheer for him already,\u201d says Tony Hammel, who would eventually become Fredette\u2019s varsity basketball coach.<\/p>\n
Glens Falls only has about 14,000 people, so it didn\u2019t take long for word to get out about the \u201cshort, pudgy little kid\u201d who can shoot. By the time he left for BYU, almost every resident had his or her own Jimmer story.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day I had my tennis racket and I was hitting balls against the tennis backboard in the local park when a bunch of kids came running around and Jimmer was one of them,\u201d says Joe DeSantis, owner of Carl R\u2019s, one of the small town\u2019s local restaurants.<\/p>\n
When he saw Jimmer and his friends, DeSantis remembers saying to them, \u201cI bet none of you kids can hit a tennis ball off this backboard 20 times.\u201d<\/p>\n
One by one the kids tried until it was Jimmer\u2019s turn. He choked way up on the throat of the racket and then stood really close to the backboard, tapping the ball 20 times in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, That\u2019s a talented kid,\u201d DeSantis says.<\/p>\n
Fredette was a phenomenon. He was the town\u2019s hero. And even now that he\u2019s all grown up and playing his ball out West, it\u2019s still a Glens Falls ritual to watch their boy on the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like Super Bowl Sunday when you go to the bar and watch him play a game,\u201d Hammel says.<\/p>\n
In Jimmer\u2019s senior season at Brigham Young University, Glens Falls got to host the Super Bowl. On December 8, 2010, BYU traveled to Fredette\u2019s hometown to play Vermont.<\/p>\n
The game was at the Glens Falls Civic Center, an arena that holds 4,806 fans. On that night, there were 6,300 people in the building. Lined up three-deep along the railing, the crowd gave Jimmer a two-minute standing ovation when his name was announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very emotional because all of those people I grew up with and grew up loving,\u201d Fredette says.<\/p>\n
The hometown hero treated fans to 26 points, an 86-58 victory and a final chance to cheer on the kid who was going to make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just brings goosebumps even right now when I\u2019m talking about it,\u201d Hammel says.<\/p>\n
—
<\/p>\n
Elliot Walden needed a name for his horse. The president and CEO of Winstar Farm in Kentucky, Walden was looking for a name that would suggest that his horse was a winner.<\/p>\n
Pat Hammel, the wife of Fredette\u2019s high school coach, worked for Bill Mott, a Hall of Fame horse trainer and one of Walden\u2019s clients. She had an easy solution for Walden: Why not name it after Jimmer?<\/p>\n
\u201cShe pitched the idea to me, and I thought it was a great idea,\u201d Walden says. \u201cHis success and the way he carries himself are two characteristics we try to emulate here at Winstar, so we thought it would be a good fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The horse, now a 2-year-old who will run his first race in 2012, was named Jimmer. It\u2019s just the latest example of how the guard from upstate New York has become a national hero.<\/p>\n
Fredette has seen it all. He says people have named babies, birds, cats, dogs and license plates after him. Despite his success at BYU, he doesn\u2019t think that has much to do with the phenomenon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of funny to see how people have really taken interest in the name Jimmer,\u201d says Fredette, whose birth name is James. \u201cEven if they don\u2019t like me as a player, they probably like the name.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name is unique to everyone who meets him for the first time. Even his future coach at BYU, Dave Rose, had to double check with Fredette on his name when they first met at the college\u2019s camp for high schoolers. \u201cHe introduced himself to me as Jimmer,\u201d Rose says. \u201cI said, What do you want us to call you? And he says, \u2018Jimmer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For his first two-and-a-half seasons in Provo, UT, the name Jimmer was just a regional sensation. Thirteen games into his junior year, Fredette was averaging 19.5 ppg, strong numbers, but nothing to catch the nation\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
But then Fredette and the Cougars took a December 28 trip to Tucson. By the time they returned, everything would be different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe night he got 49 his junior year at the McKale Center in Arizona, that discussion in the locker room with our coaches and the next day in the coaches\u2019 meeting, everything changed,\u201d Rose says. \u201cWe said, Let\u2019s make sure we take advantage of this guy while we have him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McKale Center opened in 1973 and the Arizona Wildcats had won a National Title and been to 28 NCAA Tournaments since, but no player had ever scored more points there in a single game than the visiting Fredette.<\/p>\n
America, meet Jimmer.<\/p>\n
Upon first encounter, it didn\u2019t take long for the country to fall in love with him. Here was a player who looked like most of the gym rats at the YMCA but with a shooting touch that would make even Reggie Miller pause. Jimmer\u2019s ability to go for 40 points almost any night from almost any spot on the court was even surprising to the man himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think about it necessarily on the floor, but when I look at it afterward, I\u2019m like, \u2018Wow, why did I shoot that shot or how did I make that shot?\u2019\u201d Fredette says.<\/p>\n
After that Arizona outburst came the horse names and the nightly Jimmer watch and the incessant requests for pictures and autographs\u2014even from the rivals. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how many other schools in our state\u2019s fans, I don\u2019t know if they were cheering for Jimmer, but they did follow him,\u201d Rose says.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t just the state of Utah. \u201cJimmer\u201d was as common a term to college basketball fans across the country as \u201crebound\u201d and \u201cdribble.\u201d He was getting compliments from Dirk Nowitzki and Aaron Rodgers, traveling the awards circuit across the country and coming to terms with the fact his free time was gone.<\/p>\n
But what really connected Jimmer with his new following was how he went from small-town sensation to America\u2019s golden boy with the smoothness of one of his jumpers.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just want Jimmer\u2019s time, and it amazes me how he obliges everyone,\u201d Rose says. \u201cWe all kind of say, \u2018Hey Jimmer, we can get you out this way or go around this way.\u2019 He\u2019ll say, \u2018No, no, no. If you give me five minutes, I\u2019ll get through this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s late October now, and Jimmer Fredette finally has his free time again. But he\u2019d give it back in an instant to get on the court. The nothingness feels strange to him. He\u2019s not used to having time to himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely different,\u201d Fredette says. \u201cI was on the go for so long and doing so many different things and suddenly everything stopped, and then I\u2019m like, What do I do now?\u201d<\/p>\n
With a delayed start to his NBA career, all he could do is wait. He passed the time by hanging around the BYU campus, working out and spending time with his fianc\u00e9\u2014his college girlfriend whom he proposed to in August.<\/p>\n
But even planning a wedding can\u2019t compare to the everyday circus that was his college career. \u201cShe keeps me updated, but I don\u2019t really do much of the work,\u201d Fredette says. \u201cIf she needs a hand in anything, obviously I help her out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he had plenty of time to hear everything you doubters have said. How he can\u2019t play in the NBA. How he\u2019s a one-dimensional player who can only shoot. He heard it, and when the NBA season starts, he\u2019s ready to garner a new following\u2014NBA fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in a situation where I\u2019ve been doubted my whole career, and being able to have to prove myself again is something I\u2019m really excited about and looking forward to,\u201d Fredette says. \u201cHopefully I\u2019ll be able to play well and change a lot of people\u2019s opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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