Smoothing The Bumps After A Turbulent Start, Pirate Cruises To Nationals
He was a kid with a Herculean attitude who couldn’t muscle his way out of this one.
It was the early 1990s and 6-foot-6 Ben Heimerman was going to prove to himself and the Wenatchee Valley Community College coaching staff that a healthy dose of ratball mixed in with a perfunctory jog now and then was all it would take to play on the men’s basketball team.
Not so. Not even for the Gonzaga Prep graduate, whose 62.7 percent field-goal shooting his senior year was the best in the Greater Spokane League.
His freshman year at college was a bust, the result of a bone chip in his right ankle along with spin splints that forced him to redshirt. He now admits he was out of shape and in denial.
“I didn’t understand what college basketball was about,” said Heimerman, six years removed from Wenatchee and just days away from his first trip to the NAIA Division II National Tournament as a Whitworth College Pirate.
His second year was no better. Fact is, there was no redshirt-freshman season. He was cut by Knights coach Greg Franz.
“Conflict in attitudes,” is how the Whitworth College senior center describes it.
“I didn’t think they were doing the right things. It manifested in a couple of guys not liking me.”
Franz, in his 10th season at Wenatchee, remembers it differently.
“The biggest thing was that Ben had some growing up to do,” said Franz, who holds no bad feelings against Heimerman and praised his post-Wenatchee accomplishments.
Growing up involved walking on to the Shoreline Community College team. Heimerman made the cut, earned a starting role early on, and helped the Dolphins compile a 28-5 record his second season.
He also carried his trademark ‘tude across the Cascades. Voicing his opinion always has come as easy as an open layup.
But by his account, “There was a lot more attitude there than I had. They had some kids from Southern California and they could play.”
Throughout his juco career, Heimerman maintained about a 17-point, 10-rebound-per-game average. What he couldn’t afford was maintaining the cost of both a telephone and cable TV. A 20-hour-a-week gig passing out towels and doing other menial chores hardly put him in the Kevin Garnett tax bracket.
ESPN easily beat out AT&T.
And Whitworth College’s Warren Friedrichs won over other four-year coaches seeking a fiery big man.
“You had to reach him at the equipment center in the evenings at Shoreline Community College,” Friedrichs recalled. “A lot of people tried to call him, but he was hard to reach. I had that number so I was calling him a lot.”
One of Heimerman’s drawbacks was he only had three semesters of playing eligibility left. This year, he began the season in January after sitting out the first eight games.
However, with three post players graduating, Friedrichs was in need of a guy who could be a presence in the paint. Heimerman’s 200-plus-pound frame, along with his NWAACC first-team Northern Region Most Valuable Player credentials, fit the bill just fine - flaws and all.
“He’s not your ordinary guy; he’s outspoken,” said Whitworth point guard Sean Weston, also a senior. “He’ll tell you the truth. And you take it ‘cuz it’s Ben.”
Indeed. The players have learned to endure the fury of their 23-year-old teammate, the elder statesman on a team with a personality as quiet as the Harriet Cheney Cowles Memorial Library on a Saturday night. If he thinks some of his teammates should shoot more, he’ll tell them. If he’s not happy with the way a player is passing, you can bet he’ll say something.
Call a foul on an opponent and Heimerman might react with enthusiastic in-your-face hand clapping.
“He gets emotionally into the game,” Friedrichs said. “That’s good and that’s bad. He had a few technicals the first year, hanging on the rim, a little taunting style.
“Where I don’t condone it, I understand it and we try to massage it to where he’s a credit to himself and credit to our program.”
Heimerman has played solid this season - despite a quiet past weekend against Seattle University (seven points, four rebounds) and Puget Sound (nine points, six rebounds). He brings a team-leading 14.3 points (64 percent shooter) and second-best 6.3 rebounds per game into Wednesday’s first-round Northwest Conference tournament game against Pacific Lutheran (16-8).
The Pirates defeated PLU twice this season, 68-67 in Tacoma and 75-63 at home. Whitworth also brings a 43-game homecourt winning streak into the playoffs. “It’s been a hunger to me to get to a national tournament,” said Heimerman, who by no surprise is majoring in communications. “That’s where a lot of good things can happen. If I have an opportunity to play overseas, that’s where it’s going to happen (to be seen by scouts) at the national tournament.
“But the bottom line is, I want to win.”
The fifth-ranked Pirates (18-6) have already earned a berth into the March 11-17 NAIA Division II Tournament at Nampa, Idaho, by winning the NCIC regular-season championship. This week’s games will determine seeds as well as the conference’s other automatic bid.
In Wednesday’s other game, No. 2 George Fox plays host to No. 3 Lewis & Clark.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NCIC tournament Wednesday, 7 p.m.: No. 4 Pacific Lutheran at No. 1 Whitworth Saturday, 7 p.m.: Wednesday’s winners play at highest remaining seed of four-team field