Bald Sub Is A First-String Friend

Although she’s strong with the basketball, she’s not the best passer in the girls State B tournament at the Arena.

Her nicest assists come off the court.

They spring from a compassion that transcends appearance.

Whitney Niemcziek, a top reserve guard with the Willapa Valley Vikings, shaves her head, for a reason.

A friend who suffers from leukemia lost her hair to chemotherapy treatments. Whitney explains the rest.

“Her name is Lexi Frost,” Niemcziek said Wednesday, after her team’s opening-round loss to the Cascade Christian Cougars. “She’s had leukemia since she was 2. She’s very embarrassed that she doesn’t have any hair. In fact, she goes to bed with a hat on.”

So as a gesture of solidarity, one friend to another, Whitney shaved her head.

“It’s what she really wanted me to do,” Niemcziek said.

How much of a shock was that first glance at the hairless girl staring back at her in the mirror?

“You think `Wow! I don’t have any hair!’ You think it’d be hard, but when you see the smile on her face, you know she appreciates it and it’s worth it,” Niemcziek said. “When you have a friend like that, you’d do anything for her.”

The little girl will undergo a bone marrow transplant next week, Niemcziek said.

“After that, we’re both going to get matching hats and keep sharing the baldness,” she said.

Frost lives in Arlington, in north Snohomish County, a long drive from Niemcziek’s home in Menlo. Their mothers are friends. The two girls stay in touch despite the difference in their ages.

“I try to see her as often as I can, at least once every two weeks,” Niemcziek said. “We’re on the phone every other day. I spend the night with her in the hospital when her mom needs to get out. Her mom doesn’t get to go out very often.”

A shared experience

With a 21-point win Wednesday, Wilbur-Creston coach Denise Wilkie passed her first state tourney test.

She never got to state as player. Until her team’s cruise over King’s West of Bremerton, her closest experience with the pressure of a state tournament game came as a volunteer assistant four years ago as a student-teacher at Reardan.

No experience in big games?

No problem.

W-C guard Alyssa Erickson has enough for both.

“Not many kids can say they’ve brought their team to state four straight years,” the 25-year-old Wilkie said. “Alyssa can.”

So Wilkie is not above lending an appreciative ear to her 5-8 guard who sank 11 of 15 shots and scored 25 points.

“She gives me lots of advice,” the coach said. “When she’s playing, she sees the court and knows what needs to happen. Yes, there are times she sees things that I don’t.”

Wilkie is the boss, which means Erickson knows when to speak up and when to shut up.

As Wilkie puts it, “She’s very good at communicating things she sees positively.”

The Wildcats meet Cascade Christian in today’s quarterfinals.

At least the numbers were healthy

Confined to bed over the previous 24 hours, Carrie Spencer was strong enough to score 22 points and snag 10 rebounds in Napavine’s romp over Manson.

Napavine coach John Foulkes, who two years ago led Ritzville to the first of its two straight state championships, said the 6-foot-3 junior “got sick with the flu Monday night. She had a 102 fever coming in on the bus Tuesday. She got to the hotel room and went to bed. She’s been bedridden, basically, the last 24 hours.”

At 4 o’clock Wednesday, Spencer got up and said she’d give it what she had.

“She said she was weak but she was up and walking and improving,” the coach said. “She wanted to go. That was a gutty performance.”

Foulkes himself is a study in the mix of shrinking small-school economics and expanding opportunity elsewhere.

He landed the coaching job in Ritzville a year before he graduated from college. When he got his degree and had the program going, the district was unable to offer him a full-time teaching job.

He worked as a substitute teacher and coach, hoping that if he stayed, something full time in the classroom would open.

“The next year was the same - subbing and coaching - and lo and behold, we won the state title,” he said. “I passed up a couple of job offers but (heading into the ‘97-98 school year) I felt I couldn’t sit around forever. I had to get started.”

The Napavine job beckoned, and Foulkes pulled up stakes.

“It wasn’t Ritzville’s fault,” he said. “With the district shrinking, they didn’t have enrollment numbers to justify hiring another teacher. So, it didn’t work out.”

I knew they’d be in great hands with Howard Manke, who was my assistant. They won it, and we made it, too, so I felt good about the move.

“This is a big step for us. Last year, we lost our opener.”

This year, they won on opening night.