People created memorable times for Highlander
“Our life passes in transformation.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, writing in Duino Elegies
Jim Meredith understands that statement.
He understands because he spent 24 years teaching English to high school students. He also understands because he’s lived it.
As Meredith prepares for retirement after 30 years in education, he can look back on a life of transformation.
Transformation from a small-town boy in Anaconda, Mont. It was there he grew into a 6-foot-7, 165-pound basketball star for now-closed Anaconda Central Catholic, recruited by the likes of Notre Dame and Villanova.
Transformation into an adult at Washington State. It was there he played freshman ball for Jud Heathcote and varsity for Marv Harshman between 1968 and 1971. The kid from Montana (“I thought I was in the big city when I went to Pullman”) was twice an All-Pac 8 selection, got to play against stars like Lew Alcindor and Sidney Wicks, was team captain and left Pullman as the school’s ninth all-time scorer.
Transformation beyond basketball. He successfully navigated the Cleveland Cavaliers’ rookie camp – where he roomed with Austin Carr – before spending a year playing in Europe, returning home with a handful of great stories and a bad knee.
In other words, education transformed him from a self-conscious, unsure youth into a mature teacher and coach who changed lives of kids just like him.
And now he’s transforming again, from the activities coordinator at Shadle Park into a retiree who will putter around the house, taking way too long, he confesses, to get anything done.
Looking back, Meredith, 55, knows he picked the right profession.
“It’s a people business, all my memories are about people,” he said of the past 30 years. “There not about winning or losing or any of that stuff. They are about people and the relationships.
“I think I got into the right business. Coming from Anaconda, I was absolutely an introvert. There were no clothes that fit me, my parents had no money, I had one pair of pants. I really feel I’ve grown as a person during the course of my career in education.”
It may be a sad commentary, but the memories of Meredith carried by Joe Average in Spokane probably revolve around winning and losing. That’s because between 1987 and 1992 he was Shadle’s head basketball coach.
Despite not being the school’s top choice.
“I think Blake Stepp’s dad was the first choice here,” Meredith said. “I sat out in the foyer here talking with him before he was being interviewed. Later I remember a conversation about a coach who had a really good player he would bring with him to Shadle.”
But Meredith got the job and immediately went about transforming the Highlanders into the type of team he wanted. A team based on fundamentals learned from Heathcote, Harshman and Jim Thacker, still the head coach at Walla Walla, where Meredith was JV coach years ago.
The transformation came to fruition in 1990, the year Meredith led Shadle to its second state large-school boys basketball title.
It was a team dominated by Rob Corkrum, a 6-8 leaper who ended up at WSU. It was a team that finished second in league to G-Prep, but defeated the Bullpups 48-46 in the state quarterfinals, the toughest game in the tournament, according to Meredith.
The Highlanders made another trip to state under Meredith, in 1992, but that was also the year he noticed a transformation in the players.
“I was kind of burnt out,” he said. “I was really kind of intense as a coach. I know kids were changing and I was probably too brutally honest.
“I could see the whole cultural thing changing and I just wasn’t going to change. I went into (principal) Mike Dunn and said, ‘If I feel I’m not doing good things for kids, then I don’t think I should coach.’ “
So he didn’t. And, three years later he assumed the activities coordinator post, by his own admission building a nest egg toward retirement.
Now he’s ready to assume another role.
“I’ve been connected to education, obviously, since I was a first grader,” he said. “My whole life has revolved around the school year. I just need a new adventure, I suppose, is the way to put it.”
In other words, it’s time for another transformation.