‘He’s Looking Down …’

By Tom Wheeler

One of the biggest upsets of the Holiday tournaments was the Christopher Bearcats win at Sesser over No. 3 seed Waltonville. The Spartans had defeated the Bearcats in the Christopher Thanksgiving tournament 48-41 but the Cats evened the score at Sesser 47-39.

Jake Towers, junior point guard led the Cats scoring with 13 points and senior R.J.Kuh was also in double figures with 11.  Last Friday night in a game against rival Zeigler-Royalton, who was on a hot streak after winning three straight games at the Sesser tournament, the Cats won 59-36. Towers were in double figures again with 11, 6-feet-6-inch Kevin Mercks had 16 and R.J. had a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Kuh’s game brought a smile to my face.

Let me explain!

R.J.’s grandmother is Pam McGee, a close family friend, and she asked me to talk to R.J. about her son Robert who was taken from us much too early in a terrible automobile accident in 1989. Pam knew how close Robert and my son T.J were and she wanted her grandson to know about his uncle.  We sat in the garage and checked some old tapes of Robert in grade school, then went thru some scrap books of Roberts’ athletic endeavors.  I stressed to R.J. how quick his senior year would go, and no one knew what tomorrow would bring, so make the best of today. More importantly, I told him to enjoy his teammates and coaches and for him to do whatever his coach needed him to do for his team to win.

I had no idea that by mid-year R.J. would be having a game against a good team and get a double-double. At the time of our talk I looked for him to be the ‘Dennis Rodman’ type player. Guard the opponents best player, rebound every shot, dive on the floor for the loose ball and take all those charges (he gets at least one a game).

When asked about R.J.’s recent scoring, Coach Eric Stallman answered, “I talked to R.J and explained to him with every one doubling down on Merck’s, he had to be more aggressive on offense. He has been and now his confidence is at an all-time high.”

T.J. was a freshman at Illinois when we lost Robert. He put the initials R.M. on every pair of shoes he wore the next four years and at the time simply said “I think of Robert McGee every time I lace up my shoes.” In 1994 when his Bearcat jersey No. 44 was retired at CCHS, he told the audience how proud he was that his 44 would hang in the Robert McGee trophy case, named in Robert’s honor.

R.J. is one of those Bearcats all around athletes, linebacker in football, pitcher for ZRC‘s baseball team and now enjoying a senior basketball season where he has become a very valuable clog in Coach Stallman’s program. And while all this is quickly going by I want him to know “Robert is looking down R.J. and enjoying this too.”