by: Sam DeCoste
Posted:
Updated:
EAST BANK, WV (WOWK) – NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West made a name for himself playing high school basketball at the old East Bank High School, and residents who call the town home say his legacy has remained intact ever since he left.
Neil Hopkins, a former principal at East Bank High, says while his time at the school followed West’s, he was still the school’s claim to fame since his graduation.
“At East Bank, we had a lot of All-Americans and well-known players. But the name that always comes up when you bring up sports was always Jerry West,” Hopkins said. “Any student and any teacher that walked the halls of East Bank Junior or High knew Jerry West.”
Hopkins says he used to listen to West play for West Virginia University on the radio. From then on, Hopkins says all of East Bank and the surrounding areas cheered him on from the sidelines.
“If there was 100,000 people in West Virginia, 100,000 people were listening to the radio or wherever the game was,” Hopkins said.
Five years ago, Payton Sturn, assistant basketball coach at the University of Charleston, got to meet West. He says it happened in 2019 at a WVU alumni event, where Sturn got to be his chauffeur for a weekend.
At this time, West was an executive for the Los Angeles Clippers. Sturn asked West about his goals for the upcoming NBA offseason, which was still months away. West answered that he wanted to sign All-Star Kawhi Leonard, who was playing for the Toronto Raptors at the time.
Then, come the offseason, West delivered exactly that, and Leonard signed for the Clippers after leading the Toronto Raptors to an NBA title.
“He called his shot there in the car that day and said, I’m going to get Kawhi Leonard this summer. And that’s what he did. That just speaks to who he is an executive. He knew who he wanted, he went and got it. That’s how he lived his life,” Sturn said.
In high school, West helped lead East Bank High to a state championship, averaging 32 points per game that season. He also became the first West Virginian to score more than 900 points during his high school basketball career.
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