By: Tim Donahue
WWU’s men’s basketball team played the University of Maine at Fort Kent on Tuesday, Nov. 22. There, capitalizing on the momentum of a hot start, the Vikings doubled their opponent’s score and won 108-54. Since then, they added two more road wins to move to 6-1, and this early season tear is just the warm-up for the heart of their GNAC schedule.
Earlier this quarter, I did a “maintenance workout” that was sent to me by Nic Welp — a Sophomore forward and key rotational player on this year’s men’s basketball team — as an example of what our student athletes have to deal with on a daily basis. Watching the game from a distance was one thing, I supposed, but engrossing myself in the lifestyle that the basketball team lives by 24/7? That came with a whole new level of insight, and respect for all teams that have committed a great portion of their youth in service of their chosen sport.
Daniel Hornbuckle leading the Viking fast break in a victory against Douglas College. WWU Athletics // WWU
Needless to say, as a 21-year-old former athlete who hasn’t touched either a basketball or a dumbbell more than five times this year, this “maintenance workout” kicked my ass. 10 reverse lunges, 10 dumbbell curls, 10 dumbbell flyes, overhead extensions into reverse fly into leg raises, which then advanced into something called a Copenhagen raise with everything mirrored on both sides of the body — my extremities weighed like overflowing water balloons. I took a break to look at my phone. I hoped to be granted sanctuary in the most stagnant activity I could think of, and instead I found that the set’s listing had a little ‘repeat 2x’ written along the top of the screen.
I may have pulled through and gone forward with the second round, I also may have melted right there into the rubberized floor of the Rec Center. I assume there’s security cameras that can be checked to verify one way or the other, but my mind was scrambled and I wasn’t sure.
I think about that “maintenance workout” sometimes while I’m watching Western’s games, and something about the whole thing confuses me. I’ve known Nic Welp since preschool, long before he became a key face in the future of WWU basketball. I remember a time not too long ago when he was my height, when I beat him in basketball games on the 7-foot hoop in his garage where nobody could see if he dunked on me. How could we have gotten to the point where his “maintenance workout” was enough to boil me into a liquid?
Sophomore Nic Welp makes a two-handed dunk to punctuate a home victory for the Vikings. WWU Athletics // WWU
In short, time flew. Hundreds of people had caught onto Nic’s athletic brilliance, and they all applauded as they watched him score his tenth point against University of Maine at Fort Kent. The crowd roared and I saw the look on his face, and therein lay the point where our respective paths diverged. My muscles ached as his tensed in preparation for the oncoming offense. His depth of the intensity was foreign to me. It was tenacity unabated, it was the look of a man who had chosen a path and committed like so few are able to do. I looked, he scowled, and it told me everything I needed to know.
Led by the trio of Daniel Hornbuckle, Kai Johnson, and D’Angelo Minnis, Western has one game left before heading to Hawaii over the Holiday break for the Hoops in Hawaii Holiday Classic. Coming back to begin January, they will slot right into the full swing of GNAC divisional play. Their next home game is scheduled for Dec. 12 against the Langara Falcons. I encourage you to go, and it doesn’t have to be a lifelong reflection of how things have changed or where roads diverged in the path of your existence. Let it be fun, enjoy the show that the team puts on, and realize — either in reverence or in simple observation — that none of the players made it this far without sacrificing greatly in deference for the sport of their choosing.
Viking reserves and coaches welcome players to the bench with smiles and high-fives. WWU Athletics // WWU