Tyler Verde grew up as a kid dribbling and shooting in the Prince Rupert school gym under a banner honouring the 1964 Prince Rupert Rainmakers, considered still the most unlikely team to win the B.C. boys’ high school basketball championship. It was his beacon, his guiding light.
“Those players on that team [including UVic coaching legend Ken Shields] were my heroes and I looked up at that banner every day,” said Verde.
On the 60th anniversary of that championship, Verde is hanging a championship banner of his own in a gym for another upstart team that won the B.C. title after the head coach guided the Spectrum Thunder to its first Quad-A boys’ provincial basketball championship on the weekend before a capacity crowd of 5,000 at the Langley Events Centre.
“Rainmakers and Thunder kind of go together don’t they,” quipped Verde.
Although having a proud history in sports dating back to 1932 as Mount View Secondary, mostly in soccer and the championship girls’ basketball team of the 1990s, Spectrum was never known for boys’ hoops before this. Verde spent much of last week’s run through the provincial tournament explaining to Lower Mainland media just where in Saanich his school was located.
“People asked where is it and when was the last time you were here,” said Verde.
The answer to the latter question was not in this century. You’d have to go back to the 1990s for Spectrum’s last appearance.
“It’s been a while that our school was even there. I told the boys that means there is no pressure and that Spectrum has never done this before and this is your path to create,” said Verde, a chemistry and science teacher at the school, who has coached the Thunder since 2017-18.
That path led to four consecutive wins through the tournament, culminating in the 92-72 victory over the Tamanawis Wildcats of Surrey in the championship game.
“It was unreal. My voice is gone. We grinded it out. A lot of hard work has paid off. I am proud of the boys,” said Verde.
Forward Tyler Felt of Spectrum was named B.C. tournament MVP and marvelled at the list of names on that trophy. It includes two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash from SMUS, Toronto Raptors NBA player Kelly Olynyk of South Kamloops, former NBA player Robert Sacre of Handsworth, Olympian and former NBA player Lars Hansen of Centennial, Olympian Howard Kelsey of Point Grey, UVic national champion and two-time Olympian Gerald Kazanowski of Nanaimo and UVic national champion and Olympian Eric Hinrichsen of Campbell River Carihi.
There is a connection to the latter with current Spectrum star Justin Hinrichsen the son of Eric Hinrichsen.
“It feels surreal. There are so many great players on that MVP trophy and it’s an honour,” said Felt, an outstanding two-way six-foot-eight forward.
“The key to our championship was heart. We just wanted it more. We pride ourselves on our defence and work ethic. We’ve never really been the top school in basketball before but we’ve changed the narrative for Spectrum.”
With nine Grade 11’s returning, including Felt and Hinrichsen, it appears that narrative will continue to be written into at least 2025 for Spectrum.
Spectrum became the 14th Island team to win the championship in the highest class of the B.C. boys’ high school tournament (now labelled Quad-A) and the first since the 2007 Dover Bay Dolphins.
Island teams that have won the top-tier B.C. high school championship are Porky Andrews’ Vic High Totems in 1959, 1962 and 1969, Bill Garner’s Totems of 1966, Gary Taylor’s Oak Bay teams of 1965 and 1968, Don Horwood’s Oak Bay Bays of 1973, 1974 and 1977, John Levering’s Nanaimo Islanders in 1978, Ian Hyde-Lay’s SMUS Blue Jags in 1992, Randy Steel’s Ladysmith 49ers in 1995, Mark Simpson’s Dolphins of 2007 and now Verde’s Thunder of 2024.
FROM THE LINE: It was a big year for Island boys’ high school hoops with Oak Bay taking the bronze medal in the Quad-A B.C. tournament and Dover Bay winning the Triple-A provincial championship by downing the MEI Eagles 75-61 in the final at the LEC with Grade 11 standout Frank Linder of the Dolphins named tournament MVP. Brentwood College made the B.C. Double-A championship game but lost 71-64 to the Collingwood Cavaliers of West Vancouver.
