INDIANAPOLIS − What you should know about The Waverly School in Pasadena, California: They’re proud of their sports there. Yes, we’re proud of our sports here, and this story has echoes that crash from southern California to Indiana, ugly echoes, sounds like thunder rumbling and adults jeering and lightning crashing and kids crying.
We’ll get to Crispus Attucks vs. Washington, and to South Bend Washington vs. Gary Lighthouse.
But first, what you should know about Waverly: Their middle school soccer team went undefeated in 2019. It’s a big deal — imagine being those kids! — which is why it’s one of a handful of highlights mentioned on the school’s website, on the page devoted to the sports programs there. Also, the middle school boys flag football team went to the playoffs in 2018.
No, this is not your typical school. At Waverly, a private school so small its Class of 2024 graduation ceremony was held in somebody’s backyard, kids can meet their P.E. requirement by playing a team sport. Kids have other graduation requirements, too, most beautifully this one:
“High school students are required to participate in a total of 60 hours of community service prior to graduation.”
That’s straight from the Waverly website. So is the first sentence under the school’s mission statement:
“Relationships are paramount at Waverly, defined by trust, understanding, and mutual respect.”
Why are you reading about The Waverly School, located in Pasadena? Because of the echoes. Because of what happened earlier this month when the Attucks girls basketball team beat Washington 115-5 — nope, not a misprint — and because of what happened in November when the South Bend Washington girls basketball team beat Gary Lighthouse 100-0.
Nick Khatchikian set a CIF record with 102 points. His twin, Dylan Khatchikian, set a CIF record with 35 assists. Dylan, and this is not me calling him the unselfish twin, had a triple-double without scoring a point: 35 assists, 15 rebounds, 13 steals.
Mesrobian was leading 79-0 at halftime. Nick Khatchikian had all 79 points.
The brothers played most of the third quarter, then posed for pictures afterward. Nick’s holding a piece of paper with “102” on it, an echo — there’s that word again — to Philadelphia Warriors star Wilt Chamberlain’s famous pictorial celebration after he scored 100 points against the Knicks in 1962. Dylan’s holding a piece of paper with “35 ast” on it.
Chamberlain scored 100 points against pros who had won 27 games that season.
The Khatchikian brothers did their thing against kids from The Waverly School, which has lost all nine games — scores include 71-9, 79-13 and 65-14 — with a roster featuring four sophomores and two freshmen, all fulfilling their P.E. requirements, all competing for a program with a “focus on maximizing the participation of all team members. Success is measured in terms of personal development and the team’s overall progress.”
Success looks different to other folks.
LeBron James, ESPN think it’s great
We are not immune to this in Indiana. We are not immune to this anywhere, perhaps, or at any level. Ever heard of Grinnell College? That’s an NCAA Division III school in Grinnell, Iowa, that for years under coach David Arseneault would schedule one game a year against an even smaller school — not an NAIA or junior college team; think smaller — and use that competition to paint a masterpiece:
∎ 138 points for Jack Taylor in 2012 against Faith Baptist College, a National Christian College Athletic Association team.
∎ 37 assists for Patrick Maher against College of Faith, an online ministry school, in 2014.
Every time it happened, the media — social and otherwise — would go gaga: Hey, isn’t this cool! Check what the kid from Grinnell did. Sick!
Oh it would be nice right now to say: But times have changed…
But they haven’t.
On ESPN, the late-night SportsCenter from L.A. devoted most of its final minute to “a special evening for the Khatchikian family,” complete with pictures of the brothers holding their pieces of paper. On Twitter, sites like BallIsLife were saying things like “THIS IS INSANE” to its 1.6 million followers, and on Instagram, ESPN’s SportsCenter page — with the picture of the brothers holding their paper — was greeted by the following comment:
“I wanna see the game film!”
That was from LeBron James.
The world has lost its mind, and again, it’s not just them. It’s us, too.
It was Attucks on Jan. 11, playing a Washington team coming off a 64-9 loss to Purdue Poly Englewood earlier in the week, using a trap defense and high-tempo offense to build leads of 38-2 after one quarter and 73-3 at halftime — and using the same trap, same tempo, deep into the fourth quarter of this 115-5 disaster. Attucks star Kamrah Banks, a high-Division I prospect and the daughter of coach Kamaren Banks, took nearly every shot in the first half and scored a school-record 63 points.
And it was South Bend Washington, a Class 4A powerhouse, scheduling Class 2A Gary Lighthouse on Nov. 16. Last season Lighthouse played nine games, lost all nine, and scored 80 points all season. South Bend Washington had more than that (86) after three quarters. Washington coach Steven Reynolds told the South Bend Tribune, “When I tell you we could’ve scored 300 points — we could have,” and added: “We did show mercy.”
Crispus Attucks, South Bend Washington no better
The weak people among us — folks like Steven Reynolds — tend to fight back with some form of the following:
What do you want us (Mesrobian, Attucks, South Bend Washington) to do?
Because it’s unavoidable, see. Mesrobian, South Bend Washington and Attucks are good. Waverly, Gary Lighthouse and Indianapolis Washington are not. What do you want the good teams to do?
Not that.
Not copying the Grinnell model and, for whatever reason, scheduling an opponent that clearly can’t compete. SBW was an IHSAA Class 3A state champion in 2022 and 4A region champ in ’23. What’s it doing scheduling a team like Class 2A Lighthouse, which had lost its last 28 games?
“We reached out to everybody,” Reynolds told the South Bend Tribine, “(to) any 4A school in the area that we could possibly play, and nobody wanted to play us. And I have to fill a schedule.”
No you don’t, see. Play one less game. Would that hurt your kids more than a 100-0 loss will hurt the girls at Lighthouse?
As for Mesrobian, they pulled back with about a minute left in the third quarter. By then the Khatchikian brothers had set their records by bastardizing the game. The box score shows Nick, who had the ball in his hands enough to score 102 points, had zero assists. Dylan had 35 assists and took zero shots. The coach at Mesrobian, Mike Gabriel, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune his team discussed the CIF individual scoring record at halftime — Nick Khatchikian had 79 points, remember, and Mesrobian led 79-0 — and “we decided as a team to let him go for it.
“Everyone was on board,” he added.
In the other locker room, preparing to come out for the second half, were the kids at Waverly. That’s a school that counts among its finest athletic achievements the time in 2017 when “the middle school started a coed tennis team.”
That feat is a few sentences beneath the following sentence:
“We believe that participation in sports can contribute significantly to the physical, social, and emotional well-being of our students.”
Depends, really.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel onThreads, or onBlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
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