Chapman honors legendary Whiteside with jersey retirement

Jane Lewis looked around, took a breath, and told a packed gym at Chapman exactly what her former player would’ve thought about the ceremony held to retire her high school number on Saturday.

“Val would’ve loved this,” she said.

Valorie Whiteside absolutely would’ve adored everything around her recognition. Everything, that is, except the attention. It’s deserved, to be sure. But it’s just not something she outwardly celebrated very much. The former Chapman and Appalachian State legend and Dorman coach did pretty much everything you could do on a basketball court. She reached the pinnacle of the game, playing professionally overseas at a time when opportunities for women were much more abundant outside the country.

If you stopped to read this in the first place, you probably don’t need me to tell you what kind of player Val Whiteside was. I’ll just hit the highlights: 2,199 points and 1,897 rebounds as a high school player at Chapman, including a 1982 state chamipionship game performance that included 42 points and 27 boards. All-Conference and All-State selections in basketball and track, and All-Conference in volleyball. She racked up 42 school records at Appalachian State, was a two-time Southern Conference Player of the Year and Tournament MVP, scored a league-record 2,944 points, and made the All-Conference team all four years. She was the first woman in the first class of the Southern Conference Hall of Fame, alongside all-time great athletes like Arnold Palmer and Jerry West. After her playing career, she became the winningest coach in Dorman High School history, with 215 victories in 11 seasons.

And somehow, she was quiet about it. Her son JJ Arcega-Whiteside, himself a remarkable high school and college athlete and former NFL player, said as much in an interview about his mom last year.

“That’s something she never really talked about,” he said at the time. “The accolades and accomplishments were great, and maybe one day I’ll sit and think about them, but her biggest accolade, to me, was as a fantastic mother and role model.”

So, Val probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled to have her athletic exploits be the focus of the evening. But I can bet she’d have gladly talked basketball. She did it every time I’d speak with her after covering one of her games. She’d emerge from the locker room with one of two looks – wide smile, sometimes a big exhale after a close one, nodding her head. Or, after a tough loss, gritted teeth followed immediately by that same smile and a shake of the head that would bounce her curls around, likely talking about a play or two that could of turned it the other way. But always upbeat, always giving me everything I needed, and for four straight years, always QUICK. Because she was leaving me as quickly as she could to get to the court and watch JJ.

She’d have loved the fellowship of the evening, too. Lewis said as much, mentioning that Val would have been in the middle of the court, darting in and out, shaking every hand and talking to every person. I think that’s spot-on. I think she’d have loved seeing her sisters and brother and nieces, among other family members, gathered at the school where she accomplished so much, even if it is across a set of railroad tracks and a few miles down the road. I think she’d be thrilled that her sons unveiled the retired jersey, and that her youngest, Keenan, went out and hammered a dunk for Dorman’s first points. And then another, and two more in the first half in an emphatic performance. I think she’d have loved seeing a few coaches, rivals on the court, turn out to honor her. I think she’d have adored seeing the incredibly close group of women who coached with her, the Dynamic Quad Besties, as they remembered their friend. And I think she would have adored the fact that when Lewis encouraged former teammates, classmates, and those who had any part of the program during Whiteside’s playing days – “even if you drove the bus”, she said – nearly a hundred people found their feet.

Those people, Lewis said, meant the world to Val.

“She was play and get after it every day,” Lewis said. “But more than that, she was about friends and family and the girls who played with her. If you want to make a list of what you want and a guide to retiring a jersey, Val Whiteside is it. There’s your set of rules. She played three sports, and she excelled at all of them, and that’s unheard of. But this is what she was about. I just wish she could’ve been here. She was a great, awesome young woman, and I miss her every day. I wish she could’ve been here, because she would’ve loved it.”

Maybe even as much as those in attendance loved her.