It all started with a close game. On January 31st, the Garfield boys basketball team narrowly defeated the Redmond Mustangs 67 – 66 in a double-overtime.

“They thought they were going to beat us the next time,” said senior De’Andre Taylor. “We knew that we were the better team. We just had to prove it.”

Prove it, they did. The next week, Garfield faced Redmond again, and with only 5:26 left in the game, they led with 50 – 33.

“Basically their whole city came out to the game,” said Taylor, “and it wasn’t even close.”

Disappointment may have triggered the events that followed. After Taylor and a Redmond player got involved in a small shoving match that is typical in a heated sporting event, a Redmond fan charged out of the stands during a dead ball, and punched Taylor in the back of the ear.

“I had never seen anything like it,” said Garfield Coach Ed Haskins. “Not in thirteen years of coaching.”

Sophomore player Glenn Brooks echoed Haskins’ sentiments. “It was weird. When it happened, everyone was stunned.”

With no prior experience with similar incidents, the reactions of the Garfield team centered around one objective: to defend their teammate.

“Everybody just ran out on the court trying to protect Dre,” said Brooks.

By the time Taylor turned around to see what was going on, another Garfield player had already punched the offending fan twice. Players from both teams swarmed the floor. The fight ended with a broken jaw for a Redmond player, suspensions for eight Garfield players (only three of which actually carried over into the following games, as most were for leaving the bench), a police escort off of the Redmond campus, and an eventual win awarded to the Bulldogs.

In most cases, an unprovoked attack births a rivalry. Not the boys basketball team. When they play, they are not just teammates, they are like a family. The situation did not separate the boys, it made their bond stronger.

In life, it is inevitable that one will fall into various trials. These trials can be taken as lessons in life to build strength for another difficult circumstance that may come ones way. This lesson has not only been learned, it has been instilled and they are looking pass distractions.

“It’s not about a fight; it’s about basketball,” said Coach Haskins.

The boys insist that there was no previous animosity between Garfield and Redmond, the game is the game and what goes down on the court, stays on the court.

“We don’t want it to be a situation every time we go there,” said Brooks. Their maturity and discipline show how focused the boys are on their ultimate goal for this season.

“We’re trying to win state, and we don’t want to be distracted by anything else,” Brooks said.

Once they conquer winning state, as it was announced on senior night, these players have dreams. Those dreams are far more important in life than the hype of an astonishing act of the opposing team’s fan.

With that in mind, the Bulldogs will take what they have learned from the Redmond game and use their new knowledge to avoid any such conflicts in the future.

“It was a good experience to learn from,” said Taylor. “We know now that we have to stay on the bench no matter what. We have to think about the consequences for the next game, we have to stay focused on the future.”

Since the Redmond game, Coach Haskins has been discussing with his players what they can do differently if anything like this were to happen again.

“I’ve been talking about responding and not reacting,” he said. “If you react to a situation, you’re going to do differently than if you respond. When you respond, you think about the situation, when you react, you don’t.”

“We gotta learn to keep our composure, and not let what the fans do dictate how we act,” Brooks added.

This mentality is extremely important to remain a focused team, especially in an Eastside environment, where there have been misinterpreted actions.

A survey of the Seattle Times High School Sports comments webpage indicates that bloggers in the Redmond fan base consider brawling behavior typical of Garfield (one GHS fan who attended the game said that the security automatically flocked to the Bulldog fan section, as if expecting a riot), describing the actions of one Bulldog player as “chicken s**t.” The commenters went on to speculate that Garfield would not punish any “key” players, and allow the season to carry on without justice being served. Instead of reacting to these allegations, the Garfield team has instead put their energy into coming up strong.

“We’re not a gang, we’re not a bunch of thugs, we’re basketball players,” said Coach Haskins. “Whenever you’re on top, people are always going to talk.”