Jason Rowe will never forget the first time he saw Jaiden Harrison play basketball. He wasn’t a spectator that day, but a teammate.
Rowe had recently come home after a 15-year professional career, and was playing in a house league game at the Gloria Park Center in Buffalo. His team was a man short and had to recruit a skinny sixth-grader to fill out the squad.
“We needed one and he started hitting jump shots,” Rowe said. “I’m feeding him and he’s hitting jump shots all over the place and I’m like, ‘Wow!’
“What impressed me the most about Jaiden his confidence, his level of confidence to play with grown men out there. He played like he belonged.”
Rowe thought the kid was a natural scorer. He was right. Harrison became one of the most gifted scorers in Western New York high school history. Now a senior for Rowe at Bishop Timon St. Jude, he enters Wednesday needing 38 points to break Dominik Welch’s career WNY scoring record 2,376.
A year or so after that pickup game, Rowe became the head coach at Timon. Harrison wound up at West Seneca East, where he again showed he belonged with older players, making first team of the ECIC all-league squad as a mere freshman. But he knew what Rowe was building at Timon, and wanted more.
“I wanted to get a good education,” Harrison said, "to play basketball and play under a good coach in what most people say is the most competitive league in Western New York.”We talked, and he made it happen.”
Rowe felt Harrison could be a crucial piece in the Tigers’ return to prominence in the Monsignor Martin Association. Harrison, a 6-3 shooting guard, had an immediate impact as a sophomore, averaging 20.8 points a game as Timon finished 18-7 and lost to Canisius by 32 in the Manhattan Cup title game.
Harrison scored his 1,000th career point late in that season. Afterwards, Rowe hugged Jaiden and whispered, “Let’s go get the record now.”
As a junior, Harrison averaged 22.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.6 steals, showing his all-around skills and leadership as the Tigers won their first overall MMA title since 2001, avenging that blowout loss to Canisius in the final. They lost to Staten Island in the state Catholic Class A title game by 25.
Getting back to the states and winning it all is the overriding goal. Rowe, who is in his seventh season as head man, says it’s about raising banners. They continue to play to their high standard (they’re 19-2 after a 90-57 win at O’Hara on Monday), as Harrison makes his steady ascent toward the scoring record.
Harrison, who had a triple-double at O’Hara, enters Wednesday’s game at St. Francis with 2,339 career points, fifth on the WNY all-time scoring list. He leads Timon in rebounds (7.4) and assists (6.4), and second in scoring (20.5) behind junior Nakyhi Harris (20.9). It says something about the Tigers’ talent and balance when a player heading toward the WNY career scoring is second on his own team. Senior Jacob Humphrey averages 17.4 points a game.
“Going for the record is definitely a great feeling,” Harrison said last week before practice. “You’re going to be remembered in the city you were born and raised, especially with my brothers I’ve played with throughout my years.
“But absolutely, winning is first,” he said. “That’s what we working for every day, winning the state title. That’s the ultimate goal. Everything else will come aside. As we said from Day One, as long as we win, individual accolades will come as well.”
Winning tends to raise all boats. Rowe says there were rumors of Timon closing around the time he took the job in 2017, when Joe Licata was AD and looking to upgrade sports. Enrollment was at only 162 five years ago. It’s nearly doubled since then. The current freshman class of 95 was the largest in years.
There were various reasons, including capital improvements, board leadership under new principal James Newton, and greater engagement with eighth-grade students. But the revival of the sports program — the football team has won two straight Manhattan Cup “B” titles — has surely helped.
Kim MacKinnon, a part-time guidance counselor at Timon and volunteer administrative assistant for the basketball team, believes Rowe’s arrival was instrumental in raising the school’s profile in the community.
“When you have winning teams, kids take notice of that,” said MacKinnon, the former girls coach at South Park whose late father, Bob, was a legendary hoop coach and executive in Buffalo and in the pros.
“They want to be part of something, not just winning but something positive,” MacKinnon said. “And Jason’s aura is that. He’s very positive. Kids want to be part of it. He is phenomenal with young people.”
Ron Bertovich, who was commissioner of three college conferences (and one-time Sabres team president) is Timon’s director of operations. He sees Rowe as more of a teacher than a coach. You can see it in practice, when Rowe is constantly schooling his players in the finer points of the game.
It doesn’t hurt to know that Rowe, the first player in state history to amass 2,000 points and 1,000 assists in his time at Buffalo Traditional, played the game at a high level. At 45, he still has game. During a break in practice last week, Rowe made 18 straight three-pointers from two feet behind the top of the three-point arc. He only missed when he stepped back to about 25 feet away.
They use the word “trust” a lot around the Timon program. Harrison said he trusts Rowe and his coach trusts him to function as a leader.
“He’s grown into that role,” Rowe said. “He’s our guy, in all senses of the word. When he’s up, everybody else is up. He’s become that senior leader we needed. He’s become more vocal, and he’s leading by example. That’s what you want from your senior.
“He came in as a sophomore. But he had great leadership in front of him in Kevin Thompson. Kevin took him under his wing, did a great job with him. We have a very good unit, with Jacob and Nakyhi; everybody kind of leads at the same time. But Jaiden is THE leader.”
Part of leadership means staying in the moment, taking nothing for granted. Harrison has received Division I offers from Albany and Fairfield. But he hasn’t decided where he’ll play next year and said he’s not consumed with the idea of playing in D-I.
“To me, it’s not really about D-I, D-II or D-III,” he said. “It's a home, finding a nice home to play somewhere, like outside of basketball. I just want to play somewhere where I can have fun and grow as a man on and off the court. Even if it’s a D-III school, if I feel like it’s a home I’ll go there.”
Harrison said he’d like to play professionally, but he knows how competitive it is. He also knows from a good source that there are many opportunities outside the NBA. Rowe played in 11 different countries during his successful pro career and made a very nice living at it.
If not, he can always investigate crimes for a living. Harrison said he wants to study criminal justice and psychology in college and maybe be a detective.
“I like the criminal justice system, detective work,” He said. “I like shows like that. I watch everything. I watch Law and Order, Criminal Minds, Blacklist. Every criminal justice show there is, I’ll watch. It’s always been an interest of mine. When I was 10, I told my grandma I was going to be in the SWAT.”
First, he has to leave his fingerprints on the state record book. Good things come with winning, and chasing a scoring record and state title at the same time is a testament to the tight family atmosphere Rowe has built at Timon.
Expectations were high this season. When they started 12-0, there was talk of going unbeaten. Then they lost to Canisius and St. Joe’s in a four-day stretch and people wondered what was wrong. Oh, so they’re not perfect?
“We just hit a rough patch,” Harrison said. “A lot of championship teams, that happens. Even if you look at the NBA, major leagues, they hit a rough patch. We hit a rough patch and now we have to adjust, get better, and figure out what it was, and when the playoff time comes around, make sure we’re ready.”
Rowe said the scoring record never comes up within the team. Oh, Harrison is aware of it. He recently reminded Rowe of what he had told him two years ago when he reached 1,000 points. Last week, Harrison tied Rowe’s high school mark of 2,286 points with a free throw. Rowe called out and said, ‘I love you.’
Two days later, in an 83-66 win at St. Mary’s, Harrison passed Rowe’s mark. He scored seven points as the Tigers stormed out a 32-4 lead. It was an astounding display. They led at half, 51-22. But in the third quarter, they let up, failing to get back on defense and allowing 25 points in the period.
At one point, Harrison missed a layup, failed to hustle back and watched as the Tigers got dunked on at the other end. Rowe benched Jaiden, who sat for a large chunk of the second half and didn’t score again.
“We needed some energy, so I wanted to wake everybody up,” Rowe said afterwards. “That’s all.”
Rowe says his players tend to feed off Harrison. Benching the leader sends a signal to the rest of the team that you expect better. You can’t let down against any opponent, least of all when you’re the target on everyone’s schedule.
The very next night, Timon hosted St. Mary’s (the first game was a makeup) and won, 86-63. There was no letup this time, as the Tigers dominated the third quarter. Harrison scored 30 points and shot 12 of 16 from the floor.
Before the game, Harrison and Rowe received framed photographs to mark the star senior passing his head coach on the Western New York scoring list the night before. It read: “When the student surpasses the teacher, there is pride, there is respect, there is love!”
Wherever his career goes from here, one day Western New York high school hoop fans will look at the all-time scoring list, see Harrison’s name at the top and realize, yes, the kid played like he belonged.