Ventura Highwayman : Once He Got Revved Up, Jessie Steered Pirates Into the Fast Lane

Stretched face down on the hardwood floor, perspiration pouring from his body and his hands covering his eyes, Brandon Jessie heard the celebration nearby but couldn’t bear to watch.

It wasn’t supposed to end like that.

All the laughter and hugs and yelling in that torrent of humanity at the other end of the court was supposed to be done by Jessie and his Ventura College teammates.

But the script didn’t work out. Again.

“I just couldn’t believe what had happened,” Jessie said. “We were the No. 1 team but we didn’t get to prove it.”

The Pirates entered the title game Saturday at UC Irvine poised to claim the state junior college championship, but Long Beach City College ruined those designs with a 63-61 victory.

Ventura endured a similar fate the season before in the final at the University of San Francisco. Ranked No. 1, the Pirates returned home with the bitter taste of a 97-88 upset defeat to Columbia College and the resolve to take care of business this season.

Instead, another team gave them the business. Ventura weaved 37-2 and 36-3 records the past two seasons, had winning streaks of 21 and 29 games, but fell short both seasons.

And Jessie, the heart and soul of the top-ranked team in the state since the preseason, was crushed. He lay motionless on the floor of the Bren Events Center for a few seconds until Coach Philip Mathews asked him to join the other Pirates on the bench.

Jessie trudged to the sideline, threw a towel over his head and sat quietly, his marvelous two-season career at Ventura ended in despair.

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A few days have passed since that defeat, but the heartache is still visible. It probably will be for a long while.

To Jessie, a 6-foot-5 forward with remarkable quickness and jumping ability, winning the state championship was the ultimate payoff for those months of hard practices and tough games.

He arrived at Ventura two summers ago with unquestionable credentials as a player but a notorious reputation for wanting to do things his way, on and off the court. Part of that came from his great success as a basketball, football and track star at Edison High in Huntington Beach.

As a three-year varsity starter for the Chargers, Jessie set school records for points (1,580) and rebounds (818) and twice was named the most valuable player in the Sunset League. He was also an outstanding wide receiver and league sprint champion in track. His schoolwork and attitude, however, needed some adjustments.

“I admit I was crazy,” Jessie said. “I did a lot of stupid things. . . . I started getting into fights at parties, my grades suffered.”

His father, Ron, the former Ram All-Pro wide receiver, heard about the Ventura basketball program. He learned that Mathews stressed academics, so he prodded his son to visit the school. Jessie was sold immediately but soon realized he had walked into a land mine.

“I came in at over 240 pounds (he weighs around 215 now) and I was way out of shape,” Jessie said. “Every day in conditioning he (Mathews) would be running next to me, yelling in my ear, calling me fat and lazy. After my first day, I called my mom and told her I wanted to come home. I said, ‘He is killing me.’ My dad got on the phone and said to stick it out, that I had made a commitment.”

The advice paid off.

During the 1992-93 season, Jessie averaged 16.5 points and 9.3 rebounds in the regular season, and was named to the All-Western State Conference North Division first team after helping the Pirates to their seventh consecutive divisional title. He led the team in scoring with 78 points and in rebounds with 34 in three games at the state championships, and was selected to the all-tournament team.

For Mathews, who says he rode his prized player in order to tap into Jessie’s vast potential, the results confirmed that he had Jessie headed in the right path.

“Brandon came in with the reputation that he played any which way he wanted,” Mathews said. “We decided he was going to play the VC way.”

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Under Mathews, who guided the Pirates to the state title in 1987 and to the final eight the past three seasons, the VC way of playing basketball means all-out, intense, baseline-to-baseline action for 40 minutes. Loafers need not apply.

No one perhaps exemplified that approach like Jessie, a tireless worker who seldom gave up on a loose ball or a rebound.

“The kid can really play,” Mathews said. “He has immense talent. On raw talent, he is probably the best we’ve had. I put him in a class with (Cedric) Ceballos (of the Phoenix Suns). . . . He could be in The League (NBA) if he wants to.”

At times, Jessie seemed as if he belonged in another league this season.

He blossomed into a force who led the team in practically every category and took the Pirates to another WSC North title. Jessie averaged 22.9 points, 10.9 rebounds, made 51.6% of his shots and 74.8% of his free throws, and had a team-high 70 steals. The division coaches named Jessie and teammate Joey Ramirez co-most valuable players and their counterparts around California voted Jessie the state’s co-player of the year with Columbia’s Jamie Townsend.

During the state championships last week, Jessie scored a tournament-high 78 points, had 23 rebounds in three games and was named to the all-tournament team. But the trophy that got away, the one presented to the winning team, is what Jessie wanted most.

“What we go through here from August to March, the conditioning, the practices--it’s brutal,” Jessie said. “I mean, to work hard like that and get to the finals and lose it. The first year was unbelievable. The second year was devastating.

“Seventy-five percent of it was the loss of the game but the other 25% was knowing that I wouldn’t be playing anymore with Joey or D’Mitri (Rideout) or Michael (Tate) or Alfred (Kennedy). We did everything together for two years. I told the guys and the coaches after the game that it was the best two years of my life.”

That old gang of theirs will be elsewhere next season, playing for other coaches and with new teammates, perhaps in faraway places. Jessie has been courted by virtually every major four-year school in the country but still doesn’t know which he will attend.

He considered an offer to play football and basketball at Florida State, but says he hasn’t heard from Seminole officials lately. However, he did hear from his father.

“It has crossed my mind (playing football and basketball) so many times,” Jessie said. “My dad said it would be hard. He said to save my bones now and stick to basketball.”

That must be sweet music to recruiters from Duke and UCLA and Georgetown and other Division I schools jockeying for position to persuade Jessie to join their program. A sociology major, Jessie has the grades to attend the university of his choice but he apparently has narrowed the front-runners to a precious few.

“You have to look at so much stuff (when selecting a school),” Jessie said. “Who is leaving (the team)? Who is coming in? Will you get playing time? Every decision would be good. You just have to make the best one.

“I have been talking to Duke a lot. I’ve been talking to (center) Cherokee (Parks, another former Orange County high school product) and he thinks I can come in and definitely play. I also would like to stay close to home and UCLA would be good for me because of that. That’s what’s going to get me, right there.”

Still, Jessie said he will visit five campuses in the next few weeks before deciding. He said his two seasons at Ventura were a solid foundation for what’s to come.

“I grew up a lot here,” he said. “The discipline I learned here will stick with me for the rest of my life. I think Coach (Mathews) has prepared me very well. He got me mentally ready for anything I’m going to face at a higher level.

“I made it through two years of hell with Phil Mathews. But it was worth it.”