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Sager’s Legacy: Loyalty
By Mike Barber, Daily News-Record
Jason Sager had his doubts.
But more than any X’s and O’s, defenses or inbounds passes he learned from his high school coach and his father, the pair taught Sager about respect.
Being the son of Steven Sager, a Woodstock real-estate agent, and the former star forward of Central High School basketball coach Jerry Walters, Sager would be – if nothing else – a loyal soldier to Eastern Mennonite University’s then-new basketball coach, Kirby Dean.
Even as Dean’s first season teetered on the brink of disaster – with players griping about his man-to-man defense and uptempo attack – Sager, outwardly at least, said and did all the right things.
Photo by Wayne GehmanLooking back, Sager admitted he had many of the same questions as his teammates, but he had been raised to do as he was told.
"I guess I didn’t buy in right away because I had to see what he was trying to do before I bought in," Sager said. "Once I saw and got into it and realized what he was trying to do and the kind of program he was trying to establish, I think I totally bought in."
And when Sager buys into something, he’s not looking for a small share. He becomes fully invested.
That’s why this season, when personality conflicts and commitment issues drove a number of players off the EMU roster, when a painful thumb injury caused him to avoid basketball for most of the summer, when most predicted the Royals would be in for a long season, Sager – the loyal soldier – re-enlisted.
Sitting courtside at Yoder Arena on Tuesday, a few minutes after practice had wrapped up, Sager said he’s glad he decided to play his final year, despite the team’s 7-12 overall record and 3-10 showing in the conference, with five games left to play.
"I just didn’t want that feeling of ‘should’ve come back, should’ve done this,’" Sager said. "I didn’t want to say that in five more years."
Instead, he’s having another standout year, one that will most likely earn him a third straight all-conference selection.
He’s currently third in the ODAC in scoring at 18.6 points per game, second in rebounding at 8.1 and fourth in steals at 1.68. He leads the Royals in all those categories, plus blocks, assists and free throws made and attempted.
Tonight, EMU and Sager play at Virginia Wesleyan, the reigning Division III national champion and one of several schools that recruited Sager out of Central. He eventually chose Division II Erskine over a pair of low-level D-I schools -- Coastal Carolina and Mount St. Mary’s -- and Wesleyan.
Sager spent just one semester there, never playing in a game, before heading back to Woodstock. He took classes at Lord Fairfax Community College, then got his real-estate license and went to work for his father.
He was coaxed back into college ball by Dean, then a rookie head coach.
Because Sager never played in a game in college before EMU, the NCAA ruled he was a freshman that year, meaning he could play four seasons. Fast forward four years, and Sager is the Royals’ fourth all-time leading scorer with 1,652 points and third all-time in rebounds with 803.
But his legacy at EMU has veered off course. A few years ago, he appeared poised to be known as the player who helped turn the Royals around.
The year before Sager and Dean arrived at EMU, the Royals finished 3-22 overall and won just one conference game. But with the new energy came new success. The team went 6-19 in 2003-04, including 4-14 in the conference. The next year brought more progress, a 12-13 mark, 8-10 in the ODAC, and an appearance in the conference tournament.
But last year, EMU slid back a bit. The Royals went 11-15, 6-12 in the league and – for the second straight year – lost to Virginia Wesleyan in the first round of the ODAC tournament.
This year, EMU is on the brink of missing the tournament. The top eight teams in the 10-team ODAC go and EMU is currently tied for eighth.
"I’m disappointed for him," Dean said. "It may not be the culmination it should have been, but it is a new beginning. He’s leading all these young guys."
Dean is hoping Sager – now 24 years old – can influence the freshmen and sophomores, persuade them to stick with the program so that their senior year they can challenge for a league title. That’s what Dean had hoped for Sager’s senior season, but those player defections made this year yet another rebuilding campaign.
"The sad thing is, Jason couldn’t control it and I couldn’t control it," Dean said. "We both tried. We both talked till we were blue in the face. We preached until we were blue in the face. We encouraged, we prodded. Some guys just didn’t buy into doing it the way we wanted it done, so this is where we are."
Sager agreed: "Those guys wouldn’t even want to listen to me. They’d just want to do what they wanted to do. This year I’ve tried to tell them that the system works if you buy into the system."
For Dean, there will be more years to cement his place in EMU history. He’ll take the experience this year’s predominately young squad has gained and hope to mold it into the team that starts a winning tradition in Park View.
But for Sager, this season has been the last hurrah without much to hurrah about.
"Maybe to the casual fan it will hurt his legacy because we weren’t able to sustain the improvement we were showing," Dean said. "I think his legacy has improved in my eyes because of the fact that he stayed loyal. He bought into what we were trying to do. He did things the right way."
Sager said he’s thought about his legacy. He likes the way a close friend – who attends most of his games – sums it up.
"He tells me my legacy will be, he thinks I did what needed to be done to win the game," Sager said. "If we needed a rebound or needed something else to happen, that’s what I would do. I’d like that to be out there, that I wasn’t just trying to score points. I was out to win for the team."
