We Are Knox...

Knox College's Jason Harper is just a sophomore and has yet to earn
a full-time starting job, but he's already playing a big role in
Prairie Fire basketball recruiting.

"The joke is who had the better recruiting class: Jason, Coach Kevin Walden '02, or Coach Tim Heimann '70," said Harper's teammate and friend Nick Reineck '06.

That's because Harper kept in touch with his friends from Rochelle High School -- Jeff Zick '07 and Reineck -- and when his friends grew frustrated at the colleges they were attending, he helped set the stage for a reunion at Knox.

"I knew at the end of the basketball season last year that Jeff was thinking about going elsewhere, so I talked to him off and on," said Harper of the 6'4" Zick, who had spent two years at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. "By the end of the season, he visited and liked us."

"Nick didn't decide until late summer. He wanted to continue to play sports," Harper added. "He went to Augustana to play football, and he knew that if he gave it another try, it would be basketball."

"The three of us are best friends," Harper said. "We always stayed in touch with each other. . . . I knew what those guys could do and that they could improve our team. There's no downside to them coming."

The Rochelle-Knox pipeline was already in place before Harper arrived in Galesburg.

Todd Prusator '85, a player for Knox in the mid-1980s, served as principal at Rochelle Township High School until recently leaving to become superintendent of the Oregon (Illinois) School District. Another ex-Prairie Fire, Tim Thompson '99, has taught at Rochelle for the past five years and has served as an assistant basketball coach.

Jeff Zick's cousin, Brett Zick '02, played football and basketball for Knox not long ago.

So far, the three -- who were all sports stars in high school and currently live in the same dorm -- have detected no resentment from their teammates over the history they share.

"They've already noticed we know how to play off of each other," said Reineck. "Obviously, we've had a lot of time on the same court."

"Coach Walden called us ‘the clones' when we first got here," he added. "We all acted the same."

Knox has occasionally enjoyed having two players from the same high school on its roster, and Coach Heimann recalls the days in the late 1980s when Galesburg's Mark Junk '91, John Junk '89 and Mick Swanson '91 all played on his team. This new group may be ready to make the biggest impact on Knox basketball since then.

"They may be the three most fundamentally sound kids in our program," Heimann said. "Offensively, defensively, movement away from the ball -- you name it. In Jeff's case, it's not just a new kid coming in. He's an experienced player. We don't normally get transfers -- they're few and far between."

"I think right now I would say Nick is going to be the first sub at wing and Jason is going to start at point," Heimann added. "That's three of the top six. Is that significant?"

Harper thinks so.

"I think we're going to be a pretty tough team," he said. "We've got a lot of holes to fill but these two are going to get a lot of those minutes."