“Immortal” means to live forever.
There are no gold medals attached to that definition.
The members of the 2024-25 Hershey boys’ basketball team are about to find that out.
Those Trojans earned it, forever, by merely walking through the doors at Giant Center last Friday evening.
Though the result did not go their way in an 85-71 5A state title game loss to Philly powerhouse Neumann-Goretti, their place in local lore had already been cemented by just being there.
“We won before we walked into the arena,” Trojans head coach Paul Blackburn said.
“We were already a historic team. I couldn’t be more proud of the kids. If you had told me before the season, ‘you know, you’re gonna win a district championship, first one in 51 years, and then you’re going to lose in the state final to Neumann-Goretti, but you’re gonna have the lead at halftime and battle’, I’d take that. “I don’t think many people, if you look at from a basketball perspective, (would have given) us a chance to compete in the game. “But Hershey kids are tough as nails. And you can’t underestimate a Hershey kid.”
The tantalizing possibility of pulling off the impossible against a 10-time state champion never felt more alive than when James Campbell IV nailed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the hometown team a stunning 44-37 halftime lead over the Saints. Giant Center erupted.
It capped a sublime 25-12 quarter-long run, the best stretch of ball these kids have ever collectively played. It was the apex of their careers together.
The worst thing that happened to the Trojans was halftime.
The shaken favorites regrouped and ripped off a 16-2 run, after Hershey had scored the first three points of the second half to lead by 10, at 47-37. That N-G run resembled the one at the start of the game, when the Saints roared out to a 15-4 lead in the first six minutes.
The Trojans dug their way out that one in spectacular style. There would be no sequel.
The kids got a taste – without the hardware at the end – of what their head coach experienced when he was their age, in Carlisle, by copping two state crowns of the four straight won by the Thundering Herd, as a player under Dave Lebo in the 1980s.
But during their own run to local lore, Blackburn’s crew wasn’t really into in hearing about dusty old man memories from faraway times. So Blackburn – who has amassed a 27- year head coaching career among the best Central Pa. has seen – didn’t offer up any.
“They don’t care,” he said. “Kids are in the moment. They are where their feet are at. I don’t really put that in front of them. The only time I do is when we go scrimmage Carlisle and I show them my picture. But they have Google and they’re on their phones half the time. If they wanna know something about me and every bad thing I’ve done in my life, they just Google it. ‘Oh coach, I see you got in trouble in college, did ya’ (laughs).
“They know I care for them and that means more than my history or who I played with, things like that. I think they have a belief in me because they know I have a strong desire to put them in a good position to be successful. And they know I’m on their side.”
Blackburn was asked about 10 years down the road. How this unlikely run to the crest of mountaintop will be recalled by his kids.
“(I hope they) remember how the community rallied around them and what a fun time it was. Being in school, being in town, getting honked at, all the text messages, phone calls,” he replied.
Oh, they’ll remember. And so will the town.
There’s no “gold” in Immortal. There doesn’t need to be.
Aidan Miller, left, and James Campbell IV with the PIAA runner-up trophy. Photo: Kevin J. Fischer.
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