Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Jan. 7, 2015
GRANBY — He wasn’t there, but Jay Fortier’s presence was still felt in the Granby High School gym on Tuesday.
As the Rams built a lead and cruised to a 64-33 win over Easthampton, the Eagles never backed down — a lesson learned from their late coach.
“He always told us, ‘No matter what the score, you always play 100 percent. Down by a lot, you never give in,’” Easthampton junior Niki Lewandowski said. “That’s something he personally taught me. You work hard the whole game. You bust your butt, you try your hardest and never stop giving 100 percent.”
Fortier died on Monday after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 61.
Before the game, Granby coach Tom Burke took a minute to express his and the team’s condolences and asked for a moment of silence. Both teams were wearing various tributes. Burke was in a Granby blue V-neck sweater — a wardrobe staple of Fortier’s — while his girls had black hair bands and black tape around their wrists.
Easthampton had purple hair ties and wrist bands, the color of the throat cancer ribbon.
The tribute “symbolizes ‘gone but not forgotten’ and he’s always going to be here with us,” Eagles senior Courtney Urban said. “As a coach and a person in our community, he is going to be a legend. In a lot of people’s hearts, he had a very special place reserved and I don’t think that anybody is ever going to forget him.”
The tributes are far from over, as Fortier will be honored before the Eagles’ 7 p.m. game against Hampshire in Westhampton on Friday and the team hopes to finalize jersey patches before Tuesday’s home game.
Before the season’s first game, Easthampton had dedicated to the year to Fortier and made it a goal to leave everything on the floor. Despite the 30-point loss, the first mission of the new era was called a success.
“We made a pact that we are going to leave it out on the floor night in and night out in Jay’s honor,” Easthampton coach Dan Routhier said. “I told them at the end of the night, as far as I’m concerned with the agreement that we made together, we are 1-0.”
Prepping for the game was tough on both sides. Granby had faced Fortier every year during his tenure from 2009-10 to 2013-14 and knew his sideline antics. The team was carrying heavy hearts in his honor and knew the visitors would be doing the same.
“What Coach (Burke) had said was that he had this intensity and this will to win,” Granby senior Meghan Sullivan said. “If he was here, he would have been focused and ready to play the game and that’s what we needed to do. It was still a basketball game and play our best.”
Sullivan knew Fortier personally through her AAU team, Mass Frenzy.
Urban said the hallways at school had been somber all day and that carried over into a calm, but focused pre-game shootaround.
Lewandowski put her heavy heart aside and stayed in the game mentally, but at times she could still hear her former coach.
“My first two fouls I just knew it. I knew exactly what he would say or give me the fist motion because they were stupid little fouls,” she said. “I knew his exact reaction.”
After a difficult 24 hours, Routhier was glad to see his team back on the court and as composed as they were, especially since he expected the evening to be harder emotionally than it was.
“I think they needed this to just kind of get away from just sitting around thinking about things too much,” Routhier said. “I think they needed to get back on the floor and get back to what they know best, playing basketball.”
Burke and Sullivan said it was weird looking over and seeing Routhier instead of Fortier. For Burke, his friendship with Fortier dated back to Burke’s days at Cathedral, coaching against Hampshire Regional during its Western Massachusetts title runs. Fortier’s personality was hard to forget.
“It’s going to be different,” he said.” We’re going to miss him. I just got a big kick out him.”