BLAINE, Wash. — It’s hard to believe, but the folks here don’t miss Luke Ridnour. They don’t fight for seats at the local bars when their version of Jimmy Chitwood appears on national television.
This tiny border town can’t miss Ridnour. He may live 400 miles away in Eugene, but he’s ever-present here — and not just because of all his high school records.
Blaine sees Ridnour all the time. If not his retired Borderites’ jersey hanging from the rafters at the Blaine High School gym, then on eight television screens at the Wheelhouse Tavern or on the big screen at Pastime Tavern. And if not in those places, then Blaine surely can’t miss all 100 feet of Ridnour in New York’s Times Square, though that seems like another planet to Ridnour’s 3,770 former neighbors.
So, you see, Ridnour is everywhere. He can’t be missed because there’s nothing to miss. In fact, Ridnour misses Blaine more than Blaine misses Ridnour. There’s perhaps something twisted in that, but that says something about Ridnour, Oregon’s point guard who relishes the small-town virtue of hard work rather than the spotlight.
“He’s our star,” says Miranda Ziegler, 21, Pastime’s bartender and a high school classmate of Ridnour’s.
Ridnour quickly became a star in Eugene, too.
Since donning a Duck uniform in the fall of 2000, the 6-foot-1,175-pound junior has started every game of his Oregon career. As a freshman, he became the first Duck to be named the Pacific-10 Conference Freshman of the Year. Last season, in leading Oregon to the Elite Eight, Ridnour was a first-team all-conference selection and honorable mention All-American.
This season, he became a member of Oregon’s 1,000-point club, and is in the top-five in three career categories for the Ducks (assists, steals, and three-pointers). The resume goes on.
As impressive as his statistics are, Ridnour’s leadership, unselfishness and faith are what truly amaze his teammates.
“He’s well-humbled and well-grounded,” fellow junior guard James Davis said. “He’s the most down-to-earth guy I know. He puts God first in everything he does.”
All of the accolades, the hype, the Paul Bunyan-size billboard — Ridnour doesn’t care much for any of that. As “the ultimate gym rat,” as Kansas head coach Roy Williams called him last month, Ridnour just wants to play basketball, and credits all his success to God.
“The Lord’s blessed me with skills and I’ve just taken that and love to play,” Ridnour said. “I truly feel most comfortable when I’m on the court.”
Which has a lot to do with being from Blaine, where Ridnour said, “There’s not a lot else to do.”
Perhaps as equally impressive as Ridnour’s devotion to Christianity is his desire to be the best on the basketball court: “I want to win more than anything and I’m not going to let anything else get in the way,” he said.
Ridnour is known for a tireless summer-workout regime.
“He has a constant work ethic,” said Jay Anderson, an Oregon junior forward and one of Ridnour’s roommates. “He doesn’t stop. Sometimes we have to force him to take breaks.”
Anderson said Ridnour’s work is contagious, making everyone else on the team better.
“He’s the type of person that if there’s one dinner roll left at the table, he’ll give it to you,” Davis said. “I admire him. He’s a special person.”
 
Tim McBride can’t wait any longer. He’s already lit another cigarette and asks Ziegler, the bartender, for another Miller Lite.
“Let’s get the game going,” McBride scoffs at the TV.
It’s seems like an eternity — though, in reality, it’s probably been 20 minutes — since Gonzaga defeated North Carolina State in the first game of the Jimmy V. Classic in East Rutherford, N.J., and the Oregon-Cincinnati game is next. It’s the Ducks’ first appearance on ESPN this season, and a win would help sway some East Coast support. Blaine, too, would like to see the Ducks — and its hometown hero — do well on national television.
This typical Tuesday started off on a positive note. The Blaine natives opened their local newspaper to find a spread of Ridnour’s billboard, which was unveiled the day before in Manhattan. As if anyone in Blaine had missed their star in the morning, Ziegler passes the newspaper around faster than the pints.
“He so deserves it,” Ziegler says. “There’s some people that make it big, and you wonder, ‘How’d that jerk make it?’ With Luke, it’s the complete opposite. It’s about time. No one deserves it more.”
Ridnour, by the way, was apprehensive when first asked to be on the billboard. He still doesn’t like the idea of competing with skyscrapers.
“I wasn’t real big on it,” Ridnour said. “I think it’d be a lot cooler if the whole team was up there.”
But McBride could care less about the billboard right now. He just wants to see Ridnour in action, but commercials are still filling the TV screen.
Finally, after what seems like an entire pack of Marlboros, the game finally gets under way. McBride quiets.
Soon after tipoff, Randy Kirk enters through the back door at Pastime. A coach at a nearby Boys and Girls’ Club, Kirk has stopped in to find out his weekly score from the bar’s NFL fantasy league. He’s quickly reminded that Ridnour’s playing on ESPN, and, as one of Ridnour’s youth coaches, Kirk can’t help but reminisce.
“In fifth grade, he was asking questions that most high school kids wouldn’t even ask,” Kirk said. “It blew me away.”
 
On the tube, Ridnour and the Ducks are looking like they’d get eaten up by the Borderites’ girl’s basketball team, much less a Division I men’s team like Cincinnati.
A precursor for a blowout, the Bearcats have jumped out to a 17-4 lead over the Ducks. The gossip at Pastime turns to Ridnour’s social life, which, oddly enough, seems to always involve basketball.
“Since he was 1 year old, he’s slept with his basketball,” Ziegler says. “I’ve never seem him without a basketball.”
Ziegler even reveals, hesitantly, that she heard that Ridnour’s mom built him a separate bed for the basketball. (As fun as it would be, Ridnour denies such allegations, though he does admit he likes to have a basketball with him whenever he can.)
Hoping for better luck with the Ducks, Tim McBride and his wife, Linda, pay their tab at Pastime and head to the Wheelhouse, just a half-block down on Peace Portal Drive. The only place in town with satellite cable, the Wheelhouse has a few more customers than Pastime, but the mood is fittingly somber with the Ducks trailing by a large margin at halftime.
“Everyone’s bound to have a bad day here or there,” Wheelhouse bartender Rick Freeman said.
 
A cross between “Cheers” and “Hoosiers,” Blaine, on the surface, is the typical small town: everybody knows your name — especially if it’s Ridnour — and everybody loves basketball.
“It’s pretty cool like that,” Ridnour said of Blaine’s bond with Hickory, Ind., the fictional town in “Hoosiers.” “The community is so into basketball. They love it. The whole county packs the gym.”
The only difference here is that Canada is just a block away, and U.S. Customs’ cameras, looking for border-hoppers and smugglers, scour every street corner.
Other than that, Blaine’s a quiet and peaceful place.
“Growing up in a small town, you get to know everyone,” Ridnour said. “It’s always about Blaine, it’s never just about one person. I’ve always been a team guy, and not let the awards and stuff get to you because it’s not really yours, it’s the people around you.
“It’s something you only get in a small town.”
And even though his parents, Rob (his high school coach) and Muriel, travel to most Oregon games, Ridnour still misses his home. And as much as it can’t miss him, Blaine hasn’t forgotten it’s claim to fame — who could, very soon, become even more famous.
 
Cincinnati is dominating. All eyes, once fixed on the television in hopes of catching a sweet Ridnour pass, have now lowered
. There are more drinks to gulp, pizzas to consume, Ridnour’s future to consider.
“It’s a hard decision, but I think he’ll go,” John Surowiecki said of the lure of the NBA. “I wouldn’t chance any injury (in school).”
Freeman doesn’t agree.
“I’m sure his parents want him to get a degree,” he said. “Money’s one thing, but I think it’s good to stick with an education.
“Everybody in this town is proud of his achievements — we watch him every chance we can. And we’ll support him with whatever decision he makes.”
Of course, it’s all just speculation at this point. Ridnour said he doesn’t even know what he going to do after this season.
“It’s my dream to play at the next level,” Ridnour said, “but when that happens is in God’s hands. Whatever happens, happens. But it’s about the team right now and this team winning. That’s all that matters right now.”
If he were to forgo his senior season, NBAdraft.net, an unofficial mock draft Web site, projects Ridnour as a lottery pick this year.
 
“No matter how famous he gets, he’ll never change,” Ziegler said.
Which is probably true. Millions of dollars and NBA fame couldn’t taint Ridnour’s modesty — a product of his small-town roots.
“I love being in a small town,” Ridnour said. “There’s nowhere else I’ll ever want to live. Growing up with the same people for so long, you get so close. And that’s what I want my kids to experience.”
Ridnour brought his most prized possession with him to Oregon — the one he keeps cradled with him every night — but he did forget something important in Blaine. His heart.
And someday, though not quite soon enough, he’ll be back to get it.