SAN ANTONIO — From high school gyms around San Antonio to Division I basketball — and soon to professional arenas in Russia — word will continue to spread of the 6-foot-nothing point guard who dishes passes with such care that one ex-coach compared it to the handling of a baby.
But the legend of Jason Brickman begins in February 2010, with Clark High School’s 13-0 district record on the line.
Inside Taylor Field House, Clark trailed Taft 65-61 with less than a minute to go in the fourth quarter. But with 13.5 seconds on the clock, Brickman hit a contested 3-pointer. After Taft made two free throws, Brickman had the ball with Clark down 67-64.
Everyone in the gym expected him to shoot. Instead, the eventual Class 5A state player of the year cradled a pass to Elhad Emerllahu, who hit a 21-footer to send the game to overtime, and Clark went on to win 74-73.
“For him to believe in me … ” Emerllahu says four years later. “Most people you play with, you just go out and play. But with Jason it’s like, man, I can’t disappoint him on this. If he passes it to you, you’ve got to do your job.”
Brickman, a recent graduate of Long Island University Brooklyn, finished his collegiate career fourth on the all-time D-I assists list with 1,009. On June 11, he signed a three-year contract with Dynamo Moscow of the Russian Professional Basketball League.
But Brickman’s roots remain in San Antonio.
“I love being here, and I have a lot of family and friends here to support me,” he said. “Every time I come back, I always get a lot of love. It makes it easier to play because I have people in San Antonio that support me.”
Not even a point guard
Brickman was groomed to play point guard. His father, Bruce, played lead guard at Lincoln (Ill.) Junior College, and his older brother Jordan played the position for Clark and eventually Navy.
But because Jason always participated in an older age division so that he could play with Jordan, the younger Brickman was forced to adapt to shooting guard.
“We couldn’t both be point guards,” Jason said. “I always wanted to be a point guard, but I also just wanted to play beside my brother.”
Said Kevin Hamilton, who coached Jason his sophomore year at Clark: “It’s funny that he goes on to be a prolific point guard, because he really didn’t play that for us. But he still got the ball on the break, and it was still in his hands.”
Jason didn’t assume his destined role until his senior year at Clark.
“Like a wide receiver in football,” said Steve Sylestine, who coached Jason his junior and senior years with the Cougars. “If he runs his routes well, he’s going to have a chance to catch the ball in the right place. Guys run the floor and hustle because they know Jason will get it to them with a chance to score.”
‘Like delivering a baby’
Brickman transferred to Clark his sophomore year and was one of only two sophomores on the varsity roster. He didn’t start, but he was in the rotation and most often was on the floor in crunch time.
“You could see that he had a gift of vision and a gift of handles,” Hamilton said. “He’s one of those guys. They say with the great point guards the ball is like attached to a string to their hand.
“With Jason, it wasn’t about just getting the ball to the right person. It was about getting the ball to the right person at the exact right moment at the exact right place. It’s a total gift. It was like delivering a baby.”
When Brickman was a sophomore, recruiters came to watch Clark’s veteran players.
“I would tell them, ‘Look, this guy’s not ready yet, but you need to watch the kid right there because he’s going to make your mouth drop today,’” Hamilton said. “There was never a practice that went by where he didn’t make some pass that made your mouth drop.”
Hamilton marveled at Brickman’s maturity — how he knew when to push and when to slow the pace. How he always knew which teammate to pass to on the fast break. Hamilton would watch Jason turn close games into runaways with four or five 3-pointers in a single quarter.
“It was never a show for him,” Hamilton said. “When he made a great pass, he didn’t look off into the crowd and beat his chest to show he had a heart. He’s not about that. He just goes out and gets it done.
“And, of course, the Jason Brickman poker face that we’re all aware of now. Every coach always talks about being even-keeled. He was the epitome of that. You didn’t know if we were up 20 or down 20 … which I don’t think ever happened with him out there.”
There was a time
Sylestine coached against Brickman when the youngster played on the Amateur Athletic Union circuit. Even in seventh grade, Brickman showed special potential, Sylestine says.
“You see special, and you think of perhaps someone who’s just a superior athlete,” Sylestine said. “Jason was above everyone with his vision. I don’t want to be cliché, but he was able to see things two or three passes ahead of when it happened.”
Said his father: “He always had that natural instinct to find the open guy.”
Playing for Sylestine at Clark years later, Brickman made the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches All-Star team. In his senior year — playing against some of the best teams in the country — Clark won the South Padre Invitational, beating Houston Second Baptist in the finals as Brickman won tournament MVP.
“He had some games where he had nine or 10 assists in a 32-minute high school game,” Sylestine said. “That’s not a 40-minute or 48-minute game.”
The list goes on. In the first round of the state playoffs that year, Clark came back to beat East Central. Emerllahu led the Cougars with 37 points, and Brickman added 25 with 10 assists.
There was one AAU tournament — the Great American Shootout — where scouts and reporters from a Texas high school recruiting website attended one of his games.
“I think he had 32 points,” Bruce Brickman said. “All of his friends were chanting M-V-P.”
Earning admiration
Jason Brickman has been a Spurs fan for as long as he can remember. He went to the Alamodome and watched the early days of the “Big Three,” and just last week was in Section SV1V, Row 3, Seat 7 of the AT&T Center when the Spurs clinched the NBA Finals.
During the NBA lockout, Brickman played against former Spurs players George Hill and Malik Rose in a league game at Lifetime Fitness. Also in attendance one day was retired Spurs great David Robinson.
They didn’t know who Brickman was.
“Until we started playing,” Brickman said with a smile. “Hill and I were going at it. That was probably one of my favorite moments, having David Robinson come up to me and say he loved my game.”
Brickman also has a unique connection to another Spurs great. In his last collegiate game, he became only the second D-I player to average double-figure points and assists in a season. The first? Avery Johnson, who did it at Southern University in 1987-88.
“They interviewed him afterward, and he’s signing autographs,” said Hamilton, who watched Brickman’s milestone game on the Internet. “He is the man up there (at LIU), little Jason. He’s up there signing autographs for all these kids and talking to reporters. … That made me feel good.”
Said Emerllahu: “Honestly, sometimes I get emotional. I was watching “SportsCenter,” and to see his name pop up, that makes me feel good inside knowing he’s one of my friends.”
Enduring legacy
Brickman’s name still comes up at Clark. Of how he was never late to practice and how he was always a model student.
“I always tell our players now whenever we get any kind of drill work, we bring Jason’s name up as being a guy that always worked as hard as he could at any drills we did,” Sylestine said.
Recently, Brickman was back at Clark as the guest of Sylestine at the school’s youth basketball camp. During a break, Jason visited his old locker, where a “J. Brickman” nameplate still hangs. His autograph, along with those of his 2009-10 Cougars teammates, is on a basketball that sits above his locker.
“Who’s that?” some campers whispered as Jason made his way back onto the court for a brief photo shoot.
A few minutes later, Brickman — who Sylestine introduced as one of the best to ever play in San Antonio — answered a few of the campers’ questions.
“When did you first start playing?”
“How often do you work out?”
Brickman had just come from a workout at Lifetime and was on his way to another after the camp session ended.
Sylestine grinned.
Just the week before — two hours after Clark’s last day of school — the coach walked into the gym to find a player shooting free throws. The next Jason Brickman?
“I don’t know,” Sylestine said laughing. “Jason was special.”
jhyber@express-news.net
Josh Hyber, Sports Writer 