Friday was a bad day after the loss of a good one in South Bend boys basketball

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4 hours ago

SOUTH BEND ― Five minutes. Maybe eight, tops.
Those eight minutes were so fitting that it was funny. In the time it took to play one quarter of a high school basketball game in Indiana, where high school basketball is more than just, well, high school basketball, the guy who talked quietly but was a loud prep legend locally rarely allowed a phone message or a text to go unanswered for long.
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Hit me back at this time, he'd say.
I got you.
He always had us.
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That was former Clay High School basketball standout Jaraan Cornell. That was Indiana High School basketball legend Jaraan Cornell. That was former Purdue swingman Jaraan Cornell. That was longtime South Bend resident Jaraan Cornell.
It didn't matter if you wanted a few minutes on the 25th anniversary or the 30th anniversary of Clay High School doing what many figured would never be done and winning the 1994 Indiana High School boys' state championship (before class basketball). It didn't matter if you wanted to gauge his feelings on watching his beloved Boilermakers advance to the 2024 Final Four and challenge for the national championship.
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It didn't matter that Cornell made the biggest shot in South Bend area boys' basketball history that night in the long-since-gone RCA Dome against Valparaiso. It didn't matter that the moment the ball nestled into the net in regulation, the second the clock ran out in overtime on that Saturday night in 1994, Cornell's legacy was cemented.
Forever.
A Clay Colonial champion.
Even decades later when he seemed bigger than life, Jaraan Cornell made sure to never big-time anybody. Especially if you were from the Bend. The South Bend kid was a South Bend legend. Always reppin' the 574, first at Clay where he became a Top 30 college prospect, then down at Purdue where he played 125 games for legendary coach Gene Keady. Then, naturally, back in South Bend where he coached two years of girls' basketball at Clay. Where he worked with local youth at Heroes Camp and, most recently, the South Bend Boys and Girls Club.
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Where he was Jaraan Cornell.
Cornell never was one of those former area ballers you forgot about and wondered about. The kid, then the man, they called J-Kool was always in town, always a call away, always willing to help and do what he could for South Bend. Always there.
You needed five minutes from him, you got 10. You needed 20, he went for 30. Always patient. Always polite. Always ... himself. Get everything you need, he'd ask when the conversation concluded. If not, hit me again, Cornell would offer.
His door was seemingly always open. He was always Jaraan Cornell.
That's what made the news that broke early Friday afternoon so stunning. So numbing. The 48-year-old Cornell, who would've turned 49 in November ― the start of high school basketball season ― was found dead in his South Bend apartment.
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A living legend. Our living legend. Gone.
Hard to think. Hard to write. Harder to imagine that the South Bend community, the South Bend boys' basketball community, feels a lot emptier without No. 22 smiling that sly smile, shooting that smooth lefty jumper, always wanting to help however he could help.
Word early Friday afternoon was that those closest to Cornell ― friends, maybe some former Clay teammates ― gathered at his residence to help one another cope. Surely, there were tears. There could not be tears, but eventually, maybe some smiles at the stories. About who he was as a basketball player. About who he was as a person. About how many lives he touched just by being himself.
Jaraan Cornell never forgot his roots. He never turned his back on a town that wrapped their arms around him because of one magical March night in 1994. They write books about nights like that. They make movies about nights like that. They build statues for people like that.
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That moment never left our consciousness in South Bend, not even after 10, 20, 30 years slipped away and life got in the way. You would drive down Darden Road, past the state championship sign, past Clay High School, which closed last summer, and you couldn't help but think of Cornell. Of those Colonials.
At the start of every high school basketball season, you'd think of Clay and Cornell and that shot, those arms raised in celebration, the class that he carried that season, that game and all those years afterward.
Look up class, look up character, look up champion in the dictionary and it should say, see Cornell, Jaraan.
Now the guy's gone. Can't call him and wait for that return call. Can't text him and wait for that return text. Can't talk hoops with him. Can't talk South Bend with him. Can't hear his stories. Can't hear that deep, baritone laugh.
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We can only talk about him. And we will. Next boys' basketball season. Next March. Next.
As long as high school basketball is high school basketball and Indiana is Indiana, Jaraan Cornell lives forever in our hoops hearts.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [e-mail]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Remembering a Clay High School boys basketball standout gone too soon