Only a handful of people can say they've shared the court with basketball icon Elgin Baylor.
Penticton's Jon-Lee Kootnekoff, 90, is one of them.
It was March 22, 1958, when Kootnekoff and Baylor 鈥� who went on to log 11 NBA all-star game appearances 鈥� suited up for Seattle University in the NCAA Basketball Tournament championship game in Louisville, Kentucky.
"He was a magician on the court," said Kootnekoff of Baylor.
Seattle would lose in the finals, of what's commonly known today as March Madness, 84-72, to the University of Kentucky.
Baylor scored a team-high 25 points before he was selected No. 1 overall in the 1958 NBA draft by the Minneapolis Lakers exactly one month later. His legendary career, which included becoming the first player in league history to score 70 points in a game, earned him a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977.
The Lakers icon died in 2021.
"There was one game when we were down by 17," began Kootnekoff, who has lived in Penticton for more than four decades. "We'd clear the way for Elgin and he scored every time. We ended up winning by one."
Kootnekoff, a 6'2" guard, resided in the dorms at Seattle University's Xavier Hall before the school's unexpected run to college hoops' biggest game. He remembers living down the hall from Baylor, and some of his teammates jokingly putting a hockey stick near his locker because of his Canadian origin.
"They'd tell me, 'You'd be better playing hockey'," he recalled with a laugh.
"Kooty," as he was known, quickly responded by referring to James Naismith, the Canadian-born doctor who invented basketball.
A No. 13 seed at the 1958 edition of the NCAA tournament, Kootnekoff and Seattle beat Wyoming, San Francisco, University of California and Kansas State en route to the title game.
Up by 11 at the half, the Penticton resident was left stunned when he and his team squandered the lead after a Baylor injury and Kentucky jolted to the top of the NCAA world.
Seattle lost but Kootnekoff and the rest of the squad still got the rockstar treatment when they returned north.
"When we got home, the airport in Seattle was packed with students and alumni," Kootnekoff said.
His time in Washington came after a proficient high school basketball career in Mission and Port Alberni, where he won B.C. high school MVP twice (1952 and 1954) and led the latter to a national championship in 1955.
Kootnekoff, who was born in Canora, Sask., recalls moving to the province as a child during the Second World War.
His days on the court started in Mission when he was in Grade 6. In the years since Kootnekoff has spent most of his time in Penticton.
He worked as a mental coach at the original Okanagan Hockey School for 27 summers in a row, publishing four different books in between. In his early 40s, he also turned his love for basketball into outreach work within Indigenous communities across B.C.
Kootnekoff recalls bringing a basketball to Fountain Band, near Lillooet, in 1975 and encouraging both kids and seniors to stay active and motivated.
On the court, helping an NCAA school reach the March Madness finals was just one stepping stone in his prolific basketball journey.
After playing out his full-ride scholarship at Seattle University, Kootnekoff was one of 12 Canadians selected to wear the red and white maple leaf at the 1960 Pre-Olympic Basketball Tournament in Bologna, Italy.
Canada finished seventh at the tournament and failed to qualify for the Summer Olympics later that August. Still, Kootnekoff says his brief time overseas was the launching point in the next chapter of his career, with Simon Fraser University (SFU) hiring him five years later to be its first men's basketball coach.
He led the program for 10 years, compiling a 167-116 record and leading SFU to a landmark victory over its bitter rival UBC in the inaugural Buchanan Classic in 1968.
Kootnekoff was enshrined in the SFU Hall of Fame in 2016.
鈥淜ootnekoff鈥檚 visionary thinking and strategic skills as a coach led a generation of Canadians to believe we could compete in the United States against the best players in the world," said Robert H. Wright, a charter member of the 1965 SFU men's basketball team.
Today, reflecting on an eventful life inside his Penticton home, the 90-year-old said his interests and hobbies have led him to places outside of basketball.
The athlete-turned-author 鈥� who also had a stint in the early 1960s teaching physical education and U.S. history at a school in Renton, Wash. 鈥� has been the featured speaker at self-improvement and inspirational seminars across the province for several years, including at the Lakeside Resort in Penticton.
Most recently, in 2024, parts of his life were also included in the book In My Words, a history project that features the stories of people who made contributions to Seattle University.
