By Blake Colston
Sports Writer
In late February of this year, new Yukon boys basketball coach Ja’Ron Jefferson was making his final preparations for the area championship game, when he received a phone call that was equal parts stunning and frightening. Four of his Putnam City West players and one team manager had been in a car accident in northwest Oklahoma City.
“When I got there and saw the car mangled and all my girls bleeding and bruised up, I thought it was over with,” he said. “You start to question God. Why are you putting us through this?”
PC West was set to face rival Putnam City North for a state tournament berth in 24 hours, but with a significant portion of West’s varsity roster bruised, battered and stunned, no one knew what would happen next.
“It was something you never want to go through as a coach or parent,” he said. “That was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever dealt with as a head coach.”
Luckily, the injuries from the accident were not life-threatening and no hospital stays were needed. With that in mind, Jefferson’s next step was to rally his team.
“I told them there’s nothing you can do about what happened the day before. We embraced the girls who couldn’t play and told them we had their back,” he said.
The next day, the Patriots throttled North, 62-52, to punch their ticket to state despite playing without University of Oklahoma commit Caya Smith and others, who missed the game due to concussions from the wreck. Another Patriot played with shards of glass in her stomach.
“That was the definition of grit and determination,” Jefferson said.
Ten days later, Jefferson’s daughter, Da’Nae, provided the game-winning three-point play in the Patriots’ 41-40 victory over two-time defending state champion Edmond North to win PC West its first girls basketball state championship since 1981. The Patriots finished runner up in 2023.
“It was more so of a burden lifted because we had been so close for so many years,” Jefferson said of the title. “For the buzzer to go off and the score be in your favor, it’s indescribable. You want to stay in that moment forever. We went out as champs. It’s etched in history forever and no one can change that.”
Lenny Bert, West’s boys basketball coach and athletic director at the time, shared the accomplishment with his daughters, Shamar and Brennen, each of whom were key players on the title team. Bert said he never doubted that Jefferson would be able to refocus his team after the accident.
“They were that tight as a team, it didn’t matter what happened and that comes from the coaching staff,” Bert said.
Remarkably, Jefferson never told anyone outside of PC West’s program about the crash, because, in his own words, ‘I didn’t want people to feel sorry for us.’
“Our motto all season was that there were no excuses,” he said.
‘HE DEVELOPS PLAYERS’
Bert and Jefferson both grew up in the same Forest Park neighborhood and each graduated from Midwest City High School.
“Oklahoma’s not that big, so I always knew of him, but hadn’t dealt with him firshand,” Bert said.
That changed in 2018, when Jefferson was hired as an assistant girls coach at PC West. Three years later, the school elevated him to head coach. Bert, who led PC West’s boys to a state championship in 2016, marveled at Jefferson’s knack for getting the most out of his players.
“He develops them. His attention to detail on individual players is impressive,” he said. “That was something I really appreciated, because I knew my daughters were going to become better players.”
At first, Bert said, Jefferson sought perfection from his team, on and off the court, all the way down to making sure their pregame outfits matched perfectly.
“You learn as you go that everything can’t be perfect,” Bert said.
By the time he was named head coach in 2021, Jefferson was the right blend of stern and sensitive, something Bert attested to with his own daughters’ experience.
“He spends a lot of time with the girls doing team-building activities to build them up. He was always present with them and very transparent when it came to being in their life. They knew he cared about them,” he said.
Now, Jefferson is ready to tackle his biggest challenge to date: rebuilding Yukon’s basketball program, which was a powerhouse in the 70s, but has mostly struggled since.
Calvin Pierce, Jefferson’s junior college coach at Rose State, is not surprised by his former pupil’s success as a coach so far, and he predicts more will follow in Yukon.
“He’s very competitive. He really cares about his kids and wants to see them be successful,” he said.
As a player, Pierce said Jefferson was coachable and fully committed to sharpening his skills.
“You don’t see many young men at his age that are that committed,” said Pierce, who played for Billy Tubbs at OU.
During Jefferson’s senior season at Midwest City in 2001, he practiced with the Bombers in the afternoon, then drove to Rose State for more drills.
“He had a great work ethic,” Pierce said.
Jefferson was voted team captain at Rose State, earning all-conference honors for three seasons before transferring to Montana State, where he was twice named all-league in the Big Sky Conference. In 2006, Jefferson finished his career playing professionally in Poland.
“I think he has overachieved at every level,” Pierce said. “ He’s a one in a million type of person. I’m very proud of him.”
