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| "Back home, nobody has any
idea what the Calvin-Hope game is like. ... It’s crazy."
— Chris Prins (Escondido, Calif.) |
When Chris Prins, as a high school senior, made a list of all the pros
and cons for attending Calvin as well as the other colleges he was considering,
the pro list for Calvin was a lot longer than all of the others.
“Some of the other schools’ only positive was basketball,”
he said. “You do spend a lot of time in basketball, but I wanted
college to be more than just that.”
That’s ultimately why the California native chose to travel 2,000
miles from home and pursue basketball and an education at Calvin.
Despite having to abandon driving his car during the winter months because
of the ice and snow, Prins has never regretted his decision. “I
can’t imagine my life any other way.” Weather, though, probably
made the pro list of Long Beach State and some of the other colleges he
was looking at, he added.
As a freshman, Prins joined a team that was the defending national champion.
“I kind of thought that’s how it was here. Every time I had
seen them [Calvin] play, they won.”
Prins, a Calvin Christian High School (Escondido, Calif.) grad, came
in and made an immediate impact on the team. “If I remember correctly,
in 14 years of college coaching, I’ve had only two players start
every game for four years—Jeremy Veenstra and Chris Prins,”
said Calvin basketball coach Kevin Vande Streek. “Chris made an
impact early on with his intense defense and ability to slash to the basket.”
That year, Calvin won the MIAA tournament and advanced to the NCAA III
national tournament, bowing out in the second round.
“That was probably the highlight of my career,” said Prins,
prior to winning the MIAA tournament this year. “But back then I
didn’t realize how much effort it took to get there. People don’t
understand how hard it is to win this conference.”
Both his sophomore and junior year, the team did not make it to the
national tournament. Along the way, Prins was named to the All-MIAA first
team his sophomore year. He repeated on the list as a senior.
He also became a member of Calvin’s elite 1,000-point club earlier
this season, one of only 16 players in Calvin’s history to surpass
that mark. He continued to climb the chart, ending his career with 1,355
points, ranked ninth on the Calvin career list.
Individual accolades aside, however, for Prins the excitement has been
in the entire Calvin experience.
"Back home, nobody has any idea what the Calvin-Hope game is like,”
he said. “It’s crazy. The week of the game you start hearing
things about who has their tickets already. Then the day of the game you
see this huge line of people waiting for the gym to open so they can get
good seats. Then you actually run onto the court; you just don’t
know what it’s like until you’ve been there.”
Other experiences also stand out in Prins’ mind. “The trip
to California this year was great,” he said. “It was cool
to show everybody where I came from.”
Stepping into a leadership role on the team this year was also a life
experience for Prins.
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| The Knights won the MIAA tournament this
year. |
“I didn’t really understand what it takes to be a leader
until I was put in that situation,” he said. “It’s so
extreme. That’s the toughest thing about being a leader. I hate
losing, and even after a really bad loss, you have to come back to practice
and not let it show at all. You have to be positive and encouraging no
matter how disappointed you might be.”
Prins’ positive attitude is one of the attributes Vande Streek
most admires in the team co-captain.
“He leads by his example in coachability, work ethic, Christian
morals off the floor and in vocal leadership of his teammates,”
he said. “Chris is always quick to give a smile and encourage his
teammates to have fun. The throngs of fans, including the young ones,
will miss his post-game visits, when he’d always come out of the
locker room to say ‘hi’ or sign autographs.”
Prins, a business major, will graduate this May and is getting married
this summer to Calvin alum Katie Zeilstra.
“We will miss this Christian young man and the example he set representing
what we are all about at Calvin,” said Vande Streek. |
