(Check out photo galleries of Jimmer here and here. You can also watch a video from our photo shoot and read a personal blog post about our managing editor's experience with Jimmer.)
On January 26, 2011, Jimmermania reached fever pitch.
At BYU’s Marriott Center, nearly 23,000 people watched Jimmer Fredette, a small-town boy from upstate New York and the nation’s leading scorer, sink 43 points against the undefeated San Diego State Aztecs. The crowd erupted with increased intensity as he scored shot after shot, breaking the Marriott Center scoring record for three-pointers and leading BYU to a 71–58 victory in what was dubbed the most important game in Mountain West Conference history. After the buzzer, thousands of fans rushed the floor, and security had to protect the 6-foot 2-inch point guard from the tidal wave of people screaming his name.
“I felt like a rock star at that moment,” Fredette recalls. “I’d never experienced that before.”
After that game, Fredette’s name was everywhere. It was a verb. It was an adjective. Phrases like “You got Jimmered” and “scoring from ‘Jimmer range’” became instantly prolific. It was no surprise that after his phenomenal junior and senior years at BYU, Fredette was the number-10 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, landing a spot with the Sacramento Kings. His lifelong goal of becoming an NBA player is now a reality—a goal he had been working toward since he was five years old.
A Little Kid with Big Dreams
James Taft Fredette, a.k.a. Jimmer, was born in Glens Falls, New York, on February 25, 1989. The youngest of three children, he grew up in a tight-knit family with his sister, Lindsay, his brother, TJ, and his parents, Al and Kay. From a very early age, it was clear that Fredette, a chunky, curly-haired kid with chubby cheeks, was blessed with remarkable physical ability and fierce determination.
“I was always around sports, so that’s probably what gave me a really competitive spirit when I was younger,” he explains. “People would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would always tell them I wanted to be an NBA player. A lot of kids say that, but for some reason I feel like I was different. I never saw myself doing anything else.”
Recognizing his talent and passion for basketball, Fredette’s parents allowed him to bounce basketballs throughout the house and even built a dribbling studio for him in their basement. His uncle, Lee Taft, a personal trainer, had him running drills at age five. But perhaps what has given Fredette his greatest athletic advantage is his relationship with his brother, TJ, who is seven years older.
Bond of Brothers
“There was a special bond between us from the beginning,” says TJ Fredette. “I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to be a big brother. I loved his company—just a little guy who was always tagging along.”
Whenever TJ played basketball with his friends, Jimmer was on the court, too. In fact, Jimmer became accustomed to playing against older, more experienced athletes, which helped him hone his skills. Soon he was a real competitor and consistently played up one or two divisions.
“Jimmer had great hand-eye coordination and he was really fast,” TJ recalls. “I thought, ‘If we work with him, he’ll be a monster someday.’”
So TJ did work with him, creating all kinds of unconventional drills to help Jimmer develop a physical and mental edge over his opponents. TJ even made arrangements for them to play basketball with the inmates at a nearby prison. “The games were really intense. We were playing against grown men who were really strong,” he says. “It was a hostile environment, so I figured nothing else would bother Jimmer after playing that crowd. It was a great experience for him.”
“TJ made basketball fun for me,” says Jimmer. “He made me want to practice. I wanted to play because he wanted to play. I wanted to be in the NBA because he did, too. As he got older, he saw that it wasn’t going to happen for him, so he thought that if he worked as hard as he could with me, I could make it into the NBA and a part of him would be there with me.”
By his junior year in high school, Jimmer had become a local celebrity, garnering constant media attention for his outstanding athletic performance. TJ grew concerned about the increasing pressure his younger brother was under, so he devised a way to keep Jimmer focused on his NBA dreams. “I knew the pressure would only get worse,” says TJ. “He’s always been a shy, reserved kid, and I wanted to know if he could handle it. So I wrote a contract for him to sign, where he agreed to do whatever it took to reach his ultimate goal of playing in the NBA.”
On January 27, 2007, at their regular workout, TJ pulled the contract out of his pocket and asked Jimmer to sign it. “When it first happened, I kind of laughed,” says Jimmer. “He had clearly just written it seconds beforehand. We both signed it, though, and I put it above my bed. I saw it every night and every morning. It would remind me to work as hard as I can for my goal. It turned out to be something that was really smart. It’s still hanging there on my wall.”
Despite earning several prestigious accolades in high school, including being ranked among the top 75 shooting guards by ESPN and ranking sixth on New York state’s all-time scoring list, Fredette received little attention from college recruiters. Still, he received offers from 12 schools, including Brigham Young University. So the Glens Falls Indian chose to become a BYU Cougar.
True Blue
Fredette took his place on the BYU team as #32. His freshman year, he was a second-string player but played in every game, becoming the team’s fifth-leading scorer. The next year he started in 32 of 33games and earned first-team all-conference honors—BYU’s first point guard to do so since 1990. It was clear his star was rising quickly, but at home, TJ was suffering from devastating neurological problems, most likely caused by the anesthesia used during a surgery for his torn left ACL.
“It left me with minor brain damage—constant dizziness, migraines, my blood pressure would drop. I was almost too weak to stand,” TJ recalls. “It was a time when I was struggling so much. I had nothing going for me.”
Jimmer was largely unaware of TJ’s condition because “we wanted him to be able to focus,” TJ explains. Little did Jimmer realize that the only thing that brought TJ joy was watching his younger brother excel on the court. “He was everything to me,” says TJ. “To have him doing what he was doing, that was the only thing that pulled me out of my depression. It gave me enough hope and pleasure to make it through.”
During his junior year, Fredette continued to make his brother proud, breaking several records, including the Mountain West Conference (MWC) tournament and tournament single-game scoring records, as well as the record for MWC tournament record for most free throws scored in a single game. He went on to help BYU reach the second round of the NCAA tournament—something that hadn’t been accomplished in 17 years. By the end of the season, Fredette had caught the attention of NBA recruiters, and he seriously considered forgoing his senior year to enter the 2010 NBA Draft. Ultimately, however, he chose to stay at BYU for another season. It was a decision he wouldn’t regret.
Jimmermania
During the 2010–2011 NCAA basketball season, Fredette became a living legend.
“I had three games in a row—against University of Utah, Colorado State, and San Diego State—where I scored over 40 points at each. That’s when everything exploded,” he recalls. “Like on ESPN, you’d see an NBA player like Ray Allen, the best three-point shooter of all time. He’d make a shot from long range and the sportscaster would say, ‘That was from Jimmer range.’ It was crazy.”
But Fredette admits he was unprepared for the sudden fame.
“During my junior year, some people knew who I was, and I’d be asked for an autograph here or there,” he says. But everything changed that last year, after the victory over archrival University of Utah, when he attended a Utah Jazz game with his then-girlfriend (now fiancée), Whitney Wonnacott.
“People began passing things down the row for me to sign. Then more people noticed I was there and it started getting really bad,” he recalls. “Then they announced my name on the megatron and said that the lead scorer of the NCAA was here. Suddenly, the NBA players and all the people in the stands were clapping for me. I didn’t know they were going to do that.” It took four security guards to escort the couple to their car amid the mobs of people clamoring for a glimpse of Fredette.
“From that point on, I’ve had to plan for pictures and autographs,” he says. “One day it was fine and the next day it wasn’t.”
According to Fredette, the hardest part about the fame is trying to do “regular things” like going to the movies or dining at restaurants. “People are going to see me. It’s hard because I don’t want to worry about that and just relax with family and friends,” he says. “Now we have to call ahead and get a private room. We order takeout a lot. It’s weird.”
Wonnacott adds, “Just going out to dinner, I will be completely finished with my meal and he won’t have even started because he is taking pictures and signing autographs, but you get used to it. I try to bring friends so I will have someone to talk to,” she jokes.
Despite the inconveniences, Fredette is grateful for the fans and considers his fame a privilege.
“I reached my goal, and I can be a good role model for kids. I take that very seriously,” he says. “I try to be a good person and make sure they can have someone to look up to who did it the right way. But also, I’m from a small town, not super athletic—just a normal guy who made his dream come true. Hopefully kids will take that to heart and try to make their dreams come true, too.”
To read the rest of this article, including Jimmer's thoughts on his new NBA career and future marriage, pick up a January/February 2012 copy of LDS Living! Click here to purchase.