Rondae Hollis-Jefferson checks out the locker he used at Chester. Despite being assigned to a new player, the stall still has the faint trace of the Clipper great’s name in black marker.
By Chris Vito
The sound of a referee’s whistle echoed through the locker room, signaling that tipoff was only a few moments away. Three years ago, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson would’ve already been on the court. Today, he was taking a stroll down memory lane.
A slow stroll.
With the help of his crutches, Hollis-Jefferson ambled around Chester High’s locker room and over to his former stall, which now belongs to junior forward Jamar Sudan. But if you were to look closely, you can still see ‘RONDAE’ written across the locker, the result of a Sharpie’s permanent ink having bled through a piece of athletic tape and onto the orange paint.
“See,” Hollis-Jefferson said, “I’m still here.”
It’ll be a while before people in Chester erase their memories of Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. At Pickett Gymnasium, he’s everywhere you look — from the banner acknowledging their 1,000-point scorers to the trophy case, where his teams’ two PIAA Class AAAA championship trophies reside.