SALEM, Ind. (WDRB) -- When team manager Jalen Pigg couldn't make it to a winter tournament, the Salem Boys Basketball team decided to honor him with a little prompting from an assistant coach.
"He walked in the locker room, threw out Sharpies and said, 'We're playing for J,'" junior forward Shane Mahuron said. "And we were like, yeah."
One letter, nothing else.
"He said, 'Everybody put a J on your shoe and when you look down you'll have something more to play for," senior forward Brandon Pepmeier said.
Jalen, who has Down Syndrome, was diagnosed with leukemia a little more than a year ago.
"He understands what's going on," Mike Brown "He knew that it was something pretty serious. He just immediately started fighting. Every treatment that they gave him, everything that they did with him, he was in it to try and get past it."
"I was tough, a tough cookie" Jaylen said.
With treatment all the way in Indianapolis, the basketball team was not only missing Jalen, but new head coach Mike Brown, too.
"My kids helped with Jalen's Special Olympics team at Salem the last two years," Brown said. "So all of my kids knew him but they didn't know he was my stepson until I came here."
The two have been each other's lives for more than a decade with Jalen accompanying Brown through his years as the basketball coach at Paoli, Crawford County and now, Salem.
"Everywhere I've been, he's been a part of it," Brown said. "He just loves being around the kids. He loves being around the game."
"He's a good coach for life," Jalen said of Brown.
Jalen's a pretty good coach in his own right.
"When we run out he'll throw the ball to us and be part of it," Shane said. "He'll be out there when we're shooting layups before a game. He'll give us all high-fives. And you can't miss because if you miss, he gets mad."
That's because Jalen never missed many of his own shots.
"Jumpshot J is what we call him," Pepmeier said.
"He really likes shooting three-point shots," Brown said. "He's pretty good at it actual. A year ago, when he was in Special Olympics, that was easy for him. It's impossible right now."
After a few scary moments this fall, Jalen's cancer is finally in remission, though the journey to gain his strength back is only just beginning.
"Getting that back now, and beginning to see today that he can actually shoot it again," Brown said. "Three weeks ago he couldn't do that. It's just part of the process of him gaining confidence and getting some of his strength back. That's the goal now really more than anything."
For as much support as the team has given Jalen, he's given them even more.
"He's really inspired me, " Pepmeier said. "He's a tough kid, a big fighter. He's such an awesome kid and I'm lucky to have a friendship with him, for sure."
"It doesn't hurt our kids to see that people have it better than they do," Brown said. "They don't need that. They're good kids, but it doesn't hurt to see that every day. That somebody is struggling and you got it pretty good for where you're at."
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