@HuskerlandBob Sez: This feature story was initially published in December but in honor of aspiring student managers everywhere we give it another peek. Keep reading, you' know why...

First of all let’s get something straight. In seventh grade Sam Mailloux wasn’t just a garden variety student manager for the basketball team, he was the head student manager.

“I was only in charge of water bottles. The other kids did all the rest,” he points out.

So you can add organizational skills and, well, let’s call it leadership to the kid’s already impressive basketball resume. The rest of his resume mostly has him scoring points, rebounding the ball and blocking shots. Lots of shots.

A 6-foot-6, 190 pound senior forward Sam has established himself as one of the better small school basketball players in the state, and certainly one of the all-time greats at dear old Pender High School. So for this season he’s averaging 16.3 points, 11.5 rebounds and over four blocks per game. Pretty good line but wait, it gets better.

With most of his senior season left to play Sam already has accumulated a career total of 259 blocked shots, including 26 this season in just six games

Oh that’s nothin’. He’s also had 17 blocked shots in a single game and had a total of 129 blocks last season. He’s also a dominant rebounder, finishing with 323 last season, including 22 in a single game. All of these numbers? They are Pender school records. And you want more good news? The kid’s figuring out how to, as they say these days, score the basketball.

“Sam has greatly improved his scoring capabilities both inside and out this year. He has become a threat all over the court on the offensive end and makes it difficult on teams to shut him down,” says Pender head coach Sean King. “Sam has become a true rim protector for us and he has also become one of our best passers on the court and has shown he can be unselfish and give up a good shot for a great shot for one of his teammates.”

Coming from a basketball family - his father coached at both Pender and Bancroft-Rosalie and his older brother Mitchell was also an all-state caliber player back in the day - set out to become a point guard but then he went all Jack and the Bean Stalk and grew nearly seven added inches. He maintains his point guard mentality, even at 6-6, and has developed into an outstanding three-point shooter.

Not only has he developed his basketball skills he’s also developed his diplomacy skills. See, there was a stretch of time when older brother Mitchell was playing ball at Pender and dad was coaching at Bancroft-Rosalie. Second-grader Sam shared his allegiance by wearing red stripes on his tennis shoes on Pender game days, then switching to blue stripes at B-R games, reflecting school colors. Pretty ingenious.

Born in Pender, Sam considers eating like an Olympic sport and also plays some video games. He carries a 3.5 GPA, was part of the school’s one-act play his senior year and has been a three-year player on the PHS football team. He also volunteered to fill sand bags in the relief effort that followed last summer’s flooding in and around Pender, which is located in northeast Nebraska.

Sam plans to attend Midland University where he will play basketball and study either elementary education (it runs in the family) or accounting (grandpa is a CPA).

“My class, the seniors, have always dreamed of qualifying for the state tournament. That is still the goal.”