Classmates Eric Forslin, Greg Gebhard and Ryan Reed remember a bitter moment in the autumn of 2005, when Mount Si’s state football hopes stopped a single game shy of the playoffs.

Following a heartbreaking loss to rival Mercer Island, varsity players walked silently onto the bus for home. When the driver inquired how the game went, no one spoke. Then center James McKiernan broke the silence with a well-timed wisecrack: Just drive, he told the bus driver in no uncertain terms, eliciting smiles from his teammates.

With no holds barred on his sense of humor, or his heart, Forslin, Reed and Gebhard recall James as the backbone of the team, whose love for friends and the Valley still echoes after his untimely death at age 23 earlier this month.

“James shaped the Valley,” said Reed, who remembers how his friend inspired peers, teammate and coaches.

“Jimmy loved all his teammates,” Forslin added. “That’s what made our team so special.”

James Michael McKiernan’s legacy lives on in other ways. Mount Si High School has started a memorial football scholarship in his name, meant to help deserving players with the cost of competition.

In an additional tribute, Mount Si head football coach Charlie Kinnune announced the James McKiernan Best Teammate award, which will go annually to the player who best characterizes ‘Jimmy Mac.’ The first recipient is senior and 2011 co-captain Sherman Hutcherson.

“James was the ultimate teammate,” Kinnune said. “James represented hard work, enthusiasm and great loyalty. He rarely missed an opportunity to get better. He was compelled to serve his coaches and his teammates when they needed him most.”

On the field

Born in 1988 to Jim and Karen McKiernan, James grew up in North Bend, quickly becoming active in Little League baseball, hub basketball and Viking Youth Football, now known as Junior Wildcat football. While he loved many sports—and also had many fans as a child columnist with sister Lynnae at his parents’ newspaper, the Valley Record—the gridiron was always his focus, and he made lifelong friends through football. A natural center in the Viking program, he became a ballboy for Mount Si High School coach Charlie Kinnune, who paid close attention to James.

“He worked so hard to be the best ball boy he could be,” Kinnune said.”He wanted so badly to please.”

When James got older, he passed on what he knew to younger boys, including Kinnune’s own son. He entered high school with great anticipation, but hit a stumbling block his sophomore year, when he wasn’t getting the play time he expected. So, James asked to play C team football, left his classmates behind, and became a leader of the younger boys.

“How many kids do you know who are willing to do that, to leave their peer group, to move down to get better?” Kinnune said. “He had great vision. That vision served him well.” And his team went on to do great things.

“That was the year that we really turned the corner,” Kinnune said. “The three previous falls we really struggled with our record, discipline issues. It was James and his teammates who got together, and said, ‘This is it.'”

In his senior year, James was part of the first senior class to play in a brand new stadium and train in a new weight room.

“James used that weight room and taught everybody how to use it,” Kinnune said.

The head coach remembers James as a personable, feeling, emotional young man.

“You’d never hear him say a negative thing about anybody,” Kinnune said.

The coach saw James last fall at the annual Scarlet and Grey game.

“I didn’t recognize him,” Kinnune said. Standing along the stadium fence, sporting sunglasses and a red goatee, “he had turned into a man.”

“As I was walking away, he said, ‘Hey old man, are you losing your eyesight?’ They laughed and hugged.

“It was a blast seeing him,” Kinnune said.

Deep connections

To Kinnune, football is all about relationships.

After the season is over, “you don’t remember the bad calls, the wins or losses,” Kinnune said. “You remember the relationships.”

Those relationships were still tangible, years after James had moved on.

Forslin remembers how James “would take his coat off his back for anyone… He would help you out, no matter what.”

Classmates at Central Washington University, where James studied after graduating from high school in 2007, said he was the still same way as a college man.

Ellensburg classmate Seth Shy, now a state fisheries employee, said James would help others and refuse any reward.

“He was the reason I didn’t drop out,” said college friend Andy Rose, who recalls James as a great listener, who buckled down in college and inspired friends to do the same.

James had the typical college experience, graduating from Central last June. His parents urged him to develop genuine relationships and follow every lead. He landed a job as a seed salesman for Connell Grain Growers in the Tri-Cities, and was making a home and on his way to a promising future.

“He was going places,” said friend Corey Lindberg, who spoke at a December 10 memorial service at Mount Si High School. “Jimmy Mac made it, and he did it in a short time. He was one of the hardest working people I knew. He had a vision of the places he could go… He was talking about moving up and changing the company.”

James’ plans were cut short in an accident early on Sunday, Dec. 4, when he was hit and killed by two cars while walking on a Pasco highway. His death stunned many like Lindberg, who saw such a bright future ahead.

“He didn’t waste any time in his 23 years,” Lindberg said.

Learning of the memorial football scholarship, Mount Si teammates said that it matches their friend’s personality to a tee.

“That’s awesome,” Forslin said. “He would have done that for anyone, if he was in that situation.”

Always home

Many Valley residents came together with James’ family this month to remember how he changed this place. That process amazed Snoqualmie Valley Alliance Church pastor Monty Wright.

“One of the powerful things about the Snoqualmie Valley is our intense desire to stay connected,” Wright said.

When James died, it was “a very sad day in the Wildcat football community,” Kinnune said. “Our coaches are pretty broken up.”

“James was just an awesome kid,” said Cindy Walker, a close friend to the McKiernans, among hundreds who took part in the service, police-escorted procession and burial in Fall City, and memorial luncheon afterwards at Mount Si High.

“We know that he shaped your characters as much as you shaped his,” father Jim McKiernan told friends and neighbors at the Dec. 10 memorial service.

The family may have moved away three years ago, but has always considered the Valley home.

“James was able to grow up here, watched over by all of you,” Jim McKiernan said. For that, he is grateful.

“He had a full life, having loved, having achieved his goals and shared his amazing smile,” Jim said. “He truly was a gift to all of us.”

• Memorial donations can be made to the James McKiernan memorial scholarship fund at Mount Si High School.