Valparaiso’s Julian Stokes thinks he knows what Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan must have felt like.
Stokes woke up Friday morning feeling miserable and was unsure how he was going to play in the Vikings’ Class 5A sectional championship game that night. But the senior wide receiver found much-needed inspiration in Jordan’s famous “flu game” in the 1997 NBA Finals.
“Everything he was feeling then, I was feeling it,” Stokes said. “I was weak, sweating, and I couldn’t breathe. But if he can do it at a high level in basketball, then I can do it too.”
Stokes shrugged off his ailment well enough to rack up 128 receiving yards and two touchdowns as Valparaiso won its seventh straight sectional title with a 28-21 victory at home against Duneland Athletic Conference rival Chesterton.
The Vikings (8-3), who will play at Merrillville (10-1) in another Duneland Athletic Conference rematch in the regional final, built a 14-0 first-half lead before Chesterton (6-5) tied the game just before halftime.
The Trojans tied it again at 21-21 in the fourth quarter, but the Vikings went ahead for good on a late TD run by senior running back Thomas Burda, who complemented Stokes with 155 rushing yards and two scores.
Each of Stokes’ TDs unfolded in a similar fashion. He flew down the middle of the field, running away from coverage and giving junior quarterback Kellan Hosek ample space to find the team’s leading receiver this season.
“We run those plays in practice all of the time,” Hosek said. “If they leave Julian one on one, then I’ll just let him go get the ball. The middle safety took a step down, so I thought I might as well take a shot.”
Hosek said he knows to look for Stokes on plays like that, but he didn’t know Stokes wasn’t feeling well.
“I guess that was his flu game,” Hosek said with a laugh.
Neither Hosek nor Stokes had been born yet when Jordan played that game. But Valparaiso coach Bill Marshall remembers it and sent Stokes the highlights from Jordan’s 38-point outing against the Utah Jazz in Game 5 as a source of inspiration.
“I just told him it was time to shine,” Marshall said. “That’s all it took, and he came out and performed the way he did.”
Marshall pointed out that Stokes has had to overcome adversity like that on a weekly basis this season.
“I don’t think he’s played a game at 100% yet,” Marshall said. “He’s had some nagging stuff going on all season.”
Stokes still entered the game against Chesterton with team highs of 37 catches, 461 receiving yards and six receiving TDs after making 16 catches for 341 yards and four TDs as a junior.
Marshall said the burst that Stokes displayed on Friday has become his signature trait.
“He just has an extra gear, more than anybody else we have,” Marshall said.
Stokes’ extra gear is the result of speed and agility workouts that topped his offseason agenda. That made him feel a few steps faster when Valparaiso opened the season.
“I felt a different burst in Week 1 against Penn,” he said.
Stokes may have struggled to find that burst at times against Chesterton, but he left the game feeling optimistic about what he can do when he’s not under the weather.
“If I can do this when I’m sick, I can probably do way better when I’m healthy,” he said.
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter.
