Christian Brothers boys basketball team wears jerseys honoring Jaden DeJesus-Eves while watching the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II girls basketball championship at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Friday. DeJesus died earlier this week.
HANNAH RUHOFF
hruhoff@sacbee.com
This was supposed to be a joyous day, one to embrace and cherish. It’ll still be one none of the players on hand will soon forget, but for all saddest, most confusing reasons.
The Christian Brothers Falcons sent their girls basketball team to Golden 1 Center on Friday to compete for another CIF Sac-Joaquin Section basketball championship, but the mood was mixed and the faces long in warmups, everyone burdened by heavy hearts. One of their own was not there.
Jaden DeJesus-Eves was there in spirit only, his Christian Brothers No. 11 jersey that he proudly wore for the boys team as a 6-foot-8 freshman forward draped on the team bench. His teammates were in the Golden 1 Center seats to root on their classmates and friends on the girls team. They wore matching T-shirts with those on the girls team that had their beloved friend’s name on the back.
DeJesus-Eves died in his sleep late Tuesday night, news that rocked the close-knit Oak Park campus in which the basketball teams are coached by the best of friends. DeJesus-Eves was 15 years old, his whole life ahead of him and his basketball potential as broad as his grin.
The freshman played admirably this season for Christian Brothers, leading those Falcons in rebounds and blocked shots. He made his presence felt in his final game, which has made his sudden void all the more difficult to comprehend.
Hours after a tight section Division III semifinal loss at Placer High in Auburn on Tuesday, DeJesus-Eves returned home with his mother, Jamie.
He went to bed, telling her that he was not feeling well. He never woke up. His mother found him and then had to make the most crushing calls of her life — 911 to report an emergency, and then to family, friends and the Christian Brothers coaches.
An autopsy will be performed as family, friends and a school grasp for answers as to how this could possibly happen to someone this young and seemingly healthy.
Christian Brothers on Thursday held a prayer for its students, community and especially for the family of DeJesus-Eves. On Friday, the girls team had to hold it together, and they did so admirably in beating top-seeded Antelope, 69-61, and then, finally, some happy emotions. Players cheered and hugged. It marks the third section crown for Christian Brothers coach Shandyn Foster, an alum of the school, and it was her most emotional conquest, saying of the effort: “This one was for Jaden.”
A Christian Brothers jerseys honoring Jaden DeJesus-Eves is worn by a coach during the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II girls basketball championship at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Friday. DeJesus died earlier this week. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
The Christian Brothers boys team was not in uniform at Golden 1 Center to defend its section crown, but the team still has plenty to play for. Those Falcons are in the CIF Northern California Regional tournament that starts this week.
“He’s with us,” an emotional Melissa Flowers said, wearing a ribbon that reads, “Forever in our hearts.”
Flowers is an athletic director at Christian Brothers who can speak of experience of what high school athletics can do for a student athlete. She’s a Sacramento product to the core, and she views the kids on her campus as one of her own. She called DeJesus-Eves “an amazing human.”
“The happy, joking, basketball-loving teen that everyone got to see.”
Christian Brothers’ Jaden DeJesus-Eves (11) rebounds a ball between Joaquin Lucero-mattis (5) and Braeden Hennelly (13) in the first half against the Woodcreek Timberwolves on Thursday, Jan. 8, in Roseville. DeJesus-Eves died Tuesday night in his sleep. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com CB boys coach: ‘I woke up, and he didn’t’
Sitting near the Christian Brothers bench, Christian Brothers boys basketball coach Jermaine Brown fought back tears. He thought he was all cried out this week. He is not. It comes in waves, and none of it easy.
Tuesday, the night DeJesus-Eves died, marked the one-year anniversary of Brown suffering a stroke, and his Falcons won the banner last season with Foster giving him updates as he recovered in a hospital bed.
“I woke up, and he didn’t,” Brown said, nodding. “That hurts my heart every time I think about it, and I think about it all the time. I’d give him my life to have him back.”
How does a coach keep a grieving group together? Brown doesn’t have a play sheet for such tragedy. He does know that he has support — from the regional basketball community, from scores of Christian Brothers alums, and from everyone on the Oak Park campus.
There was a moment of silence to honor DeJesus-Eves before the girls game, the Golden 1 Center lights dimmed to darkness. Then there was a loud ovation. Brown said DeJesus-Eves would want people to applaud him, not grieve him.
Christian Brothers boys coach Jermaine Brown holds a jersey honoring Jaden DeJesus-Eves with Jaden’s mother, Jamie, after the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II girls basketball championship at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Friday. DeJesus died earlier this week. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
After the game, Brown happily handed out championship caps to Falcons girls players. Standing next to him was DeJesus-Eves’ mother. She smiled as she held her son’s jersey.
“There is no answer on how to handle all of this as a coach and a leader,” Brown said before the game. “I don’t know what my next move is. All I know is that I have to be strong and keep these guys together. We’re not even thinking about basketball. We’ve canceled practice the last two days. We’re going to meet in the gym (Saturday), but we’re just going to sit and talk and see what’s next.
“It’s a beautiful thing to have so much support. We need it.”
‘She lost her only baby’
Brown said he worries about the mother who is left behind. DeJesus-Eves was the only child of a single mom. The coach said that DeJesus-Eves played every game in the spirit of his mother, whom the boy earlier this season called, “my motivation and my life.”
A superb student, the son told his coach often of how he wanted to make his mother proud. He wanted to buy her a house someday, to take care of her like she had taken care of him.
Brown said he knew the news was grim when Jamie DeJesus-Eves called him Wednesday morning. She started the conversation with, “Coach, you’d better sit down.” Within seconds, both of them were fighting to come up with the right words amid a flood of tears and emotion.
“I just lost it,” the coach said. “I lost it. I lost it.”
Brown paused and added, “Jamie called her son a bright light, and she wants everyone to know that. I don’t know how she’s keeping it all together, but she’s strong, and she needs all of us to be there for her. We’re going to be here for her now, and in three months, six months, one year, three years, six years, the rest of her life.
“We have to be there for her because she lost her only baby.”
Brown said he wants to retire DeJesus-Eves’ No. 11 and have his jersey hang in the Christian Brothers gym.
“Such a loss,” Brown said. “He just turned 15 two weeks ago. Just an amazing young man with so much to live for.”
Sacramento endures another player death
Sports can heal, people coming together for support. It has helped the Sacramento region before when a young student-athlete dies suddenly during a season.
In 2021, Kennedy High School in the Sacramento City Unified School District mourned the death of Manny Antwi. A senior lineman and team captain, Antwi collapsed late in a football game against Hiram Johnson while pulling off his shoulder pads after exiting the game. He did not regain consciousness and died at 18. It was later determined to be heart failure, Antwi’s family said.
In 2023, Justin McAllister collapsed in the locker room after the Sacramento City College lineman participated in practice drills. He died at Sutter Medical Center from heart failure, his family said. He was 19.
Now DeJesus-Eves. Each of these athletes passed mandatory physicals to compete in athletics, but a routine physical does not detect heart issues, nor did it detect whatever might have ailed DeJesus-Eves.
Life, Brown said, “can be cruel, and this just isn’t fair.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2026 at 8:15 PM.
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Joe Davidson has covered sports for The Sacramento Bee since 1989: preps, colleges, Kings and features. He was in early 2024 named the National Sports Media Association Sports Writer of the Year for California and he was in the fall of 2024 inducted into the California High School Football Hall of Fame. He is a 14-time award winner from the California Prep Sports Writer Association. In 2021, he was honored with the CIF Distinguished Service award. He is a member of the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Davidson participated in football and track in Oregon.