EDITORIAL

Viking fever is starting to take hold.

   Chris Balent wants to build a tradition.
   And that not only means winning, but building a program with a loyal fan base and deep connection to the community.
   He’s already taken the first step, piloting his South Brunswick High School Vikings basketball team to 49 wins in his first two seasons as coach and falling one win short of a state Group IV championship when the Vikings lost to Linden, 63-54.
   The second step may take a little more time to reach, if Sunday’s crowd is any indication, but Viking fever may just be starting to spread.
   School board officials are estimating that as many as 2,000 South Brunswick fans were in the stands at the Louis Brown Athletic Center (better known as the RAC) on Rutgers’ Livingston campus in Piscataway on Sunday. Many even lined up as early as 7:30 a.m. — three hours before tickets went on sale.
   Last week, the high school sent 14 buses packed with fans to the state semi-finals in Atlantic City, turning what should have been a home game for opponent Cherokee High School into South Brunswick’s home away from home.
   Packed houses may now be the norm — busloads also made their way to Mt. Holly and Woodbridge for important tournament games — but they were unheard of before February, when new fans started filling up the near-empty gyms.
   The key now is to build on both the winning and the support. And it appears that the coach is on the right track.
   South Brunswick’s success this year came because all the players bought into a system that stressed ball movement and defense, a system that allowed a different player to shine every night. As long as future players buy into the system — and there is no reason for them not to, given the success Coach Balent has had so far — there is no reason winning can’t continue.
   And if the winning continues, the support will be there.
   South Brunswick lacks the built-in generational support of smaller schools in long-established communities like South River, where attendance at football and basketball games is a matter of civic pride and transcends the fortunes of a particular team.
   "Our town was never really big on school spirit before, it was always the same people involved in spirit week," South Brunswick senior Robert Goodwin, a member of the Viking swim team, said Sunday. "But because this is something so special, people have gotten some pride in our school. This is something we can all be proud of."
   And it is something on which Coach Balent hopes to build.
   "(When I decided to become a coach) I really wanted to have the fan base that you only get, in a lot of ways, in high school basketball," he said after Sunday’s loss. "To be truthfully honest, and we joked about it all the time, we really never got it until the last week and a half. And it’s come in droves."
   Let’s hope Coach Balent can build the kind of program that keeps them coming.