Clark star James Bridges playing senior season for late father

Clark High standout James Bridges had to do something he had rarely ever done before recently in the first preseason game of his senior season. Bridges had to pull himself out of the game.

Emotion overwhelmed the 6-foot-3 guard when he looked toward the stands knowing his father, James Bridges III, wouldn’t be looking back like normal. The elder Bridges died in August after a five-year battle with cancer.

“It was heartbreaking and I couldn’t handle it,” Bridges said. “But after that, I realized I had to play for him. I realized I had to go for him. It was rough, but knowing how strong he was going through his sickness, I knew I had to be strong and play.”

That sums up Bridges’ attitude heading into his final season at Clark, which begins with an honor he and his father hoped he would receive — a spot on the Sun’s Super Seven preseason basketball team. Bridges is out to do everything he can to make sure the year ends with securing his third state championship in four years and a place to continue his basketball career in college.

It would be the culmination of a dream he shared with his father ever since he was a young child. Some of Bridges’ earliest memories revolve around his father’s obsessive devotion to the basketball team at his alma mater, the University of Kansas.

“He loved watching them play, and I loved the support he gave that team,” Bridges recalled. “I saw that and wanted to make him happy and see if I could reach a level where he would cheer for me like that, too.”

Bridges reached that level far before his father passed away, with his best season yet coming last year in helping Clark emerge as a known presence on a