When Nazareth Lee transferred to Potomac High in Dumfries two years ago, he did what any new student might do: He looked for friends. He found one within the basketball program, where the coach’s son, Kyle Honore, welcomed Lee to the school and the team with an open, easygoing attitude.
“When you talked to him, you got so comfortable so easily and so fast,” Lee said. “You’d be talking for five minutes and all of a sudden it would be an hour.” Honore quickly became an adviser, a workout partner and a friend.
On Wednesday morning, Lee woke to news that Honore had died. He was 19.
Honore, who had recently moved to Wingate University just outside Charlotte for his freshman year of college, was struck by a train near campus Tuesday night. According to the Wingate Police Department, he succumbed to his injuries while being transported to a hospital. The incident is still under investigation.
In the storied Potomac basketball program, Honore was first and foremost known as the third son of Keith Honore, the Panthers’ coach since 2005. But over time he made a name for himself as a leader and a star, earning a scholarship to Wingate on the back of an impressive senior season.
“We’d discuss our goals before the season,” Lee said. “We wanted to win it all, and he wanted to hit 1,000 points. And I wanted to make sure he got that.”
Basketball, the sport that led Honore six hours south for college, had long been the motor in his life.
“Everybody says that their love of the game starts when they were young,” he said in February, “but I have a picture of me at 2 years old with two basketballs in hand, wearing an NBA headband and a Carmelo Anthony jersey. It’s always been in me, and in middle school I started to understand that this is what I’d be doing for a long time.”
It was in those middle school years that Honore would hang out at the Potomac gym, watching and sometimes participating in his father’s practices. He would run sprints with the team, looking up to each crop of Panthers.
When he made it to high school, Honore became just as synonymous with Potomac basketball as those players and his two older brothers before him. All three Honore brothers wore the same number Keith wore when he played at Potomac in the 1990s: 11.
As a four-year starter, Honore developed a deep on-court résumé and earned a rare level of respect locally.
“It wasn’t just respect throughout the county but also across the state,” Patriot coach and former Potomac assistant Sherman Rivers said. “He was a special kid and a special player. You would never find anybody across the state to say a bad thing about him.”
By his senior year, Honore was one of the most experienced and talented players in Northern Virginia. He took on a leadership role with confidence. On days he might not have it, one of his brothers, Keijon — an assistant with the Panthers — gave it to him. Before every game of his senior season, Keijon delivered the same message.
“We do our little handshake, and he tells me that I’m the best player in the state,” Honore said last season. “Coming from him, that gives me confidence.”
Off the court, he brought the team closer by helping to organize team outings. The lanky teens would pile into a car and head to the movies or the mall, building bonds they hoped would pay off on the court.
“It would be like two cars, and both of them would be packed with people,” Lee said. “We built trust with each other.”
Honore averaged nearly 20 points as a senior and finished the season by winning Cardinal District player of the year and earning All-Met and all-state honors. Keith Honore retired from coaching after the season, in part so he could watch his son play in college.
In the spring, Kyle Honore had his jersey painted on the wall of the Potomac gym. Below his last name and the No. 11 displayed his career point total — 1,003.
“It means so much more than just scoring 1,000 points for me,” Honore tweeted in April. “My family has put so much into this program that they deserve to walk in the gym and see our name on that wall for as long as the school stands.”