I was fortunate to see Paxson's work ethic first hand while on a work study job at the PAC (pre RecPlex). When HS tournaments took over the arena the team would practice in the field house and I was the door monitor. Before, during (when he was not involved in the scrimmage) and after each practice Paxson would go to a side court by himself and run his own shooting drills. Shooting, rebounding, going to another spot and shooting, rebounding, rinse, repeat.
That same year I had buddies at ND so went to our game vs the Irish (Tripucka, Woolridge, Laimbeer, etc). We were woefully undermanned but Paxson went off for something like 36 pts in a game we led most of the way until he mysteriously picked up a 5th foul and that's all she wrote. My buddies were complimentary and excited because at the time John had already committed to ND and all they heard was that John was better than Jim. John definitely had more success, but no way was he the better of the two.
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