The first thing we tell them is that he’s a good guy.

He was a good guy as a freshman, when he came off the bench, and thankfully even after becoming the state’s most celebrated player as a senior and after becoming the first Rowan County male to score 2,000 points, he remains a nice guy.

Ask Scooter’s coach, Mike Gurley, about him, and the first thing he always says is, “He’s fun to coach.”

When your star is fun to coach, your team is fun to coach. And when your team is fun to coach, your team is pretty good. The Falcons (10-0) are pretty good.

Scooter flipped in No. 2000 — just a few days before the calendar flipped to 2000. He got the magical points — he landed right on the milestone with a pullup jumper in the lane after grabbing a defensive board and taking it all the way — in the closing seconds of the third quarter.

Sherrill said he was so wrapped up in the game that he didn’t realize he had reached the plateau until the stands erupted and people started screaming at him. He had lost track of his points, the same way he has always managed to lose track of his individual stats.

“All that matters are the wins,” said Sherrill, who is now 85-14 as a Falcon. “I’ve got one championship ring (from his freshman year). I used to dream about getting four. Now, I just want to get two.”

Sherrill is a good enough guy that he cheerfully admits he was nervous Monday when he woke up. He was nervous when he arrived at the gym and he was nervous when the game started.

“I started feeling really nervous when my teammates started telling me — ‘Just 15 more to 2,000,’” he explained.

No this wasn’t just another game.

Sherrill got his 19 points like he has always gotten them. A couple of free throws here, a layup there and an occasional 3-pointer.

By halftime he had reached 1,994. He opened the third quarter with a clean 3 from the far corner for 1,997 but then missed several of his bread-and-butter shots — open 3s from the wings.

“My legs just never were there tonight,” he admitted. “I was off.”

But a free throw edged him one step closer. Then he made history with a bucket just when his team needed a lift as time expired in the third quarter.

“Scooter’s timing,” said Gurley, “has always been pretty good.

“The great thing about Scooter is that no one could have predicted how Scooter was going to get No. 2000,” Gurley added. “Scooter get his points every way you can get them. He can do a lot of things — 3s, drives, layups, dunks and free throws. There are a lot of kids out there on the playgrounds who can dunk it. But Scooter does the fundamental stuff, too. He makes nine of 10 free throws. To me that’s the greatness of Scooter Sherrill.”

Gurley said the milestone wasn’t mentioned in his pregame talk. But it didn’t have to be. Sherrill’s teammates knew and they were going to do all they could to help him get there at home. Especially new teammate Scooter Dalton, who continually passed up shots to feed the more famous Scooter.

Dalton, who transferred to West from Lexington, offered some meaningful insights. “When you’re outside the window looking in at him, you say to yourself, ‘Oh, he’s not that good.’ But when you get to play with him, you see what he can do in the crucial situations,” he said. “You see how he comes out in all the tough times. That’s when you realize just how great he is.”

The proof is that Sherrill has been on the floor twice in Chapel Hill and scored 29 points as a freshman and 33 last season.

The march to 2,000 points has been a steady one for Sherrill.

Last night was his 99th game in Falcon blue and white. He has averaged 20.2 ppg over four seasons. He is the Cal Ripken of the SPC, never having missed a game for illness or injury. He became the county’s all-time scoring leader a couple of weeks ago at Harding when he surpassed Salisbury’s Bobby Phillips (1,946).

Sherrill, who dunked in points No. 2001 and No. 2002 shortly after his history-making jumper, has scored in double figures in his last 71 games. He has scored 20 or more points 58 times and 30 or more points 17 times. And of course, there was that 40-point night he dropped on North Rowan early in his sophomore season. He hasn’t reached 40 again, but he hasn’t had to. He is hardly a one-man team, and he has no desire to be.

Sherrill says he doesn’t even remember his 1,000th point — a level which usually separates the great from the good players. He got No. 1000 as a mere sophomore at Kannapolis’ Bullock Gymnasium in a sectional tournament final against Harding.

“No one made a big deal about that one,” said Sherrill. “I just don’t remember it to tell you the truth.”

But they did make a big deal about 2,000. Sherrill got a commemorative ball, hugged his parents and family members and saluted the crowd, which has packed the West gym for each of his games and has followed its hero to distant arenas like Sun Valley and Piedmont to watch his game grow through the years.

“I want to thank my family, my teammates, my coaches and the fans,” said Sherrill. “They’ve kept me level all the time. I just apologize for getting to 2,000 when I had a bad game.”

Apologize?

See what I mean. This really is a good guy.

n

Mike London covers prep basketball for the Post.