Reaching Heights

MINNEAPOLIS -- The best pure forward Boston College has ever had was actively recruited by three Division 1 programs, and a month out of high school he assumed he'd be heading to prep school.

The best pure forward Boston College has ever had wouldn't be at Boston College today if a kid named Dan Coleman had not gotten homesick before ever leaving Minnesota.

The best pure forward Boston College has ever had, in addition to possessing an assortment of basketball and behavioral skills that make every college coach envious of Al Skinner, also has a nice way with words.

''Basically," says Jared Dudley, ''it's been good for all parties."

There are lessons to be learned here, if both coaches and players would pay attention. The Jared Dudley Story is a tale of a young man whose unwavering belief in himself always kept him on course. He didn't guess; he knew what he had to offer the college basketball world. The Jared Dudley Story is also about a young man whose -- there is no other way to put it -- ''Old School" style of play should have made him appealing to all 334 Division 1 schools, and not just three. It's that simple. What Jared Dudley brings to a basketball team may not be immediately evident to the average fan, but it should stand out like a plaid shirt on a Mormon missionary to anyone daring to call himself a ''coach."

''Somebody," says former Georgetown coach John Thompson, a man of some basketball clout, ''[naughty-worded] up. A lot of somebodies."

Jared Dudley is not from some backwater place. He didn't play in an unheated 75-foot gym lacking bleachers for a coach who had to communicate with the outside world via carrier pigeon or tom-toms. Jared Dudley is from San Diego. The San Diego. Horizon is a relatively new school, and San Diego is not a hoop mecca, but it's still urban America. Jared Dudley was there to be seen.

He wasn't some late-blooming sixth man, a la Reggie Lewis, either. His Horizon High School squad won back-to-back California Division IV state titles. He averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds as a senior. He also put his game on display at the Bob Gibbons extravaganza in North Carolina, the NIKE Camp in New Jersey, and at the annual AAU summer meat market in Las Vegas. Every last one of them, from Duke to Savannah State, had a shot at him. But 99.1 percent were uninterested.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyy?

''In all honesty," says BC coach Skinner, ''Jared may be an acquired taste."

That's a start, but only a start, because it brings us back to Square One. It's understandable that a player who spends most of his time on the floor, rather than the air, may be an ''acquired taste" to fans. But coaches? Shouldn't they know better?

''Maybe our perception of basketball has been distorted by ESPN highlights," admits Creighton coach Dana Altman, who runs one of the three programs perceptive enough to have recruited Jared Dudley.

''Recruiting is not an exact science," adds Gregg Gottlieb, an assistant at San Diego State who can also stand up these days and say ''I told you so" when the subject of Jared Dudley is raised. ''For every guy like that, there are 10 who don't turn out. Every school's got 'em."

For obvious reasons, both the BC people and the folks at Creighton and San Diego State (What great geographic symmetry, huh? San Diego, Omaha, and Boston) are hesitant to criticize their confreres for not appreciating Jared Dudley. It's not as if they all haven't missed out on someone they should have had at one time or another. And if BC was so smart, why didn't those folks nail down Dudley before the August following his graduation, and then only because the aforementioned Coleman decided to forgo his BC scholarship offer in favor of attending the ol' State U, thus creating a scholarship opening they could offer to Dudley?

So even BC wasn't sure enough in its own judgment of a player who has turned out to be the best forward in school history to make him an early recruiting priority. Gottlieb is correct. Recruiting is a highly inexact science.

''I don't know what people didn't see in him," says Skinner. ''You'll have to ask them. All I know is that we liked him and we thought he would fit in with what we like to do."

Jared Dudley is a well-proportioned 6-foot-7-inch, 225-pound forward. He has great hands and sufficiently quick feet. He can post up and he can shoot the three if the situation arises. He can rebound and pass. That all sounds good, but it doesn't begin to describe what separates him from every other forward in the land and why Creighton's Altman says, ''There is no team he wouldn't improve."

Greg Grensing was the Creighton assistant who recruited Dudley. He was made aware of the kid from San Diego when he received a tape from Dudley's grandfather, who had attended the school years ago. Grensing is now back with his mentor, Lon Kruger, at Nevada-Las Vegas, but from talking to him you get the idea that if he could be granted one wish it would be to kidnap Jared Dudley and take him back to Las Vegas before the next season begins.

''When I was at Kansas State, we had a player, Askia Jones, Wali's son," says Grensing. ''When he played, it was like everything was in slow motion for him. Jared is exactly the same way. He has incredible court presence. Jared worked out at Creighton. We had one player who didn't like anybody or anything as a rule. When they got through playing, he said, 'Coach, that kid can play.' I said, 'Really?' He said, 'No, Coach, I mean that kid can really play.' "

Grensing already knew. He had seen Dudley in summer action. ''I saw him dominate Josh Smith, who's now in the NBA [Atlanta]. He abused him."

The Dudleyphiles don't care about his stats. They know the stats will be there, so why worry? Right now he's averaging 16.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 3.2 assists a game, OK?

No, the Dudleyphiles love Dudley because he always transcends the stats. They love him because his only objective is finding a way to win the game, whether it's making the release pass-before-the-pass that will not carry an official assist, making a beautiful baseline cut, taking a charge, helping bring the ball up under pressure, or back-tapping a rebound to someone else. And sometimes it even has to do with making a basket.

Grensing is a certified Dudleyphile and he was watching BC's opening-round struggle with Pacific on TV. Did it surprise him that when BC fell behind by 5 with 1:10 remaining in the first overtime that Dudley was the Eagles player making the big play?

''Jared Dudley is not a 3-point shooter, but I knew he was going to take that shot. He didn't wish it would go in, or hope it would go in. He willed that shot through the hoop. He just has this incredible, and legitimate, self-confidence, and it spreads to the team."

Dudley has always been about the team, and that's one reason why so many were slow to pick up on him. ''He was 6-5 and a little heavy when I first saw him," says Gottlieb. ''He has 'leaned out' since then. He was strictly an inside guy, because that's what the team wanted and needed. But you could see him do all the little things, and he was always going to the foul line."

''I had no doubt he could translate to the next level," says Grensing. ''He played the game like a 25-year-old. He may not have been the best athlete, but he was smarter than everyone else and he knew how to use that athleticism against them. When he was posted up by Josh Smith, for example, he would stick his knee between Smith's legs and he didn't know what was happening."

But even for people who know better, high-flyers attract attention more than ultra-orthodox players whose games could have been time-capsuled from the 1940s. Jared Dudley would present himself for perusal and people would ignore him while concentrating their thoughts on the rim-rattling acrobats who can be found in every high school gym and playground in America. Countless numbers of these ''athletes" were recruited out of Dudley's class, and most of them will be sitting in front of their TV sets tonight to watch a player whose dunks are news bulletins.

''He has dunked on occasion," submits colleague Mike Vega, ''but I think he'd rather make a layup." After a baseline cut, of course.

''There is an adage in recruiting," says Boston College associate head coach Bill Coen, who did the legwork on the Dudley caper. ''In July, people want athletes, but come January, you're looking for basketball players to win games. A Jared Dudley brings an overall skill set that is more valuable in terms of winning games."

Dudley brings more than just physical skills to the task. The flex offense favored by Skinner is the polar opposite of ''Basketball For Dummies." It is a sophisticated, complex system that asks participants to make judgments on the fly. But nothing in basketball is difficult for Dudley to digest. In a very Bird-like way, he was born with the game just making sense to him.

That confidence Grensing spoke of is very obvious to others who only know him from afar. ''I like that air he has," says Thompson. ''There's something special about him. With him, you're not gonna lose the game on the bus to the game. Some players, you lose the game on the bus to the game. Not with Jared Dudley."

Still, how could someone generating this kind of praise have gone so unappreciated? Skinner is willing to give his peers a lifeline.

''You could talk about style of play," he reasons. ''We have a certain style, and he fits into it. If you were looking for someone to run up and down the floor for 40 minutes, he might not be your best guy."

Nice try, Al, but the same could have been said about Larry Bird and he was a great transition player, as is Dudley.

Jared Dudley never panicked, never lost faith in himself, and never for even a millisecond thought he wouldn't get where he wanted to go. If he had to go to prep school, he would go to prep school. He didn't commit to Creighton when he thought BC might want him, because he thought BC was a higher order of basketball being.

''You can assess physical ability," says Coen, ''but you can't gauge things like determination. He is a kid who always wanted to be the best he could be, and to play against the best caliber competition."

That best he could be is the best forward BC has ever had. And it could have been the same at countless other institutions.

Basketball moral of the story?

''Maybe people should just trust their instincts," suggests Grensing.

Or maybe John Thompson was correct. A lot of somebodies simply [naughty-worded] up.