deshawn article

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

OC Register's "Fab 15": DeShawn
Stevenson's Story--(Nov. 2, 1999)

When we bumped into Frank Burlison a couple of weeks ago at the LA Athletic Club for the D-I Coaches' Media Day Luncheon, he told us that he was going up to Fresno the next day to "take some pictures, and interview DeShawn." We were certain then, as we had been before he said anything just as we were when we cast a ballot in the Orange County Register's Second Annual "Fab 15" voting along with 74 others, that there was no doubt about who the No. 1 selection was going to be. Our only question then was "When is the Fab 15 going to be published?" Frank just shrugged and said, "In about a month. I think."

A month must have come and gone, and in the interim, Frank undoubtedly has had to return to Fresno again at least once, maybe a few more times, to re-interview DeShawn Stevenson. The top selection in the Fab 15, which was published today in the Orange County Register, in the interim since that first interview and photo session, took a little trip to Kansas and decided to verbal to coach Roy Williams. A surprise for most, but at least according to Frank's article, it was a decision which DeShawn had no trouble making. But it sure must have changed the story a bit.

The Register's print version of the Fab 15 is very complete, much more complete this year than last, and it has some really nice bios of each of the players selected from all over the West Coast, and it also has more feature articles than we can ever remember Frank doing previously, even when he was doing "The Best in the West" at the Long Beach Press-Telegram (a paper which seems sadly, at least as far as it's internet presence is concerned, to be fading into oblivion. But that's another story.) This year's Fab 15 is great.

We're not going to reproduce all of the Fab 15 information, because that's not our thing, and besides that, we're pretty sure the OC Register guys would not care for that, no matter how much free publicity we're giving them. :-) You can either visit the OC Register's online version if you want the "Readers' Digest Condensed Version" (which actually this year is greatly expanded from what it was in the first year) or better yet, go out and buy the paper, spend the quarter, and help feed Frank and his buddies at the paper so that we can continue to get great stuff like this in the future. Really, for just 25 cents a day, you too can sponsor a needy sports writer. . . . Frank's articles, interviews and the selection process just don't happen overnight, and it's certainly not cheap for the paper to do this thing. So go out and buy the paper. Better yet, subscribe. Even if you occasionally do run into Steve Fryer between the fold. . . (just kidding Steve:^).

Ok, all the cheap plugs aside, this version of the "Fab 15" is really the best ever, and those guys who said this class was "weak" ought really to reconsider that statement, especially with all of the top players coming out of the West Coast this year. This is a great class, perhaps not as great as the one which will follow, but certainly as great as the one which preceded it. Really. At least that's our humble opinion.

In any event, here's Franks' article published today in the OC Register on the No. 1 selection, DeShawn Stevenson. If you want the glossy photo of DeShawn, you'll have to buy the paper, or check out the link above. Or, better yet, buy the paper.

Shooting star
November 2, 1999

By FRANK BURLISON
The Orange County Register
From Fresno

Six years ago, Genice Popps never would have guessed her son would become one of the best high school basketball players in the country one day. In 1993, Popps was just trying to make sure her son, DeShawn Stevenson, wasn't going to quit his junior high team. "As a seventh grader he made the
King's Canyon Junior High team, but he never played," she said while bouncing her second child, 5-month-old Tyler Popps, on her knee.

She smiled, no doubt, at the irony of what she was about to say. "I guess," she said, "the coach felt he wasn't good enough to play. But I told DeShawn, 'You're not going to quit. You start something, you're going to finish it.' So he stayed on the bench." That was the last coach to keep DeShawn Stevenson seated for very long.

Stevenson, now a 6-foot-4 senior at Washington Union in Easton, a farming community about eight miles south of Fresno, has seen his basketball skill level soar well beyond those junior high classmates who played ahead of him and anyone else in the San Joaquin Valley. In fact, those boundaries extend from coast to coast now. He's rated among the very elite high school players in the country and was an overwhelming winner in the second Orange County Register Fab 15 balloting to determine the top seniors in the western United States.

"He's the premier second (shooting) guard in the country," said Bob Gibbons, publisher of the Lenoir, N.C.-based All-Star Sports Publications, the most respected national recruiting service for colleges. "I rate him as one of the top half-dozen prospects in the country."

HITTING THE ROAD

Stevenson surprised many — especially in Fresno, where a lot of fingers were being crossed that he would enroll at Fresno State — when he brought to a halt what promised to be a long and arduous recruiting experience by answering a phone call Oct. 18. The caller, a sports writer from a newspaper in Lawrence, Kan., wanted to know how Stevenson had enjoyed his weekend recruiting visit to the University of Kansas. Stevenson enjoyed the trip so much, he told the reporter, that he had decided to commit to the Jayhawks more than three weeks before the start — Nov. 10 — of the NCAA's early signing week and six months before the spring period, when most assumed he would select a college.

"I didn't know I would commit so early, but it ended up happening," Stevenson said. "When I got there (Lawrence), I was a lot more impressed than I thought I would be." His mother also was surprised her son ended the recruiting race so abruptly. But she wasn't as shocked as some of the fans of other schools he strongly considered and tentatively planned to visit. "I've had people (in Fresno) tell me they can't understand why he would want to go to Kansas," Genice Popps said, smiling. "But the Kansas coaches have been watching him since he was in eighth grade, when they saw him in a Pump Tournament (in Carson). And (Kansas coach) Roy Williams is a very sincere and nice man."

AN EARLY LEAD

Then-Kansas assistant (now Notre Dame coach) Matt Doherty wasn't the only one Von Webb turned on to Stevenson as an eighth-grader. Webb was letting coaches and reporters know he would recruit "the next great high school player in California." Soon to enroll at Washington Union, Stevenson had transferred to Clark Junior High and repeated the seventh grade when he met Webb, who was teaching there and assisting as a coach at Clovis High.

"He was only about 5-foot-11 at the time, but he had such strong legs from playing so much soccer from an early age and could grab the rim with both hands," said Webb, now an assistant at Wyoming after spending four years as coach at Washington Union. As an eighth-grader, Stevenson — inspired, in large part, by watching videotapes of another high-flying basketball player, Michael Jordan — dunked the ball regularly and blew past defenders in the open court.

"Because of my work hours (she's an office manager for a Fresno cardiologist), I really hadn't watched him play once he went to Clark," Genice Popps said. "But I went with him in the spring when he was in eighth grade and watched his team play in a tournament in Sacramento. And then I knew he was getting pretty good." Soon, so did most everyone else.

CREME DE LA CREME?

Three-and-a-half years and hundreds of games later with Washington Union and Darren Matsubara-coached and Fresno-based Elite Basketball Organization (EBO) traveling teams, Stevenson seemingly has conquered every challenge on the high school level. Of course, there's another, which is one of the reasons he ended his recruiting a few weeks ago.

He has yet to score well enough on the SAT or ACT to be eligible as a freshman at an NCAA school, and trying to do so occupies much of his attention.

"Now, with not so many phone calls and (recruiting) off my shoulders, I can focus (on becoming academically eligible)," Stevenson said. His status as California's and the West's best is undeniable. He doesn't make a big deal of it, but he leaves little doubt that, having seen what the other regions of the country have to offer after three summers of national camps and tournaments, he's the best. "I know right now that I'm the best player," he said matter-of-factly, while digging into a double cheeseburger and admirably meeting the challenge of a 64-ounce cup of soda before working out with his Washington Union teammates recently. Stevenson is ranked in most publications' top fives and others' top 10s, but players such as Eddie Griffin (Philadelphia), Gerald Wallace (Childersburg, Ala.) or Darius Miles (East St. Louis, Ill.) usually are listed above him.

"I just go out and play," he said quietly. "I know I'm not gonna get rated that high because, yeah, no one thinks that anyone from Fresno could be that good. That just pushes me that much harder."

NBA IS CALLING

The same Internet sources that chronicle his and the other top players' every move already are busy guessing what might lie ahead for Stevenson in the not-so-distant future. Would he consider chucking a scholarship to Kansas for a spot on an NBA roster a year from now?

NBA scouts rarely comment publicly about college prospects and aren't about to do so about Stevenson or any other high schooler, lest it appear they are encouraging them to bypass college. But you can bet they'll be out in bunches to watch Stevenson when Washington Union plays in tournaments in Delaware, Honolulu and St. Louis this December that will attract some of the nation's elite players and teams.

So what about it, DeShawn?

"I just smile and laugh when people suggest that," Stevenson said. "Do I think about it? I fantasize about it, yeah, but I know I'm not ready now. I want to go to college." His high school coach, Larry Trigueiro, and Webb and Matsubara seem to think a jump to the pros might tempt Stevenson and his family, especially if it appeared he would be selected from 10th to 15th in the first round of the draft next June.

But the same person who refused to let him quit as a bench-warming 13-year-old has other ideas. "DeShawn and I have kind of talked about it," Genice Popps said, "but he knows I don't want him to do it, because it would be too much of an adjustment for him. I've heard all the stories about Kobe (Bryant), how when he was a rookie all he would do was stay in his hotel room and play video games."

But she knows she won't be able to stand in the way of what seems inevitable: He'll play in the NBA someday. It's just a matter of when. "I told him I'd like him to go (to college) for at least two years," she said. "College is one of the last times you're supposed to have fun. And he needs to know what it's like to live without mom there to take care of him ... to do for yourself. And you need to learn to manage your money."

In that regard, she might be more right than she could have dreamed, say, six short years ago.