6/21/1999 8:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
January 15, 1999
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - For most of the last 30 years, since Lefty Driesell vowed to create "the UCLA of the East," Maryland fans have filled the 14,500 seats at Cole Field House in anticipation of seeing a Terrapins basketball team win an NCAA championship.
The catalyst was going to be Lefty. Then it was going to be Tom McMillen. Then John Lucas. Then Albert King. Then Len Bias. Then Brian Williams. Then Joe Smith.
It still hasn't happened. All Maryland has to show for the last 30 years is a lone Atlantic Coast Conference championship, two NCAA regional final appearances, no trips to the Final Four.
Until recently, many fans didn't know the name of the latest catalyst to fuel their eternal hope.
To other ACC fans, it may seem that Steve Francis came out of nowhere to resurrect Maryland's unfulfilled ambitions.
Well, not exactly nowhere. Francis' home is in Takoma Park, barely three miles from Maryland's campus.
"I could run to my house from here," he says.
On his way to becoming one of basketball's lost souls, otherwise known as an "urban playground legend," Francis cleared numerous hurdles and somehow found his way to Maryland and eventual stardom as a 6-foot-3 guard.
He scarcely played high school basketball because of academic problems, an injury and the emotional trauma that followed his mother's death. He didn't even graduate, and few if any college recruiters were aware he existed.
Next, Francis had to drop out of prep school and return to his neighborhood playgrounds. It wasn't until after his performance at a national youth tournament attracted the interest of a junior college coach that he sought and earned his graduate equivalency diploma.
He transferred from one junior college to another, then to Maryland, making Gary Williams the sixth coach in the last six years for the 20-year-old junior. Almost as remarkable as Francis' background has been the way he has blended his multiple abilities with the veterans from last season's 21-11 Maryland team. Although point guard always has been Francis' primary position, he has moved to shooting guard in the starting lineup opposite senior Terrell Stokes.
"Unlike many kids, Steve has understood for a long time that the primary object of the game is to win," said Dale Lamberth, who coached Francis at Montgomery Blair High. "Usually, that means being unselfish. But sometimes it means taking matters into his own hands. He's willing to do whatever it takes.
Francis' basketball education began when he tagged along behind his two older brothers, Jeff and Terry, to Takoma Park's playgrounds.
It was at the Boys and Girls Club of Takoma Park that a police officer and volunteer coach named Tony Langley recognized talent in Francis' still-tiny, 9-year-old body.
"He wasn't strong enough to get the ball to the basket," Langley recalled. "So that forced him to concentrate on passing and defense. But whenever the gym was open, he was there."
Francis still credits Langley for "teaching me most of what I know about basketball."
Driven by the successes of such small players as Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb, Francis was still just 5-foot-3 as a ninth-grader. But lack of size wasn't the youngster's worst problem that year. He wasn't academically eligible to play. "Blair is the largest high school in Montgomery County, and it doesn't provide a very good academic support system," Langley said. "It's easy to get sidetracked."
When Francis regained his basketball eligibility as a 10th-grader, he made Blair's varsity but only in the role of a reserve point guard behind his friend Jason Miskiri, who now plays at George Mason University.
"Steve needed time to get acclimated to our system, but his talent and confidence were already obvious," Lamberth said. "He never played scared. "His only obstacles were himself and what might happen to him off the court." Francis' mother, Brenda Wilson, and stepfather moved into another school district, partly in search of a more compatible academic environment for their son. But at the outset of his 11th-grade year at Thomas Hunt High, Francis suffered a broken ankle that would end his season even as a growth spurt was lifting him closer to his present 6-3, 195-pound size.
Soon after transferring back to Blair for his senior year, Francis was dealt an emotional setback when his mother, 39, died a few months after contracting a virulent form of cancer.
"For six months after that, I couldn't move," Francis said. "I was paralyzed." He withdrew from basketball and from school.
Eventually, Francis' grief began to heal. He had moved in with his grandmother, and he shelled out $150 for a tattoo of a cross with the word "Brenda" on his arm. Encouraged by a support system that included Langley and his brothers, he landed a grant to Milford (Conn.) Prep that would enable him to earn a high school diploma while retaining four years of college eligibility.
Not long after Francis arrived at Milford, a combination of homesickness and money problems forced him to return to Takoma Park.
He drifted back to the local gyms and playgrounds and landed on a team affiliated with the Boys and Girls Club that earned a berth in the national Youth Basketball of America tournament in Florida. YBOA competition is similar to AAU basketball.
San Jacinto Junior College, located in the Houston, Texas suburb of Pasadena, has one of the country's high-powered juco programs. Coach Scott Gernander had sent an assistant coach to the YBOA tourney in search of a guard.
Francis led his team to the championship, earned the tourney's MVP award and soon found himself on the phone with Gernander.
Even though Texas seemed a long way from home, Francis seized on the chance to save his drowning basketball career. He returned home, earned a graduate equivalency diploma (GED) and was admitted to San Jacinto.
He became a vital cog on a team that won its first 36 games before losing in the NJCAA finals.
Then, homesick again, Francis decided to transfer to another junior college basketball power, Allegeny Community College in Cumberland, Md. After Gernander reluctantly granted his release, Francis averaged 25.3 points, 8.7 assists, 7.1 rebounds and 5.3 steals while leading Allegeny to a 24-0 record before it was derailed in tournament play.
Named the national junior college player of the year, Francis decided to play at Maryland instead of Clemson on the day before Tiger coach Rick Barnes moved to Texas last spring.
"He called me the next day and said he wouldn't have left if I had come," Francis said. "He might have just been saying that, but he seemed sincere. I think he was."
Since the current season began, Francis has demonstrated why Barnes might have been so anxious to recruit him. In the last three seasons, his teams have lost three games.
Maryland coach Gary Williams has begun to understand why Barnes felt so strongly and why NBA scouts have begun describing Francis as "Allen Iverson with discipline."
"Steve's game is fundamentally sound and team-oriented," Williams said. "He works hard at defense, and he's good at it. He's a great passer, and he gives it up easily. He's capable of exploding, and he could take a lot more shots than he does. But we're getting a lot of our offense from his ability to draw the defense to him, then find the open man." Though Francis' former coaches aren't shocked that he has become the catalyst of another Maryland championship bid, they admit to a degree of surprise.
"You talk about a guy who went to the school of hard knocks," Lamberth said.
By LARRY KEECH, Staff Writer
