Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991 TAG: 9103220165
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. LENGTH: Medium
A soldier returns from Saudi Arabia and gets shot down in the street while moving his family to a new apartment.
A basketball player gets in an argument on the street and, at 6 feet 7 and nearly 250 pounds, you'd think he'd win.
But not against a gun.
Unlike the serviceman, who was killed, Marcus Kennedy survived. To play another day, which this day happens to be against North Carolina in the NCAA Sweet 16, which if you play for Eastern Michigan, is as big as it gets.
In many respects, Kennedy accurately reflects the lone remaining Cinderella team - at No. 12, the lowest seed left - and the school that has gotten this far the fewest number of times (once before).
Kennedy is 24 years old. He played three seasons at Ferris State, a Division II team, and thus he is an unusual transfer. Not many people leave before their senior season.
He is soft-spoken, but he doesn't back down, which is why he still carries the bullet above his right knee.
To get here, he went from Highland Park High in a tough Detroit neighborhood to Troy Zion Christian to Troy High, then to Ferris State and now, after sitting out a season, to Eastern Michigan.
He wears thick glasses that his girlfriend designed, and goggles in a game, which he didn't design - "I don't know where that story started," Kennedy said - although he could have.
Kennedy knows what he wants to be, either after pro basketball, if that works out, or graduation, which most people thought he would never achieve. He would like to be a lab technician.
"It wouldn't have been the goggles," he said. "It would have been the lenses. I could do that. I've always liked working with my hands. And I wanted to get into an area where there was a need."
Kennedy said he used to wear "Kurt Rambis-style" glasses before the goggles. He tried contact lenses briefly, but they scratched, and "I played without glasses this summer and got poked in the eye."
So he looks like a smaller version of Moses Malone on the court, and the resemblance fits. He averages 20 points and shoots almost 70 percent, which tells you he plays down low.
Like Malone, "I have one of those banging bodies," said Kennedy, whose NBA future is considered questionable because of his height.
He says he was only 6-3 or 6-4 coming out of high school, he was 19, "and I played center."
So nobody came calling except Ferris State.
He did well, the team won its conference three years, "but I didn't get along with the head coach [Tom Ludwig]."
Kennedy said his problems with Ludwig were off the floor. And he felt he had done all he could in Division II. "I didn't want to be double- or triple-teamed in every game."
Ferris assistant Gary Waters had moved on to Eastern Michigan, "and when he called, I said I'd consider them," Kennedy said.
Eastern Michigan has more than 25,000 students - more than UNC, for example - but it is 10 minutes from Ann Arbor and light years behind Michigan in sports attention.
That's what Kennedy saw. With just one year left, "I wanted a Mid-American [Conference] school. I wasn't going somewhere and sit on the bench."
Instead, with all starters returning, he became the center and the MAC's most valuable player.
He knows that the pro scouts wonder about his size, if he can guard the 6-9 and 6-10 guys. Against the Tar Heels, he certainly will get that opportunity.
Even the North Carolina bench is filled with players whose names are more familiar than Marcus Kennedy.
But when you've been shot and still carry the souvenir, when you had to fight your way home from high school, you aren't intimidated or even impressed.
He's played in the Detroit summer leagues with NBA rookie Derrick Coleman and Steve Smith of Michigan State, so, to him, there is no aura about the Tar Heels.
"What's going through your mind, having to play those guys?" he was asked.
"What's going through their minds having to play me?" Marcus Kennedy said.
by CNB