Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9203010034
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
\ To discover Curtis Blair's impact on his hometown, don't read motionless statistics or cue up cold videotape.
Go to Patrick Henry High School and shake hands with Blair's echo.
Curtis Staples is a sophomore shooting guard at PH who leads the team in scoring and knows his Patriots history. He wears Blair's old No. 30 (he asked for it after Troy Manns snagged No. 12). He has taken impromptu basketball lessons from the captain of PH's 1988 Group AAA champions, and he has adopted some of Blair's moves. And when one Curtis speaks, the other listens.
Two summers ago, the Inner-City Athletic Association - Blair's part-time hangout years ago, and now Staples' too - featured the University of Richmond star at its annual banquet.
"He gave us his all when he came and spoke," Staples said after a recent PH practice. "He told us all the truth; he didn't try to cover up anything. He was telling us things like we need to hit the books to make it, that there was no easy way.
"It makes me want to do my work, so I can be somebody."
Apparently, it's sound philosophy. It seems to have worked for Blair. \
Giving back
Getting Blair behind a podium and microphone may have been tougher than guarding him on a basketball court. Inner-City coach Joe Gaither pestered Blair, who pleaded shyness. Gaither even used his ace card: Blair's mother.
"He kept asking me, and I was like, `Oh, I'll think about it,' " Blair said in an interview last week at Richmond's Robins Center. "I was like, `Mom, you know I really don't want to do this.' She said I should do it."
Blair realized it too, especially after playing for one of Roanoke's best high school teams and on a 17-under AAU team that included players who would be known for their play in college as well: George Lynch (North Carolina), Doug Day (Radford), Jerome Preston and Bernard Basham (Virginia Tech football), Jason Niblett (East Tennessee State) and Russell Turner (Hampden-Sydney).
"The thing we really emphasized to George and those guys was if you make it, come back and help some other guys," Gaither said. "You owe it to them. That's really good to see. This generation needs it more."
Blair had a lot to talk about: family, church, work, perseverance. It's a mix that helped him play in all 31 of Richmond's games as a freshman, make the Colonial Athletic Association's all-tournament team as a sophomore, be chosen first-team all-CAA as a junior and enter his senior year as the league's preseason favorite for player of the year.
\ More than basketball
Blair, the team's top scorer at 20.3 points per game and top assist man at a 2.9 average through 26 games, scored 27 points in leading Richmond to a 69-66 victory over James Madison on Saturday.
Richmond (21-6, 12-2 CAA), headed for postseason play for the fourth time in Blair's career, will be the top seed going into the CAA tournament next weekend. The Spiders could guarantee their third straight NCAA bid by winning the CAA tournament March 7-9 at The Coliseum in Richmond.
All that is a big deal to some. It's an afterthought to Diane Blair, Curtis' mother. More meaningful to her is her son's inclusion in the 1992 edition of Who's Who Among American Universities and Colleges, which cites his academic achievement, community service, extracurricular participation and potential for success.
"I am proud because it's not all basketball," Diane Blair said. "It's an overall view of him. People say, `Aren't you proud that your son may go on [to professional basketball]?' As a mother, I am proud my son is going to graduate in May."
\ A `top of the line' guy
Blair said he craves the ball in late-game situations so he "can run the offense, make a good pass or make the shot." He's made some notable ones over the years, including a buzzer-beater that put Richmond in the 1990 CAA tournament final. It's the same kind of control Blair has had over himself all along. When he was 7 years old, his mother said, he grew bored spending an hour a day at after-school day care waiting for his parents to return from work.
"He said, `Mom, can I go home and keep myself for an hour?' " Diane Blair said. "I gave him one week's try. From that day on, he did exactly what we asked him to do. I said, `You're going to get in summer months; it's going to be beautiful out. You cannot go outside.' He said, `No problem.' "
As a teen-ager, the same thing. Diane Blair remembers one night Curtis came home 45 minutes late. That was the extent of his transgressions.
Diane and Eddie Blair even left religion in their son's hands. The family attends Loudon Avenue Christian Church, where Diane and Eddie sing in the choir, but Curtis' parents wanted baptism to be his choice. When he decided, as a 17-year-old headed to college, his actions spoke.
"He did not say, `This is the day I'm going to do it.' I looked up and my son was walking to the altar," Diane said. "Before he went to school, he walked up and gave his life to Christ."
Gaither, whose organization often reaches out to youths on the edge, doesn't fret about Blair.
"You don't have to worry about losing him," Gaither said. "That guy is top of the line."
\ Definitely motivated
Dick Tarrant won't argue.
Richmond's veteran coach, whose program is noted for player development, has seen Blair's effectiveness increase each of the past four years. That's not to say Tarrant has the magic wand, but he does have some tricks.
"One of my jobs is to motivate the kids to self-motivate," Tarrant said. "Each spring, we give them a self-improvement program. They have a ball and they have shoes."
To Blair, extra-credit work is routine. A half-hour one day, 45 minutes the next, an hour another - all outside of practice, all for individual improvement.
"I've seen a lot of guys in the conference now, in their freshman year they were all-rookie team or all-this, but they don't really progress," Blair said. "You don't really get that much individual attention at practice [here] as you do if you work during the day or whatever. I've done that a lot, all four years. Still, today."
Tarrant noted Blair's struggle to bench press 170 pounds as a freshman; now, Blair lifts 305 - "a hell of a good hoist for a basketball player," the coach said. Tarrant said weightlifting helped Blair's quick-leap ability and made his 3-point shot smoother; he's shooting a career-high 43 percent from beyond the arc this season.
Blair's contributions aren't limited to physical efforts, however. He has played shooting guard and point guard during his college career and, as a senior, has taken charge of the Spiders. He was asked if his "give-me-the-last-shot" credo bothered teammates.
"No. I was screaming at Kenny Wood, telling him to shoot the ball more," Blair said. "I don't really score until about five minutes into the game because I want the other guys to get in the flow. I told Kenny Wood before the [Jan. 22 Old Dominion] game to shoot the ball the first three times he got it. I tell [Tim] Weathers the same thing. My teammates really respect me because I tell them that, and I also get on them if they don't shoot it or take a bad shot or whatever.
"I think they need that, they need that extra push, not from coaches but from a teammate."
\ 4 years of nagging
There is one pebble in Blair's shoe, however. Tarrant is known as a taskmaster who won't get many Valentine's Day cards from his players. Blair, in his final days at Richmond, is walking the fence: Happy to have been there, happy to leave.
"He can give you more mental abuse than anything - the constant nagging, stuff like that," Blair said. "Once you've been here for a while, you've just got to learn to ignore that stuff."
An impossible task, perhaps?
"Let's put it this way: I'm glad my four years are over," Blair said.
That statement not only doesn't sting Tarrant, it barely registers. He nags all his players, he says, on purpose. And if Blair isn't Tarrant's buddy now, so be it. Tarrant praised Blair's upbringing but said Blair was softened by the attention showered on him as an only child.
"When he came in, he didn't know what hard work was," Tarrant said. "For a year it was, `Why does this guy keep picking on me?' I picked on him because I knew he could be good.
"Can you imagine if Curtis had another type of coach, not a strong personality? I don't think he'd have developed like he did. He needed somebody with a stronger hand than what he had. We all need a superior who's not going to be a wishy-washy, mushy guy. In my business, those guys get fired."
\ To be the best
Tarrant and Blair might never have joined forces id Blair hadn't signed with Richmond before averaging 17.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists in his senior year at Patrick Henry when the Patriots won the state title. William and Mary, Old Dominion and Virginia Tech competed with Richmond; Wake Forest and Virginia, Tarrant said, had Blair on backup lists and could have come calling if Blair had waited.
"If I wouldn't have done so well here, I'd probably have some regrets," Blair said.
Instead, he will end his Richmond career in the Spiders' top 10 in scoring, assists and steals. Tarrant said he's been invited to the NBA college all-star camp in Portsmouth after the season. Blair wants a pro basketball career; if it doesn't happen, his targets are the FBI or the Secret Service. But there are two other things he'd like first: to go to the NCAA Tournament again and to be CAA player of the year.
"I think I've paid my dues," he said, recalling JMU's Steve Hood accepting that award two years ago. "I said, `One day, I'm going to be player of the year.' I always had that goal in the back of my mind, to be the best in the conference."
If he is, even if it is a basketball-only award, maybe Diane Curtis will get really excited.
"People say, `You're lucky,' " she said. "I say, `Luck is not the word. We're blessed.'
"When someone asks your child who is your idol and he doesn't say Michael Jordan or Magic, he says his idols are his parents . . . I get so filled up with that. That's pretty darn good."
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