Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 26, 1994 TAG: 9402260028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
You're faking, Chief. Admit it. It's a put-on.
Carruth, Virginia Tech's 6-foot-10 senior center, is a wraparound hug dressed in skin, bones and a shaven head.
He's so good-natured, he probably wouldn't bother a biting mosquito.
Opponents' fans call him names - at William and Mary, it was "Dr. Scholls," in reference to his size 17 feet. He winked and grinned at the hooters.
He wears a 43 1/2-inch sleeve and has a 52-inch outseam.
"It's hard to clothe me," Carruth said, noting that his teammates rout him in the fashion department. "But I'm like, man, as long as I'm happy, it doesn't matter to me."
Today, Carruth and Tech's four other seniors - Blacksburg native Jay Purcell, Corey Jackson, Don Corker and Mike Davis - play their last game at Cassell Coliseum in Tech's 3:09 p.m. tipoff against UNC Charlotte.
By the numbers, Carruth's has been a career of mediocrity for one so imposing.
By the emotions, the friendships, the effort and the childlike enjoyment, it's been a jersey-retiring trip for the Texas native whose mother calls him a "universal man."
"I wake up on the good side of the bed every day," Carruth said. "You can't please man; man is the hardest person to please. My attitude is, I can't please anybody but myself, and that's what I'm out to do."
It rubs off. Long ago, Tech's student section embraced a Tech sports publicity office promotion to wear orange ski hats in Carruth's honor. They already had been chanting his nickname ("Chief") and another rhythmic homage: "Car-ruth, Car-ruth, Car-ruth is on FI-RE!!!"
Alas, Carruth has but smoldered for most of his Tech career, never averaging more than his current 4.7 points and 3.6 rebounds rebounds per game.
He always has blocked shots, and he leads the Metro Conference in that category this year. Hours of individual work with Tech assistant Bobby Hussey the past three years have given Carruth an offensive move (the jump hook) this season for the first time in his career.
Succeed or fail, he is the flame that boils the teakettle of Tech students.
"I'm like, `Wow, they're doing this for me,' " Carruth said of the orange-hat thing. "To have all these people who know me, Jimmy the basketball player . . . start a trend like this because of me? Fantastic, and they don't really, really know me."
He grins.
"I mean, if they got to know me, they would love me," he said.
Most apparently do - even those teammates, coaches and others around Tech's program who, in an airport or a hotel lobby, have felt a light tap on the shoulder and turned to see a giant ski-mask-covered face a quarter-inch from theirs.
On a plane, Carruth can do a sitting-down stand-up routine, making up hand movements and facial expressions as a giggling flight attendant recites safety precautions.
It's typical Carruth. The mind he has used to earn what Hussey said is one of the highest grade-point averages on the team can skip and hop whimsically from prank to joke and back again.
Most college athletes use a television camera to bellow, "Hi, Mom!" Carruth asked if he could do it in the newspaper.
And why not? His mom, Jessie, raised three children mostly by herself. Jimmy Dawn Carruth II bears the name of his father (whose U.S. Army career led most places except home to Port Arthur, Texas) but little other attachment: "I know who he is, I know what he looks like. I really don't know my dad," Carruth said.
His parents divorced when Jimmy was about 13. Jimmy said his mother worked shifts at all hours of the clock, sometimes double shifts, and would be home only briefly on holidays such as Christmas. He swears she still came to all his games in high school.
The Carruths had themselves, though.
"My mom needed money [for bills]. She'd ask to borrow it, but I'd just give it to her," Carruth said. "I'll never expect it back."
A brief chat with Jessie Lee Carruth is as far back on the Carruth family tree as you need to go to know why Jimmy's heart is almost impossible to sadden.
Were times tough with three children and one parent? Silly question.
"Never. Never," she said. "I had my children. Never depressed. Never in a bad humor. I'm a nurse. I had to work. My kids were my life."
Once, she said, Jimmy, Byron, now 27, and Ava, 25, begged their mama to buy an RV so they could go with her to work and sleep outside in the van.
She's kept the link strong. For about three years, she sent Jimmy care-packages stuffed with edibles. She figured she had gotten too well-acquainted with the local shipping service, so the packages petered out.
Not the love.
"My telephone bill is high," she said, with a smile that traveled through the phone line.
Jimmy Carruth, remembering his upbringing, wants to keep the family connection open.
"When I get married and I have kids . . . I'm always going to be there for my kids," he said. "I want to be the best father ever."
Jessie Carruth admits being "aggressive," saying she pushed education on her children. Byron and Ava have college degrees, and Hussey said Jimmy could have graduated last December if he had wanted.
Hussey should know. Carruth said Tech's third-year assistant is his father-figure.
Hussey remembers the drills that began after the first day of practice when Bill Foster and staff took over in 1991. He remembers then that Carruth "couldn't catch a cold."
But Carruth always asked for more work, Hussey said, and Hussey can remember when Carruth began smoothing his jump hook from robotic to semi-fluid.
"It was like, geez, wow, [he's] leaping in the air," Hussey said. "Now, I think he's developed a comfort zone. These were things he would just not even attempt to do."
Carruth admits amazement when he eyed a statistics sheet after a 1991 game and saw he had taken nine shots. This year, he's had five games with eight or more points, has averaged 4.7 rebounds in Tech's past six games and had one of his best stats lines last week against South Florida: 2-for-4 from the field, four points, eight rebounds, seven blocked shots, a steal and a career-high tying three assists.
He is averaging almost three blocks in Tech's past seven games, giving the Hokies a defensive boost as they make a run at postseason play for the first time in eight years.
Carruth probably has some more basketball left whether it's with Tech or not. Hussey has been working on getting Carruth a spot on a European pro team.
It would help.
"I want to be a millionaire," he said. "To me, that's not a goal, that's my destiny."
The first blank check, he said, will be written to his mother "for her never to have to work again."
by CNB