Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 10, 1995 TAG: 9503100057
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A feeling of triumph came over Junior Burrough as he prepared for the end of his college career. Triumph not over a basketball opponent, but over loneliness, heartache and temptation.
Burrough has accomplished a lot as a college basketball player - and he has the numbers to prove it - but not many people know the obstacles he has overcome.
Burrough was 12 when his mother, Alice, died after a long fight against heart disease and left Junior and his older brother, Brian, in the care of their no-nonsense father.
``I can still see him come up the driveway to a house full of relatives and me having to tell him that his mother wouldn't be coming home any more,'' said Burrough's father, Thomas. ``It was devastating.''
The evils lurking in West Charlotte, N.C., were irresistible for Burrough's older brother, who already had been jailed for one drug-related offense when he was arrested in the fall for robbing a convenience store.
``My family's problems are something that weighs on my mind,'' said Burrough, who lost an uncle to AIDS and had a cousin who was murdered. ``I can remember the loneliness of not having people around and then, when they were around, [there was] violence, alcohol and drugs.
``Those are the kind of things that can really mess a kid's head up. It was very depressing. If it weren't for my father, I would definitely be in a different situation. I don't know where I would be. I wouldn't be here.''
Burrough predicted that his father would be uncomfortable last Sunday when he accompanied his son on his final trip to midcourt at University Hall. Instead of discomfort, however, it appeared that pride might burst the buttons of his father's neatly tailored dark gray suit.
``Junior has had the support of a loving father who would have done anything in the world for him,'' former Virginia assistant coach Dennis Wolff said, ``and Junior was just as determined never to be a problem for his father.''
Their father-son relationship hasn't always been that way. Burrough's father, who has four sons and a daughter ranging in age from 22 to 36, was a stickler for manners and wasn't lenient with his punishment.
``Hardly a day goes by when I don't think about my mother,'' Burrough said, ``but I was really mad when my mother died because I felt she had left us with this man we hardly knew, a man who whupped us at night.''
Thomas Sr., now in semi-retirement, worked as a chef and wasn't always home in the evenings, particularly before his wife died.
``I wanted to make sure they were responsible when I wasn't there,'' Burrough's father said. ``I wanted them to be gentlemen. If you get knocked down, regardless of the circumstances, you brush yourself off and get back up with a smile.''
A consistent person
No sooner did Burrough arrive at Virginia than he was confronted by an authority figure, UVa coach Jeff Jones, who was even more merciless than his father. It has been said that Jones was as hard on Burrough as any player he has coached.
``I believe I was harder,'' Jones said. ``No one can accuse him of being the coach's pet. Everybody knows Junior has caught a lot of crap from me - a lot of crap - but he's as consistent in terms of personality as any person I've ever been around. Junior doesn't have bad days.''
Burrough never has received a technical foul, and no one can remember him losing his temper - at officials or opponents or reporters, not all of whom have treated him favorably.
``I think, in my 15 years as a college coach, he's probably the nicest kid I've ever been around,'' said Wolff, in his first season as the head coach at Boston University. ``Seeing Junior was one of the things that made you look forward to practice every day.''
It was Burrough's easygoing nature and sense of humor that frequently frustrated Jones, who saw a 6-foot-8, 245-pounder with the frame but not the mindset of an enforcer.
``I think Junior needed and still needs - now much less than before - to be pushed hard,'' Jones said. ``But, just because I was loud and didn't always say nice things, he didn't let it deter him. He didn't let it get him down. He didn't take it personally.
``If that's the only contact you've got and it's criticism, then it's not going to work. He understood what I was trying to do. If I yell at him or people write negative things about him, he doesn't get all defensive.''
Some of that resilience may stem from a childhood when he couldn't reach across the dinner table without fear of being slapped.
``I think my dad must have called Coach Jones,'' Burrough said. ``Pops is a little more low-key now, I guess, because he knows Coach Jones isn't giving me any kind of breaks.''
A real leader
Although some consider him the team comedian, Burrough has been a leader. He called a players-only meeting after an early season loss to Vanderbilt and once visited disconsolate freshman Curtis Staples in the middle of the night.
``I was surprised because I didn't think anybody had noticed,'' Staples said. ``I'll tell you, if Junior got it any worse from Coach Jones than I did at the beginning of the year, he must have had some bad times here.''
Off the court, Jones' support for Burrough is unwavering. When Burrough this week was named third-team All-ACC for the second year in a row, Jones took some thinly veiled shots at the media voters.
``I'm kind of perplexed [by the voting],'' Jones said. ``There's a lot of outstanding players in the league, but with the kind of year he had and the kind of year the team had, I think partisan voting had to play a part.''
Only three players in UVa history have scored more than 1,800 points and grabbed more than 800 rebounds: three-time national player of the year Ralph Sampson, three-time first-team All-ACC choice Bryant Stith and Burrough.
``I feel Junior is the most underappreciated player in Virginia history,'' said Wolff, who outrecruited Kentucky and Syracuse to sign Burrough. ``The day Junior Burrough committed to Virginia, in my mind, is the day that I knew that we would be all right.''
Burrough stands sixth on UVa's all-time scoring list with 1,819 points. The jerseys of the five players in front of him have been retired and Wolff, for one, thinks Burrough's number should be retired.
Virginia might have won a national championship in the early 1980s if Sampson had played next to a power forward such as Burrough, who, despite his size, lowered his body fat below seven percent before the season.
Conversely, Burrough can only dream how his career might have been different if he had played next to a center with scoring skills who would have prevented the double teams that have been a way of life the past two years.
``I feel I've done a good job,'' he said. ``I've earned everything that has come my way. Mostly, I'm overjoyed that I made it this far. A lot of people wouldn't have believed I would make it out of Charlotte, but I feel I've left a mark.''
by CNB