THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 26, 1994 TAG: 9411240075
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 208 lines
DON'T BOTHER asking David Greer if he's going to be ``pumped'' for Norfolk Collegiate's basketball game against Portsmouth Christian tonight.
``Pumped?'' he says, a smile flashing on his face. ``I get pumped for practice. For games, I'm out of my mind.''
Especially for this one. David Greer's been waiting nine months for this one. He's been counting the days ever since he walked off the court last February after the Oaks' final game of the season.
For Greer and the other 1,800 high school boys and girls in Hampton Roads who will take the court this week, it's finally here.
Hoop season.
The leaves have come and gone, the endless summer pickup games are over, the basketball camps are done, the suicides have been run, thousands of jumpers have been drained on the basket in the driveway.
It's time, as David Greer says, ``to get it on.''
There might be guys out there who are better than the 6-foot-3 (if you stretch him on a rack) senior forward. But there aren't any who love this game more.
How many kids made 10,000 free throws during a summer? How many drive around with three basketballs in their old '71 pickup truck as they cruise in search of the eternal 3-on-3 game.
``One for indoor games at the Y,'' he says. ``One for outdoor games. And one just in case something happens to the other two.''
How many kids would go as far as Jersey City to find a pickup game?
DAVID GREER DOESN'T REMEMBER when he first started playing basketball. That's sort of like asking him if he remembers when he took his first steps or started talking.
``It just happens,'' he says. ``One day you're playing. I really don't remember not playing.''
According to his family, David was about 6 or 7 when he started shooting around in the gym at Brevard College in North Carolina, where his dad, Billy, was president.
``I was always there. I'd hang around and play with anyone who'd play with me,'' he says. ``And when they'd leave, I'd be in there by myself. Sometimes at midnight.''
Going one-on-none.
Five seconds left . . . Greer has it high on the left side. . . . Four . . Foul! Greer was fouled!
He'll go to the line for two with a chance to win it. . . . The first one is on its way. . . . Lane violation! Greer will get two more. . . .
``From the beginning, there was something magical about basketball for me,'' David says. ``There was a special feeling that I didn't get anywhere else but on the court.
``I played all the other sports when I was younger. But I always knew there'd be a time when I'd give them up and basketball would be the only game.''
It came before his eighth-grade year when the Brevard College coach challenged his players to make 10,000 free throws over the summer. He didn't know he was also challenging the redhead kid with the freckles who was always hanging around.
``Some days I shot as many as 800,'' says David, who has two older brothers, William and Robert. ``I'd have my dad out there rebounding when he got home, and sometimes my mom would sit on a lawn chair and count them for me. Some days it would be 100 degrees.''
It was late August when he nailed No. 10,000.
``By the end of the summer, my game still needed a lot of work,'' he says, laughing. ``But I could shoot free throws.''
Greer first came out for the Collegiate team as a freshman after the family moved to Norfolk when his dad became president of Virginia Wesleyan. He was 5-foot-11 and mostly Adam's apple.
``I probably weighed about 115 pounds,'' he says.
Every year, David Greer's gotten a little bigger and, with the help of a set of weights in the garage, a little stronger.
``Touch the rim'' was the message that was taped to his mirror in his bedroom when he was freshman. The next year the goal was ``Get your hand over the rim.'' And then there was just one word: ``Dunk.''
These days, he can dunk and, at 175 pounds, hold his own under the boards.
``David just works and works at it,'' says coach Larry Schwab, a big easy going bear of a man who has been a high school coach for 25 years.
``He's one of those kids you love to coach because he understands the game so well. He's gotten better and better. David's emerged as our leader. He's our go-to guy.''
Last year, Greer averaged about eight points a game. He had a high of 16 against Nansemond-Suffolk Academy.
And against Hampton Roads Academy, he beat the buzzer with an NBA-range three pointer to tie the game and then won it for the Oaks in OT.
``I had some good moments last year,'' he says. ``But not as many as I'd have liked to.''
There are going to be nights this senior season when that soft, quick-release jumper of his is falling and he's lighting it up for 20 or 25.
But how many points he scores is not how David Greer is going to measure his final season of high school basketball.
``That's not how you play this game,'' he says. ``You play the game like it's supposed to be played. And you play to win. That's what all of us want. A banner on the wall.
``No, we want two. One for the conference and one for the state.''
IT'S STILL NEARLY TWO WEEKS before the first game, and the wooden stands at Norfolk Collegiate are empty. All you can hear are the squeaking of sneakers and the pounding of the ball.
And Coach Scwhab's voice:
``Greer . . . Greer. You've got to pop out there when the ball comes to that side. How are we ever going to double team the ball that way? You win games on defense. Isn't that right, Greer?
Greer nods.
Over and over, the Oaks practice double teaming the ball. And then over and over, they practice running their offensive sets.
``Greer,'' says Schwab, shaking his head as he watches Greer's jumper roll off the rim. ``We gotta hit that shot when we get it. Right, Greer?''
Greer nods.
It's more than an hour later when Schwab gathers his team around him and tells them before dismissing them: ``Guys, we're starting to come together. We're gettng there.''
``Greer,'' he says as the players begin heading off to the the showers, ``good practice.''
Greer nods.
He grabs a seat on a section of bleachers.
``When was the last time I didn't play basketball?'' he says, repeating the question a visitor's asked.
``I didn't play a few weeks ago, the day I took the college boards. Those almost killed me. I had to go home and lie down. My brain was fried. But other than that, geez, I can't remember.''
All those hours on the playgrounds and at the summer camps such as the legendary Five-Star have paid off. Especially the trips he made to Jersey City the past two years.
It was last summer when David's dad called Bob Hurley, the storied high school coach and the father of Duke All-American and NBA player Bobby Hurley.
``I knew that's where the best players were,'' says David. ``I've never played against that caliber of player. They say the private schools are a `white's boy' league.' The public schools kind of put us down. I had to find out if I could play with those guys.''
The Eagle Bingo Hall in Jersey City, where Bob Hurley's perennially nationally ranked St. Anthony's team plays in the summer, is a light year from Norfolk Collegiate's polished floor.
``There was a stage at one end,'' David says, shaking his head and laughing. ``And one of the baskets was crooked. And there were spots on the floor where you bounced the ball and it didn't come up. Man, I was nervous.''
The first trip down the floor, Greer learned that ``they don't play out of bounds. The ball goes off the wall, it's in play. And there are no fouls. None. My first shot I was so scared I airballed it.''
But when the two days of scrimmaging were over, Bob Hurley uttered the only words a basketball player lives to hear: ``He can play.''
``I knew he had never been in a place like this,'' says Bob Hurley, talking on the phone. ``But I knew right away this was a kid who loves the game. I could see it in his eyes. I knew he was one of those kids who's in his last class of the day, he starts looking at the clock, his legs start twitching. He can't wait to get out there. He's going to make some school a good college player.''
There probably won't be any big-time Division I recruiters in the stands at Collegiate this season like there'll be at the big public schools. But David Greer hopes he might catch the eye of some small school.
``When people ask me where I'm going to school,'' says David, who racks up mostly A's and B's in his advanced placement classes, ``I tell them, `Where they'll let me play basketball.' ''
David Greer moves off the bleachers and heads over to a basket, dribbling the ball back and forth between his legs almost as an afterthought.
And then he starts dropping in shots from the perimeter.
``I'm going to stay and shoot awhile,'' he says.
THE FIRST GAME IS A WEEK OFF on this warm November night, and the lights are on in the driveway of the brick house on Cloncurry Road.
His homework is done and David Greer is out there knocking down some 18-footers on the hoop with the glass backboard.
``It was about the first thing we did after moving in,'' says David's dad, Billy. ``Put up a backboard and widen the driveway.
``We told my wife we were widening the driveway so we could park the cars. But we were doing it so we could shoot three-pointers. But she (Fann) knew what we were up to. ''
There are always weekend games going in the driveway when David's Collegiate teammates Trey Cooper, Jason Jordan, Brad Schloss, Richard Councilman, Nick Jacovides and Ryan Welsh come over and go 3-on-3.
But mostly the driveway and the backboard are David Greer's ``place.''
It's where he goes at night ``to shoot a little and think about things and just be by myself. It's where I feel best.''
And it's where he'll be this afternoon.
``Shooting around for an hour or so,'' he says. ``I want to be really ready.''
And then it will be time to climb into the ancient white pickup that his granddad gave him and head to school.
In the locker room, he'll change into his white jersey with the blue trim and No. 33 on it, high-five Cooper and Jordan and the rest of his buddies and listen to Coach Schwab's talk.
A few minutes later, he'll be crouched at the midcourt circle, his eyes riveted, waiting for the ref throw up the ball on his senior season.
``It can't,'' says David Greer, flicking off the light in the driveway and heading back into the house, ``get much better than that.''
Not if you love the game. ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photos by LAWRENCE JACKSON
David Greer talks with coach Larry Schwab, above, during practice at
Norfolk Collegiate, and, below, practices his jump shot in his
parents' driveway.
Greer says he can't remember how old he was when he first started
shooting baskets.
Staff photo by LAWRENCE JACKSON
During practice, David Greer, second from right, plays defense
against teammates at Norfolk Collegiate.
by CNB