THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 10, 1995 TAG: 9503100435
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DOUG DOUGHTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 126 lines
Junior Burrough feels triumphant as he nears the end of his college career. Triumphant not over a basketball opponent, but over loneliness, heartache and temptation.
Burrough has accomplished a lot at the University of Virginia - and he has the numbers to prove it - but not many people know the obstacles he has overcome.
Burrough was 12 when his mother died after a long fight against heart disease. Junior and his older brother, Brian, were left 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 anymore,'' Burrough's father, Thomas, said. ``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 last 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 a cousin who was murdered. ``I can remember the loneliness of not having people around and then, when they were around, 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 had predicted that his father would be uncomfortable 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 Dennis Wolff said, ``and Junior was just as determined never to be a problem for his father.''
Their relationship hasn't always been that way. Burrough's father, who has four sons and a daughter ranging from 22 to 36, was a stickler for manners who wasn't lenient with 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,'' he 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.''
No sooner did Burrough arrive at Virginia than he was confronted by an authority figure - 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, but he's as consistent in terms of personality as any person I've ever been around. Junior doesn't have bad days.''
Burrough not only has never received a technical foul, but no one can remember him losing his temper - either 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 him get it 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.''
That resilience may stem from a childhood in which 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.''
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.''
But Jones' support for Burrough is unwavering. When Burrough, who averaged 16.6 points and 8 rebounds per game this season, was named third-team All-ACC for the second year in a row, Jones criticized 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 U.Va. 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,'' Wolff said. ``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 U.Va.'s scoring list with 1,819 points. The jerseys of the five players in front of him have been retired. Wolff thinks Burrough's number should be retired, but that's not going to happen because Virginia virtually has stopped retiring numbers in football and men's basketball.
Virginia might have won a national championship in the early 1980s if Sampson had played next to a power forward like Burrough, who, despite his size, lowered his body fat to under 7 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 that would have prevented the double teams that have been a way of life the last 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.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Junior Burrough, who averaged 16.6 points and 8 rebounds per game
this season, has joined Ralph Sampson and Bryant Stith as the only
players to get 1,800 points and 800 rebounds for Virginia.
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