THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602050106
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
Maurice Whitfield's first loves in sports were baseball and football.
But growing up in the 3800 block of Taney Street in north Philadelphia, where abandoned cars sit on cinder blocks and vagrants frequent the many empty apartments, those were not the sports of choice.
There were no organized baseball leagues, and pickup football games were infrequent.
There was basketball, though. Everywhere. It's North Philly. Enough said.
And Whitfield attended one of the best basketball schools in Philly, Dobbins Tech, the school that produced such headline players as Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and former Virginia point guard and two-time national Player of the Year Dawn Staley.
``It's pretty hard to get 18 guys together for a baseball game,'' Whitfield said. ``And the only time anyone wants to throw a football around is Sunday, so I ended up playing basketball by process of elimination.''
For Norfolk State, it proved a valuable process.
Whitfield, called ``Mo'' by friends and teammates, will start at point guard tonight when the Spartans host Virginia Union in a clash of CIAA titans. It's a role he's had since coming to Norfolk State a year ago after transferring from Gloucester Community College in New Jersey.
One can only wonder if Whitfield could have been the all-around player in baseball or football that he is on the basketball court. The 6-foot-1, 165-pound junior can hurt an opponent in just about every facet of the game.
He's averaging 10.6 points and is among the CIAA's leaders in assists with 4.9 a game. He's also second on the team in blocked shots with 10, and averages 4.1 rebounds.
Earlier this season at Livingstone, Whitfield grabbed 11 rebounds in an 80-71 victory, and it is common to see Whitfield sky over his taller teammates around the basket.
``Back home, when it goes up, it's anybody's ball,'' he said. ``That's how I got to be a good rebounder.
``From where I am, it's easy. Blitz (Wooten) and Derrick (Bryant) are boxing people out. I'm just sliding through the seams and playing the ball.''
Whitfield is also a capable defender, averaging 1.8 steals a game on a defense that has held opponents to a combined shooting percentage of 35.7 from the field.
He is most dangerous when Norfolk State goes to a 1-3-1 zone trap, his springy legs allowing him to pick off passes thrown over the top of the defense.
``I had a player on my national championship team at N.C. Central named Jeffrey Hayes who had a lot of similarities to Mo,'' Norfolk State coach Mike Bernard said. ``He was a point guard who rebounded very well and was tough mentally. Like Mo, Jeffrey was a leader in the true sense.''
Bernard has so much confidence in Whitfield that ``As Mo goes, so does Norfolk State'' has become a motto.
``I've heard it so much that I'm starting to believe it,'' Whitfield said.
He's been going much of the season as the Spartans have raced to a 14-3 record.
But Mo did nothing more than spin his wheels the first time Norfolk State played Virginia Union. Before a packed house at the Ashe Center in Richmond, Whitfield committed seven turnovers and the Spartans' offense sputtered in a 76-60 loss.
Seeing how Whitfield had previously played well against the Panthers, it was a surprisingly poor performance. So surprising that Whitfield didn't believe it until Bernard showed him the videotape.
``Films don't lie,'' Bernard said. ``He didn't play a typical Maurice Whitfield game.''
Whitfield, who was breaking in a new pair of sneakers that week, slipped repeatedly on the rubberized Ashe Center court, which led to many of the turnovers. But asked about the shoes, Whitfield said, ``There are no excuses.''
``I didn't lead, and that's what took us out of our game,'' Whitfield said. ``I figure we could have won if I'd had a better game.''
Whitfield and winning seem to go hand-in-hand. He played on an unbeaten junior college team that won the Division III JuCo national championship. In his 1 1/2 seasons at Norfolk State, the Spartans are 41-9.
He'd like those winning ways to carry over into criminal law, which he hopes to pursue after his basketball days end. Whitfield fell in love with ``The Pelican Brief,'' the Julia Roberts-Denzel Washington movie based on a John Grisham novel in which a law student stumbles on a government conspiracy to assassinate Supreme Court justices.
``And my mom used to watch `Perry Mason' all the time,'' Whitfield said. ``She turned me onto it.
``I think it's interesting and I really get into it when we argue cases in class,'' said the criminal justice major.
Does he usually win his cases?
``We win our cases,'' Whitfield said. ``Usually, we are placed in groups and work together as a team.''
And how many are usually in the group?
Whitfield smiles. ``Five.''
It's a suitable number for the man called ``Mo.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
Guard Maurice Whitfield will be the point man when the Spartans host
Virginia Union tonight.
by CNB