
DATE: Monday, July 28, 1997                 TAG: 9707280183

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ROBIN BRINKLEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  100 lines

BOOKER T.'S BIG SECRET CURTIS JOHNSON IS TALLER THAN ALL BUT SIX NBA PLAYERS. HE WOULD LOVE TO PLAY IN THE NBA SOMEDAY, BUT FIRST THERE'S THE MATTER OF MAKING VARSITY.

There were six players in the NBA last season taller than Curtis Johnson.

Washington's George Muresan, at 7-7, Dallas' Shawn Bradley, at 7-6, Atlanta's Priest Lauderdale and Indiana's Rik Smits at 7-4 and Cleveland's Zydrunas Ilgauskus and Portland's Arvydas Sabonis at 7-3.

Johnson, a 7-2 1/2, 350-pound rising junior at Booker T. Washington High School, would love to join them someday. But first there is the little matter of making the Bookers' varsity.

Johnson's last organized basketball activity occurred a year ago in a summer league. Before that he was a reserve on the junior varsity.

Johnson missed all of last season after undergoing knee surgery to repair torn cartilage. Just as he was getting over that doctors shaved a bone in his right foot that had been rebuilt before to correct a fallen arch.

Between the two foot surgeries were three operations to remove polyps from his sinuses. Johnson, who had an extra toe removed at birth, seemingly has been on injured reserve since he left the womb.

But when you are 7-2 1/2 and 16 years old you can have flippers and a dorsal fin and still be recruited.

``Dear Curtis, You have been highly recommended to Seton Hall University as a prospective student-athlete,'' began one letter Johnson received in June. ``We are aware of your potential and will be following your progress with interest during the summer and upcoming year.''

That letter, like ones from Iowa, Illinois, Ohio State and Florida before it, included a questionnaire that Johnson didn't return.

``What am I going to say?'' he says, his soft brown eyes narrowing into a dark stare. ``I really can't say nothing to them.''

Johnson could say that he thinks he's stopped growing, which should ease the stress on his feet. That he's rehabbed the knee and is stretching and walking every day.

``I haven't been to the court for a while, but I practice a lot without a ball,'' he says. ``I'll jog low to the ground and act like I'm dribbling the ball.''

Booker T. Washington coach Jarrell Wilkerson hopes to put a real ball in Johnson's hands this year.

``He can do multiple things,'' Wilkerson says. ``He can shoot; he has real good hands. And you can put him at the end of a press, like Georgetown did with Patrick Ewing.

``Curtis has a little promise. He just has to get his body to the point that he can maneuver up and down the floor.''

The onus for that, Wilkerson makes it clear, is on Johnson.

``You never know when somebody is going to get motivated to do something,'' Wilkerson says. ``But I've been here roughly two years and I've seen great improvement.''

Steve Sutmiller, an athletic trainer specialist for Norfolk public schools, has watched Johnson play since the eighth grade.

``He's a pretty hard worker,'' Sutmiller says. ``He showed up every day for rehabilitation. To get better he has to get stronger and he was usually in the weight room, from what I saw.''

Sutmiller says the surgeries on Johnson's feet have made a big difference in his mobility, but he'll always be prone to injury.

``His skills have developed since the eighth grade,'' Sutmiller says, ``but he's still way, way behind at this stage from where Eddie Geth was, for example.''

Geth, from Granby, signed with North Carolina and played sparingly in four seasons there.

Johnson, who turns 17 Aug. 30, says he's motivated to play basketball. But he's hardly singleminded in his approach.

He has few close friends and spends most of his time playing video games.

``I can break down anything you give me in a day,'' he says.

If his basketball dreams don't materialize Johnson says he would like to design video games on CD Rom.

``Adventure games, probably,'' he says. ``They sell better than anything else.''

Johnson's video games would take the player to jungles and swamps and other places he has never been.

The Johnsons - Curtis, his mother Maxine, and sister Curtina - live in an apartment near Norfolk State University.

Maxine receives disability payments for a back injury. Curtis Johnson, Sr., Curtis' father who is 6-10, also is disabled. The couple is divorced.

Clothing Curtis is a strain on Maxine Johnson's budget and she has appealed to outside sources for help. She once tracked down representatives of Shaquille O'Neal, who sent Curtis clothes and several pairs of shoes.

That was two years ago and Maxine Johnson says efforts to contact O'Neal again have been unsuccessful, although Curtis is now bigger than the Lakers' superstar.

Johnson says he is hopeful O'-Neal or someone else can help him acquire new clothes for school.

``Clothes do make the man,'' he says.

Curtis says he'll accept any kind of clothes, but thinks he might look best in a Booker T. uniform.

``It's always been hard for me to watch,'' he says. ``I'm ready to be in the game.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

NHAT MEYER Photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Maxine Johnson, right, has a hard time keeping son Curtis in clothes

that fit. He's 7-2 1/2 and 350 pounds.

Curtis Johnson with his 11-month-old niece, Diesha Johnson, at his

family's home in Norfolk.