
DATE: Tuesday, September 16, 1997           TAG: 9709160422

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL WHITE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  100 lines

HAS MARVIN RODGERS FINALLY FOUND THE WRIGHT PLACE?

Junior-college basketball came so easy to former Churchland High star Marvin Rodgers last season that he could execute Harlem Globetrotter-style moves and still finish.

His favorite was one in which he stood under the basket with the ball, faked a pass with his free hand and laid the ball in with the other.

``That's my patented move,'' said Rodgers, who averaged 18 points and nine rebounds at Wallace State Community College in Selma, Ala., and earned fourth-team All-America honors.

Then again, the game of basketball has rarely been difficult for Rodgers, who has signed with Wright State, a Division I school in Dayton, Ohio.

It's in the game of life where he's had his problems.

In the 1994-95 school year, Rodgers, a senior, was the first high-profile athlete to fall victim to Portsmouth's minimum-grade-point eligibility rule to play sports.

After his senior year, he was kicked off his Virginia High School Coaches Association All-Star team after an incident on a team bus.

And last year, while attending West Virginia University, he pled guilty to second-degree sexual assault.

``I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time again,'' Rodgers said.

Ed Schilling isn't holding it against Rodgers, though. In fact, the Wright State coach is so confident that Rodgers has turned the corner that he appears willing to stake his reputation - and perhaps his job - on it.

Schilling, 32, who was an assistant to John Calipari at the University of Massachusetts and with the New Jersey Nets, came to Wright State after a turmoil-filled 1996-97 campaign.

Last November, Raiders coach Ralph Underhill was fired after he was charged with shoplifting. Underhill filed suit.

His replacement, Jim Brown, led the Raiders to a 7-20 season after which he, too, was fired.

Schilling was brought in, he said, with a mandate to run an ``embarrassment-free'' program. So isn't he the least bit concerned about offering a scholarship to Rodgers, a junior-college All-American last year and a registered sex offender in West Virginia for the next eight?

``Every kid we get is not going to be a choir boy,'' Schilling said. ``But I've done my homework on the kid. He's a good kid. I don't believe he's a risk.''

Rodgers certainly doesn't appear to be much of one on the court. The 6-foot-9, 230-pound forward was a first-team All-Tidewater selection as a junior at Churchland. That summer, he was 39th on the list of the top 40 players at the prestigious Nike-All American Basketball Festival, three spots behind North Carolina star Antwan Jamison.

But when the Portsmouth School Board set its initial bar for participation in sports at a 1.3 grade-point average, Rodgers was unable to clear it.

An embarrassed Rodgers taped the newspaper story chronicling his ineligibility to his ceiling for motivation and regained his eligibility in time to play in Churchland's final 10 games.

While he couldn't qualify to play collegiately as a freshman, Rodgers was still heavily recruited. In April 1995, he chose West Virginia over Alabama with the knowledge that if he could prove himself academically, he could play the following year.

But his basketball career got sidetracked when he was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a female student in her dormitory room during his freshman year. Under a plea agreement in August 1996, Rodgers pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault. He was ordered to serve five months' probation and his name was placed on a state registry of sexual offenders for 10 years. He was also expelled from the university.

``That's all behind me,'' said Rodgers, who declined to comment further.

Rodgers said he considered playing basketball overseas upon leaving West Virginia. But a WVU teammate recommended Wallace State. Not wanting to get out of the college basketball loop completely, Rodgers signed on last September.

``When I first got there, the guys saw this 6-9 guy handling the ball and didn't accept me,'' he said.

The turning point, he said, came during a junior college all-star camp in Florida that winter.

``I was the No. 1 player there,'' he said. ``I had games of 21, 24 and 32 points. That's when they started giving me my respect.''

Details of the scholarship offer to Rodgers by Wright State are a bit murky. Schilling said Rodgers signed with Wright State last spring; as late as July, Rodgers was saying he was still considering other schools. Wright State's odds may have gone up when Schilling hired Wallace State coach Otis Hughley as his assistant.

Rodgers still has one more hurdle to clear. As of Monday, the school was still reviewing his transcripts and Rodgers hadn't officially been admitted to the school. Classes begin Wednesday.

But Rodgers said he is sure everything will work out.

``All I've been through just shows that God makes a way out of no way,'' he said.

Wright on, Marvin. ILLUSTRATION: Color file photo

L. TODD SPENCER

Marvin Rodgers admits he's been "in the wrong place at the wrong

time" on occasion.

L. TODD SPENCER/File photos

Marvin Rodgers, left, and former Old Dominion star Odell Hodge were

Hampton Roads Pro-Am League teammates. Rodgers headed to Wright

State; Odell Hodge signed with a pro team in Turkey.

``God makes a way out of no way,'' says Marvin Rodgers, right, shown

sharing a laugh with his grandfather, Frank Rodgers.