It’s the Time of His Life : Things Are Always Looking Up for Mater Dei’s Ellis

The other evening, LeRon Ellis, the nicest, greatest high school basketballplayer you’d ever want to meet, took most of his 6-foot 11-inch, 220-pound body and performed a crush-groove into the 6-3 frame of St. Anthony High School’s Darin Long.

The natural laws being what they are, Long’s body crumpled immediately onto the gymnasium floor of Long Beach City College.

By coincidence, Ellis was attempting a layup when he fell Long. He made the shot, but whether Ellis saw the ball go in is questionable because he was busy sticking a finger in Long’s face and pouring verbal salt in Long’s 6-foot 3-inch wound.

Now that you have the wrong impression about LeRon Ellis, understand this. He really is the nicest, greatest high school basketball player you’d ever want to meet. It’s just that, the other evening, someone crossed the line, the line that separates The Gingerbread Man from The Monster.

“You know the saying, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie,’ ” said LeRoy Ellis, LeRon’s father, former NBA player and now USC assistant coach. “I guess that’s what I’d advise anyone who had to play against him. Stay out of his way, and don’t get him mad.”

Ellis is, by consensus, the best post player in Southern California high school basketball.

“No one is even close,” said Jim McClune, St. Bernard coach.

Some say he’s the country’s best high school post. Ellis will attend the University of Kentucky next fall.

Though it’s difficult to compare players of different eras, Ellis is probably the best big player ever to come out of an Orange County high school.

He is averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds for Mater Dei, the defending Southern Section 5-A champion and the playoff’s top-seeded team. His selection as 5-A player of the year seems a mere formality.

In Ellis’ two seasons at Mater Dei, the Monarchs have lost two games. The first was to Crenshaw in last season’s state championship game. The second came earlier this season against Flint Hill (Va.) Prep, ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today.

This is the kind of stuff that brings untold riches (read: popularity) to a fellow in high school.

“I don’t think there’s a more popular person in the school,” said Ben Weink, a Monarch reserve. “But it’s not just because he plays basketball. He’s involved in so much. He’s so friendly. He’s always talking to people, at lunch he’s always in a crowd.”

Of course, Weink has his own reasons to like Ellis. It’s Ellis who bends down the breakaway rims in the Mater Dei gym so that the 6-0 Weink can perform his inch-it-past-the-iron quasi-dunks.

The rest of the school?

Well, if you appreciate the domestic arts, you appreciate Ellis’ culinary talent. He made a chocolate-mocha gingerbread house, in the form a two-bedroom Colonial, that won first prize in a school bake-off. (It also earned him the nickname “Gingerbread Man” from Servite fans who wanted to rile him when Mater Dei played Servite Jan. 24. It didn’t work. Ellis scored 31 points.)

If footlights are your forte, you appreciate his work in the theater. Ellis has auditioned and won parts in school drama club productions. He had to turn down the lead in “The Man Who Came To Dinner” because it interfered with basketball season (scheduling difficulties, as they say in the business). But he will appear, and sing, in the spring production of “Auntie Mame.”

“He’s having the time of his life,” said Rich Schaaf, Monarch assistant coach. “The kid wants to get the most he can out of high school. He tries everything. Makes friends with everyone. I think people see that this kid isn’t just a jock, he’s a person. They react to that.”

Ellis came to Mater Dei two years ago, when his father, then working for a tire company, transferred from Oregon to Southern California. He had attended Parkrose High in Portland. As a freshman, he played varsity basketball and helped lead the team to the state semifinals. He dabbled in track and field and, according to Lucy, his mother, clear 6-3 in the high jump.

“He can do anything,” Lucy Ellis said.

He played water polo last fall at Mater Dei and led the team in scoring. He says he will give volleyball a try when basketball season is over.

“The kid would be great if he was 5-11,” McClune said. “He’s a player. He’s an athlete.”

LeRoy says he didn’t push LeRon, or any of his children, to get into basketball. There wasn’t the time. Even so, LeRoy Jr. plays at Columbia Christian College in Portland and Lisa plays at Cal State Long Beach.

“I’d sign them up for sports,” he said. “But I was either playing myself or getting started in business. . . . I did make sure that they played a wide variety of sports. I never did. I just played basketball. I wanted them to experience as much as they could.”

LeRon said: “People don’t believe it, but my dad didn’t have that much to do with my interest in basketball. That was more my brother’s role. I think the best thing my dad passed on to me was his athletic skills. A lot of people say that we’re very similar athletically.”

And does that mean that Ellis will follow Pops into the pros? It’s a foregone conclusion to Gary McKnight, Mater Dei coach, who said: “If he stays healthy, oh, there’s no doubt he’ll be making a million a year in the pros.”

Pressure. What pressure?

“I’ve heard that,” Ellis said. “That will take care of itself if I do my part. But for now I can’t think about it. I’ve got things to do.”

There are songs to sing, bodies to bash, cakes to bake . . .

In the past 15 years three of the best tall players to come out of Orange County have been Wayne Carlander (Ocean View), formerly of USC, Tom Lewis (Mater Dei), formerly of USC, UC Irvine and now at Pepperdine. And Ellis.

Schaaf coached Carlander as an assistant at Ocean View and handled Lewis at Mater Dei.

“They were all great,” he said. “But for different reasons. Wayne was great because he worked so hard and he was so smart. Tom was great because he had to be. Basketball was his whole world. He had to succeed.

“LeRon is great, the best of them all, because he has so much talent. It’s incredible to say, but he’s just scratching the surface right now. When he gets to Kentucky, when he plays against top competition every day, he’ll really be something. Something unbelievable.”

It all looks so easy for Ellis.

Imagine Joe DiMaggio 6-11 and playing the post. The kid is smooooth. He’s so smooth, things appear so easy, that some have questioned his desire.

“I believe he is unstoppable when he wants to be,” said Alex Acosta, Bishop Amat coach. There’s the catch. Even Ellis admits that sometimes his play is like gingerbread--soft.

“Sometimes I cruise,” he said. “I know it. But sometimes, to be honest, there isn’t a lot of competition for me. I just kind of doze.”

In Mater Dei’s first game against Bishop Amat, a lot had been made of Ellis’ matchup against Amat’s 6-6 junior center, Jeff Lear.

“I think Gary (McKnight) was really building Jeff and our team up to LeRon,” Acosta said. “I think he made LeRon angry. Made him think there was someone out there who thought they were better than LeRon. He came into that game like he was possessed. He played like a monster. He had 35 points. He just dominated. We never had a chance.

“But the second time we played, it was like playing against a different person. He knew there was nothing to prove. He just kind of floated through the game.”

Ellis had floated through three quarters of Mater Dei’s 5-A quarterfinal game against St. Anthony. He had played a horrible game missing easy shots and playing time because of foul trouble.

St. Anthony, which depended on guard Darrick Martin to shoot 30 times a game for its offense, was not supposed to be a problem for the top-seeded and defending champion Monarchs. And yet with 4:41 left, St. Anthony trailed by only six points, for the most part because of Ellis’ poor play.

Then someone breached the line. Actually, it wasn’t even the ill-fated Long who crossed it. It was a referee who told Ellis to keep his arms out of another player’s face during a free throw.

When Ellis suggested that he had done nothing of the sort, the referee got in his face--a maneuver Ellis had to stoop to accommodate. The referee walked away to the cheers of St. Anthony’s fans. Ellis stared at the official. It wasn’t exactly a look that could kill, but one that would definitely necessitate a long hospital stay.

Ellis rebounded the missed free throw and threw an outlet pass to point guard Chris Patton. Patton dribbled down court and lofted a pass toward the basket that Ellis grabbed and dunked. On Mater Dei’s next two possessions, Ellis made two jump shots. Seconds later, Ellis followed a teammate’s missed free throw.

He went down court and blocked successive shots by Martin. He grabbed the second block and started a fast break that led to Mater Dei layup.

Ellis stole a St. Anthony pass, passed to Patton, filled the lane, received the ball in the key and then destroyed poor Mr. Long. There was 1:20 left. In the span of 3:21 he had raised his game to score 10 points and give Mater Dei a comfortable 64-50 lead.

“He can do whatever he wants on the court,” Schaaf said. “I think that makes some people jealous, but it’s just the facts.”

After he walked away from Long, Ellis looked up at the score and composed himself. He had proven his point, again. He walked over to Long, who was limping toward the St. Anthony bench, patted him on the butt and apologized.