Former Mater Dei Guard Paying for His Seat on Bench : Basketball: Despite little playing time and no full scholarship, David Boyle doesn’t regret going to Holy Cross.

David Boyle, leading scorer on Mater Dei High School’s state champion basketball team last season, has taken a place on the bench in college.

That itself isn’t notable--most former high school standouts are reserves in at least their first year of Division I play. But most are on full scholarship, so at least they’re not paying to sit. Boyle, however, is doing some of the paying.

Although Boyle is receiving a grant-in-aid to help finance his education at Holy Cross, a 2,600-student liberal arts college in Worcester, Mass., the bulk of his tuition is being paid by his family because Holy Cross no longer offers full athletic scholarships.

This season, Holy Cross has moved from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference to the newly formed Patriot League, an organization of schools that have done away with athletic scholarships not based on need in an effort to emphasize the student in student-athlete.

Boyle, who graduated with honors from Mater Dei, made the decision to attend Holy Cross as much for the Ivy League-type academics as the basketball. Realizing professional basketball isn’t likely for him, Boyle set out to get a quality education. He liked the small class sizes and individual attention promised him at Holy Cross, and wanted the experience of living in New England. He also became friends with Greg Herenda, the Holy Cross assistant who recruited him, and grew weary of vague promises from other recruiters.

But he still agonized over the decision and was further confused when St. Mary’s, a Division I school in Moraga, Calif., offered him a full scholarship during the summer.

“Holy Cross was my top choice, but if other things were there I wasn’t set on Holy Cross,” Boyle said. “When I made the decision, I didn’t know if it was the right one. That was a tough decision, and it was a tough decision to turn down the scholarship to St. Mary’s.

“I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go.”

His coaches at Mater Dei are still upset that Boyle wasn’t offered more opportunities to play Division I basketball. As a 6-foot-5 shooting guard, Boyle averaged 15.2 points--he was one of four players in double figures for the Monarchs, who went 34-1 en route to the state title. In the playoffs, Boyle averaged 17.1 points and scored 32 in the Division 5-A title game against Long Beach Poly.

Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said there might have been concern among recruiters that Boyle wouldn’t be able to play against Division I guards. McKnight said many teams missed out on an intelligent, talented player from a quality program.

“On some other team, David might have been a 25-point scorer, but those guys (the 1989-90 Mater Dei players) were able to not worry about that and concentrate on winning,” McKnight said. “Otherwise that team wouldn’t have been able to win the state championship. Egos weren’t involved in that group.

“A lot of those schools should have been recruiting him more heavily. Sometimes they’re looking for more of an athlete-type player, and sometimes kids like David are overlooked.”

Said Mater Dei assistant Phil Bellomo: “I was really surprised and really disappointed because I think a lot of people that David Boyle is comparable with have gotten a lot of Division I scholarships. To have him go to a school where he is basically paying for it is beyond me.”

But once Boyle made the decision to attend Holy Cross, he stuck with it, and now he is happily adjusting to student life in New England. The basketball schedule wouldn’t allow a trip to his family’s home in Corona del Mar over the holidays, so there was no break in his introduction to winter weather.

“I think it’s bad, but I guess we haven’t really seen the worst of it,” Boyle said. “I definitely miss Southern California weather.”

But his biggest adjustment might be on the basketball court, where Boyle has gone from a starter for a team that lost only one game to a reserve for one that has lost five of its first 12 games.

“We lost only once my senior year, and you’re definitely going to lose more in college because the competition is so good,” Boyle said. “I’m definitely not used to coming into the locker room after losing, but that’s definitely something I knew I would have to get used to at any college.”

Boyle has also had to become accustomed to limited playing time. Through 11 games, he was playing an average of six minutes and scoring 2.8 points a game. There are games in which he is the first player off the bench, but in three games, he didn’t play at all.

Holy Cross Coach George Blaney said he doesn’t believe freshmen should be eligible for athletics and is bringing Boyle along slowly. But he doesn’t question Boyle’s potential.

“What impressed me most about him, watching him on film and when I saw him in person, was how aggressive he was to want to score,” Blaney said. “I like players like that.

“You always like to have players from programs that are that good and play that kind of competition. If you played that kind of competition most of your high school years, you aren’t in awe of the competition in college.”

Early this season, Boyle might have been given a glimpse of things to come during the Crusaders’ 105-89 victory over Harvard. He scored 14 points in 18 minutes, making four of eight shots from the field and five of seven from the free-throw line. He was the Patriot League’s “rookie of the week.”

Boyle hasn’t played as much since but says he understood his minutes would be limited as a freshman.

“I definitely don’t want to buck the system, but I’m not going to be content with not playing,” he said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can.

“You’re not going to be satisfied until you’re playing enough but I’m not really concerned about not playing as much as I’d like.”