Poets’ Hutchens Adds Soft Touch to NBA Draft

The list of undergraduates who have declared themselves eligible for the NBA draft in June reads like a college all-star team:

Brian Williams of Arizona, Kenny Anderson of Georgia Tech, Anderson Hunt of Nevada Las Vegas--Raoul Hutchens of Whittier College?

If you’ve never heard of Raoul Hutchens, you are not alone. NBA scouts haven’t heard of him either, and with good reason.

As a 6-foot-2 junior at the NCAA Division III school last season, Hutchens averaged only 3.1 points and three rebounds a game and played mostly as the third player off the bench for the Poets. Those are not figures that tend to impress an NBA team.

So why has Hutchens given up his final year of college eligibility and declared himself eligible for the draft?

When he first spoke with his roommates about the idea, Hutchens admits, he was mostly kidding.

But Hutchens and his roommates are big basketball fans, and the more they discussed it, the more he thought it would be nice to end his playing career by declaring himself eligible for the June 26 draft.

He wrote a carefully worded letter to NBA Commissioner David Stern last month, announcing his intention to pass up his senior year for the NBA draft.

“I didn’t really expect anything to happen,” he said. “Then the day before the list came out, someone from the NBA office called me, and I guess they were trying to talk me out of it, even though they saw they couldn’t.”

The NBA guidelines, he said, make it easy for any player who is not a senior to declare himself eligible for the draft.

“All you have to do is send them a letter asking to be made eligible,” Hutchens said. “Anybody who has eligibility remaining in college could have done this. They just have to go through the right channels.”

Hutchens said he realized that he was going to be on the official NBA list just before it was released May 15.

“They called me in the morning, and they asked me for my height and weight,” he said.

But the reality didn’t sink in until Hutchens went on a vacation to Las Vegas the next day.

“I was playing blackjack, and I saw it on ESPN and I was so excited,” he said. “The people around me didn’t know what was happening. I guess they thought I hit the jackpot or something.”

Since the list was announced, Hutchens says, he has been inundated with phone calls from newspapers, television stations and friends.

“When I came back I probably had close to 20 messages on my machine, mostly from friends and different newspapers,” he said. “A few just called to confirm that it was me, and I told them that it was.”

Hutchens even received a phone call from the Washington Bullets last week.

“(They) called me the other day, asking me to come out for a tryout,” he said. “But I can’t do that because I blew out my knee, like Ron Harper and Danny Manning did.”

He said he would have liked to try out, although he realizes the Bullets are more interested in covering themselves than drafting him.

“I think it just shows how (teams) are really nervous about missing talent,” Hutchens said. “They probably haven’t ever heard of me, but they don’t want to take any chances.”

With only two rounds in the draft, Hutchens realizes that his chances of being selected are nonexistent.

“I just wish we could go back to the old days when they had 10 or 12 rounds,” he said. “Then maybe someone would draft me with one of their last picks. I’m from Portland and it would be really nice to be drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers.”

Like most people though, Hutchens can only dream about the possibility of playing in the NBA. He already has been accepted by a law school for the fall.

“I’d love to play (pro) basketball, but I just don’t have the ability,” he said. “I have great interest, but I know it’s just not going to happen.”

However, he is considering attending the draft simply to make his experience complete.

“All the draftees go there and there is a lot of fanfare, so it should be fun,” Hutchens said. “I just want to have fun with this because this is the last chance I’ll have to do this kind of thing.”

It was a break with tradition when Azusa Pacific finished second in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletic men’s track and field championships last year.

But the Cougars returned to a familiar position when they won their eighth NAIA title in the last nine years last Saturday at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Tex.

The Cougars scored 87 points, easily outdistancing Central State of Ohio and Lubbock Christian of Texas, which tied for second with 42. Azusa was sparked by Nigerian sprinter Davidson Ezinwa, who won the 100- and 200-meter dashes, and Benjamin Koech of Kenya, who won the long and triple jumps.

On the same day that Azusa won the NAIA title, perennial power Cal Poly San Luis Obispo took the NCAA Division II championship in women’s track at Angelo State in San Angelo, Tex. The Mustangs finished with 72 points, one more than Alabama A&M.;

In its final season before moving up to the NCAA Division II in the fall, Cal State San Bernardino was hoping to win its first Division III title in either men’s golf or baseball.

The Coyotes fell short in both attempts last week.

After taking the lead through the first 18 holes of the Division III golf tournament at Lincoln, Neb., the Coyotes finished in fifth place. The San Bernardino baseball team also appeared ready for a strong championship run in the Division III World Series at Battle Creek, Mich., with a 4-3 victory over Methodist of North Carolina in its opener.

But the Coyotes bowed out of the double-elimination tournament with losses in their next two games to Southern Maine and Methodist. San Bernardino (28-13) finished fourth in the tournament last year.

College Division Notes

Three players from Cal State San Bernardino have been named to the NCAA Division III All-West Region baseball team. They are first baseman David Rex, outfielder Charlie Redd and shortstop Aaron Marcarelli. Rex, a junior, batted .411 with 54 runs batted in and a school-record 17 home runs in the regular season.

Senior pitcher Marnie LaFleur became the first softball player at Cal State San Bernardino to earn All-American first-team honors when she was chosen to the NCAA Division III squad by the National Softball Coaches’ Assn. LaFleur holds 21 school records and posted an 11-11 mark and 1.92 earned-run average this season. She also plays four other positions and batted .281.

The top-seeded tandem of Shelley Keeler and Erin Hendricks of Pomona-Pitzer combined to win the NCAA Division III doubles title in women’s tennis, 7-6 and 6-2, over Leslie Gale and Marcia Hunt of Carleton of Minnesota. Pomona-Pitzer also finished fifth in the team competition after being seeded No. 1.