ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110068
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
It would be impolite to say that Jamar McNair came out of nowhere.
He and his fellow residents of Pulaski would have every justification to be offended at such a characterization of their fair town.
Yet more than one certainly has wondered how the 5-foot-8, 170-pound Pulaski County High senior has remained so anonymous through his first three years of varsity basketball.
McNair is anonymous no longer. A bust-out season in last summer's camps took care of that. The amiable McNair - "Good kid," says his coach, Pat Burns, "everybody likes Jamar" - has gone from bit player to the Cougars' leading man.
That isn't showing McNair's game the respect it deserves, either. McNair had been a very nice player. Somebody had to get the ball to graduated Cougars stars Eric Webb and Tyrone Hash so they could score all those points the previous three years. McNair was the man, albeit an anonymous one.
Now he is the man.
Not that he minded being the man he once was.
"I liked getting in there and distributing the ball to Eric and Tyrone so they could do what they had to do," McNair said.
McNair still relishes his distributorship, but now more than ever, he's on the receiving end. He can finish, too, as his career-high 17-point per game average would indicate. He is shooting a shade less than 50 percent per game. That, and still threading passes that add up to four assists per game.
Little wonder, then, that McNair has attracted some Division I recruiting interest. Radford University, where he and his teammates were in team camp this summer, has taken a closer look. He's heard from Coastal Carolina, too.
"I don't have anything in the bag yet," he said. "I still have to perform this season. If something comes out of it, that would be nice."
As important as McNair's future is, another future depends to a large extent on his performance: that of his team.
"This team is so young," Burns said. "It's kind of like starting over with Jamar as the only experienced player. There's Jamar, and everybody else. That's a lot on his shoulders."
Should there be an ideal team leader for such circumstances, it would be difficult to find one with a more extensive list of qualifications than McNair. His skills include an ability to go to the basket and create a scoring opportunity for either himself or one of his teammates, a left-handed jump shot, and the ability to defend full-court for as long as it takes. McNair also has enough spring in his legs to dunk with two hands.
He has not accomplished a dunk in a game yet, but once he does, expect it to bring the house down.
"Yes, I expect it will," Burns said.
Should that explosive moment be captured on a radio broadcast, you can imagine the play-by-play guy, in a hysterical voice:
"Jamar McNair with the dunk! All 5-foot-8 of him! That one came out of nowhere!''
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. Jamar McNair (left) of Pulaski Countyby CNBHigh School guards Cave Spring High's Darnell Glover during a Jan. 5
game in Dublin. color.