THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501210308
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
He's 7 feet tall, 275 chiseled pounds, can run the floor all night and shoot jumpers with either hand.
All of which leads to the following question, asked by NBA scouts ever since they started to hear about Jo-ve Ford a couple years ago:
``How can a big old kid like this end up at a little old school like Elizabeth City State?'' says ECSU coach Claudie Mackey. Elizabeth City faces Norfolk State tonight at 7 at Echols Arena in a game that will be televised on WAVY-TV.
Here's how: don't pick up a basketball until age 16, when you're 6-foot-8 and your friends ``kind of drag'' you down to the playground. Then, at that same playground, get caught in the crossfire during a gang shootout, and take a bullet in the foot, cutting your budding high school career short. Head to a Texas junior college, but leave after one year, wooed back east by a persistent assistant coach from a small school in a sleepy North Carolina town.
Most scouts don't know the story, and don't much care. They look at Ford's size and skills and see raw potential.
Many CIAA fans have looked at Ford and seen something else: an enigma. He's had flashes of brilliance, a 25-point game here, an 18-rebound blowout there, but in a league in which 7-footers are as hard to find as liberals at a Jesse Helms fundraiser, Ford has lacked consistency.
Those critics are missing the point, says Mackey and his assistant coach, Alfred Johnson. They don't realize Ford's career is in its infancy. They look at his 12.2 point scoring average and don't realize that he's constantly double and triple-teamed.
``Because he's a big guy, people thought he could do everything at once,'' Johnson said.
Mackey sees Ford making giant strides, and not just because he's nearly 7-1.
``There's some subtance to him the person,'' he says. ``He wrestles with himself because he wants to get better.
``In my opinion he's going to make the quantum leap and become an excellent player. A big old country boy who understands city basketball, that's still green, that I could teach, I would take him.''
He's a big old country boy from Flatbush, Brooklyn. Ford grew up playing baseball but could often be found in his room, with a sketch pad. He's an art major and designed the cover of Elizabeth City's media guide two years ago.
``My tastes run from portraits to Beavis and Butthead,'' says Ford, who has created six or seven fictional characters and would like someday to produce comic books, or maybe work as an animator for Disney.
It was an art major's approach to basketball that Mackey and Johnson didn't want to foster. Over the past two seasons, the terms ``work ethic'' and ``intensity'' were often mentioned when Ford's name came up.
``He's got to go as hard as the other guys, that's something he's starting to learn,'' Mackey said.
Ford averaged 12.9 points and 9.2 rebounds as a sophomore. Last year, with All-CIAA picks Nate Higgs and Shawn Walker taking most of the shots, Ford became almost an offensive afterthought, and his scoring average dipped to 9.2 points, on just 7.7 shots per game.
This season, with Higgs and Walker gone, Ford figured to shoot more, and began preparing himself.
When he left school last summer Ford says he weighed 242 pounds. When he returned he was 274.
Ford spent part of the summer in Brooklyn, where he worked out with his father, Jafar Malik, a 6-foot-8, 42-year-old amateur bodybuilder.
Ford did things like jog while pulling his dad, whose training weight is about 290 pounds, behind him on a bicycle. He came back in the best shape of his life.
So much for questions about his work ethic.
The bigger, stronger Ford says he feels more confident, and that's translating into better play. His scoring average is back to about where it was a sophomore, and he's leading the conference in rebounding, at 10 per game. He shoots 50 percent from the field.
``He's now finishing shots with two or three guys hanging on him,'' Johnson said.
And they have been hanging, Mackey and Johnson say. The Vikings have not had good perimeter shooting and teams have been sagging on Ford.
``I looked up against Livingstone and they had four guys around him,'' Mackey said. ``He despises playing against little people, it drives him crazy. When he plays against big people, he's a better player.''
Two years ago, Ford outplayed Boise State's John Coker, a 7-footer who is considered a sure-fire NBA pick, putting up 21 points and 11 rebounds in an ECSU loss.
Ed Martin, who works for NBA scouting director Marty Blake and also runs the Ed Martin/Truck Robinson Big Man Camp in Knoxville, Tenn., says Ford was impressive in his camp two years ago. The camp, for college players, has helped polish NBA big men like Felton Spencer, Andrew Lang and Mark West.
``He showed up very well,'' Martin said. ``He was one of the brightest things we had in camp.''
Martin, like another NBA scout who asked not to be named, said Ford can go far if he's willing to work hard.
Ford, not interested in being a starving artist, says he understands the key to avoiding that fate:
``Staying hungry.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Martin Smith-Rodden, Staff
Jo-ve Ford...
Photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, Staff
Having put on 32 pounds of muscle over the summer, Jo-ve Ford is
strong in the middle. He needs to be to fight off the triple-teams.
by CNB