The Arrangement--It’s a Case of Hidden Talent : Moorpark Coach Harbors 2 Oral Roberts Players Attempting to ‘C’ Their Way Back

Moorpark College basketball Coach Al Nordquist is doing a little baby-sitting this year for an old friend, Oral Roberts University basketball Coach Dick Acres.

It’s a tidy arrangement. Nordquist looks after two of Acres’ players, making sure they go to class and get plenty of playing time. In exchange, Nordquist improves his own team by adding two players who have the talent to play major-college basketball, but not the grades.

Swingman Woody Jones (21.3 points and 8.8 rebounds a game) and forward/center Kip Brown (13.7 and 5.7) are the leading scorers and rebounders for Moorpark. Together, they have accounted for about 45% of the Raiders’ total points and rebounds.

Oral Roberts would love to have them both. Jones probably would start for Acres’ struggling team.

But both men failed a couple of classes last spring, then failed again when trying to make them up last summer. They wound up getting shipped out by the school last fall.

Shipped out, that is, with the assurance of being welcomed back once they improve their grades.

In a sense, they are being hidden at Moorpark.

Nordquist and Acres, who have been friends since they played against each other in the mid-1950s when Nordquist was at San Diego State and Acres was at UC Santa Barbara, have this understanding. . . .

“He wanted Kip and Woody to go someplace where there was someone he knew who would watch them and help them to get to class regularly,” Nordquist said of Acres. “And who would be loyal to him so they wouldn’t end up somewhere else afterward. . . .

“This is the first time we’ve had someone--I don’t know what the right word is-- ask us to take a kid with the intention of (having) him coming back to them.”

Jones and Brown, who share an apartment in Chatsworth, got themselves into this predicament, they say, through a lack of effort.

The Southern California natives graduated from high school in 1983--Jones from Palos Verdes and Brown from Verbum Dei. The 6-5 1/2, 205-pound Brown spurned offers from several schools to sign with Oral Roberts. Jones (6-5, 195) made a verbal commitment to Arizona State, but was not eligible for a scholarship because he did not have a 2.0 grade-point average in high school.

Turning down a request from Arizona State that he play two years at a junior college in Arizona, then transfer to ASU, Jones paid his own way to Oral Roberts. In order to be eligible this season, he had to sit out last season, take 24 units and earn C’s or better.

Brown played at ORU last season, averaging two points and one rebound a game in 15 games for a Titan team that was 21-10 and lost in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

By the time the season ended, Jones and Brown were both skipping classes regularly, they said.

“I lost interest in going to school after the season started because I wasn’t eligible to play,” Jones said. “I was just a student, and I couldn’t really adjust to that. . . . I didn’t do anything but mope around and sit around, feeling sorry for myself.”

Said Brown:”School wasn’t that important to us after basketball was over.”

They failed the same classes--an English class and a religion class.

That left them scrambling to make up the units in the summer, but after several attempts they still came up short.

Brown took two classes at Southwest College in Los Angeles and got D’s in both. He then took a correspondence course at Oral Roberts and got a D in that.

“I said, ‘0 for 3. I guess it’s not meant for me to go back,’ ” said Brown, who needed C grades or better. “And then Coach called me and Woody and told us he had this teacher who was going to let us take his two correspondence classes and get through them in a week. We took that. Two more D’s. I’m like, ‘Damn, five D’s. I guess it wasn’t meant for me to be here this year.’ ”

Eventually, Jones and Brown ended up at Moorpark. Acres and his staff wanted to get them into a junior college closer to the ORU campus in Tulsa, Okla., but by the time the players were finished trying to make up their grades, classes had already started at most junior colleges in the Midwest.

“They said, ‘We found you a school,’ ” Jones said. “It’s like, ‘Make sure Woody gets back to Oral Roberts.’ . . . I said, ‘OK, as long as I’m playing.’ All I wanted to do was play. I didn’t care as long as I played and improved.”

Acres didn’t want Jones to sit out a second straight season.

And, Acres added, “rather than have Kip sit out a year, we’d rather have him go down there and get his game together. . . . He’s a good shooter, but he needs to work harder. That’s one of the reasons we sent him down--to get a little discipline and to work a little harder. He can play, but he needs to discipline himself a little bit.”

Jones and Brown were welcome additions at Moorpark. Jones was named to the all-tournament team in three tournaments last month. In a fourth, the Midstate Tournament in San Luis Obispo, Brown was named most valuable player.

“I think they’ve made a definite contribution, especially Woody,” Nordquist said. “I don’t know whether Kip has made that much of a difference. Our hope is that he will by the time it’s all over.”

In other words, Brown’s consistency has left a lot to be desired. Several times, Nordquist has replaced him in the starting lineup with freshman Darrin Channels from Camarillo.

Nordquist said Brown “tends to rely on his natural abilities too much. . . . He needs to work harder consistently both in practice and in the games.”

Said Brown: “You play as good as your opponent. . . . Back at ORU, there were some big guys that I had to guard so I had to work hard. Here, the talent is about average or a little less, so I’m not really working that hard. I’m just, like, coasting along.”

Is it a letdown to be playing on the JC level?

“In a way,” Brown said. “And in a way it’s not. It’s not like I decided to come here. I messed up last year . . . but I feel it was to my advantage to come here because I don’t think I could have handled sitting out.”

Jones and Brown both believe they let down their ORU teammates by becoming ineligible.

It was difficult, they said, to watch the Titans lose to UCLA last month at Pauley Pavilion, Oral Roberts’ seventh loss in nine games. The Titans, whose returning players had a combined average of almost 75 points a game, higher than any returning group in the country, are now 5-7.

But, Jones said: “I feel that maybe this was the best thing for me--to come back and to realize that I’d better start getting my act together and get serious about a lot of things.

“I feel bad about the team and everything, but I also feel they can do well on their own. Right now, this is the best thing that could have happened to me--to get put down again. I’ll work harder to get what I want.”

Meanwhile, Jones, Brown and their new teammates are busy preparing for the Western State Conference season. The Raiders will bring a 9-6 record into their conference opener tonight at Taft. Jones has been outstanding, Nordquist said, and Brown is improving. Both are staying in shape and they say they are going to class.

“I can see myself changing,” Brown said. “Before, if I had a little cold or something I’d just stay home. Now, I’m going (to class) because I know I already made that mistake once and I don’t want to make it again.”

Everything points to a smooth transition back to Oral Roberts.

Legally, nothing binds them to ORU. If they receive Associate of Arts degrees at Moorpark, they will be free to sign with whomever will have them.

Brown says he will definitely return. Jones hedges a little when asked about returning--he says he plans to write to Arkansas Coach Eddie Sutton--but acknowledges he will probably go back, too.

“I left a lot of unfinished business down there,” Brown said. “I really want to go back and clear the air.”

Do they feel they owe anything to Oral Roberts?

“In a way, yes, because they’ve done a lot for me,” Jones said. “They picked me up when it looked like I wasn’t going to get picked up because of my grades out of high school. I appreciate them doing that. And, also, they’re still holding on to me and looking after me. They don’t have to do that.”