Rogers Is Big Shot Who Doesn’t Play Up Front and Center at Irvine

Johnny Rogers of UC Irvine is 6-feet, 10 inches, plays basketball and has red hair.

So why does he get this knot in his stomach every time someone asks him how he likes playing center?

It was a good enough position for Bill Walton. Don’t all 6-10 guys with red hair dream of posting up inside and shooting jump-hook shots and finger rolls?

Sorry, not this redhead.

Call Rogers a center to his face and he gives you a strange look, as if you had insulted his mother or something.

Rogers will tell you they list him at that position in the UCI game program only because every team is supposed to have one.

“I don’t consider myself a center at all,” he said. “It bothers me when people call me a center. When you say center, you picture this big stocky guy who plays with his back to the basket and is a scrapper inside. I’m a forward, but somewhere inside of me is probably a little off guard.”

When you first seen Johnny Rogers play, you want to scream at him to get under the basket and play the position he’s on scholarship to play. You wonder what a 6-10 center is doing out by the three-point line. You can’t dunk from out there.

But as soon as Rogers shoots the ball, you understand.

Someday, pictures of his jump shot will show up in college coaching manuals. He shoots a basketball the way a golfer chips to the green. Rogers lofts the ball with so much back rotation that you keep waiting for one of his shots to spin to a stop on the rim.

Technically, his shot is nearly flawless. He squares his body to the basket and flips the ball off the middle and ring fingers of his right hand. His right elbow is tucked close to his body, right where it’s supposed to be.

“His shot is practically engineered,” said Des Flood, a shooting coach/guru for many Orange County basketball players, including Rogers and Mater Dei High School star Tom Lewis. “Technically, his body is always squared to the basket. His shot is reproduced the same way every time. When you practice it that way, it will always be more accurate. He’s probably one of the best.”

Rogers was worried that his shot wouldn’t return this year. The former Southern Section 3-A Player of the Year from La Quinta High School had to sit out last year at UCI after transferring from Stanford.

“I thought my timing would be off,” Rogers said.

Henny Youngman should have such timing.

Rogers is second in the Pacfic Coast Athletic Assn. in scoring, averaging 23 points per game for the Anteaters. He’s shooting 54% from the field, mostly with shots from the perimeter. He has scored 20 points or more in a game 17 times this season. He scored 36 against New Mexico State earlier this season. In one game, he made 17 of 17 free throws.

“When I get that feeling in a game,” Rogers said, “I just want the ball. I feel I can make any shot. That’s why it seems like I’m forcing shots sometimes. Coach (Bill) Mulligan has mentioned that to me a couple of times. But it’s not that I’m selfish.”

But, still, some people get mad because Rogers refuses to act like a center. He’s heard it all his life. He needs to grab more rebounds and block more shots. He needs to play defense once in a while. Every now and then, he needs to at least make a token appearance under the basket.

“People always get on me because they think I should get inside and rebound more,” Rogers said. “But I figure if you can hit from outside, why not do it.”

And he’s been doing it for years.

Rogers grew up in Stanton but his family moved to Fountain Valley just before Rogers was ready to attend high school. He spent many nights playing pickup games on the outside courts at nearby Mile Square Park.

Even there, players criticized his style.

“The guys over there would always say, ‘Come on, big guy, why don’t you post up inside,”’ Rogers said. “But I’d always go outside. I’d go out there and make a few in a row and they’d understand.”

He started playing basketball in the fifth grade, joining one of Flood’s traveling Boys Club all-star teams in Garden Grove.

Rogers said any player, whether he is 5-10 or 6-10, can become a good shooter.

“Size doesn’t have anything to do with it,” he said. “Big guys are just used to being inside, so they work on bank shots. But if a player starts young, anyone can be a good shooter.”

It takes a little practice. Rogers spent hours to refine his shot. He used to go to Flood’s back-yard practice court in Anaheim twice a week to work on his shooting motion. Rogers will take the court at about 6 p.m. before a 7:30 game at Irvine and shoot about 200 practice shots.

When he falls into a slump, he’ll take a ball and shoot and shoot and shoot. “A slump for me is if I make less than 50% of my shots in a game,” he said.

Rogers wants to play in the NBA. He thinks it’s all a matter of getting into the right system.

And that system isn’t the one being used at Stanford.

Out of high school, Rogers could have played basketball at the college of his choice. He chose Stanford because he thought it was a program on the rise.

Rogers was the Pacific 10’s Freshman of the Year in 1982, but the Cardinal was only 7-20.

In his sophomore season Tom Davis became the coach and things started to change. Rogers said Davis wanted him to move inside, which was like telling Al Hirt to switch to tambourine.

“When we got into the season, I wasn’t a starter anymore,” Rogers said. “We were playing someone like UC Riverside and I didn’t get into the game until about four minutes left. I think he (Davis) was trying to teach me a lesson. It wasn’t that I had a bad attitude, it’s just that they wanted to do things differently. They wanted to go inside more.”

Rogers decided to transfer, and the wide-open style of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. seemed the perfect place. He called Mulligan to asked if he was interested. The next sound Rogers heard was Mulligan doing cartwheels down the hallway. Yeah, he was kind of interested.

“Mulligan asked me why I was leaving Stanford,” said Rogers, an economics major. “Because he knew what a great school it was, too. I really don’t believe he thought I was coming here for a long time. A lot of people ask me how I could leave Stanford and that great education. They said that people would be falling all over you with jobs after I left. But I knew a lot of guys on the team that are still looking for work. At first, you feel like you’re letting people down. A lot of students were surprised, but basketball was important to me. I was looking for a career in basketball.”

Rogers, a junior, may have one, though he still needs to improve in several areas.

“I’ve got a bad rap on my defense and that I don’t go inside enough,” he said. “I want to come back next year and be a complete player. I read a lot of preseason things about how I was a liability on defense. I don’t think that’s true.”