A Wheel Lucky Guy : TV Game Show Transforms Katella’s Richard Lucas Into an 18 Thousand Dollar Man

When school recessed for the summer, all Katella High School basketball player Richard Lucas had going for him were brains and talent.

Now he can add money and fame.

Now he can’t even order a hamburger without an employee at the counter exclaiming, “Hey! Weren’t you on ‘Wheel of Fortune?’ ”

Pat Sajak, host of the television game show, even suggested it be renamed “The Richard Lucas Show” in honor of the 6-foot 6-inch junior who won $18,676 worth of prizes during the first week of July.

If Lucas is asked to write the traditional essay about what he did on his summer vacation, the assignment could turn out a little lengthy.

Besides playing a lot of summer league basketball, he will be driving a new car, playing his new videocassette recorder, listening to his new portable AM-FM radio, watching his new mini-television, learning to use his new computer and printer, lifting weights with his new exercise bench and relaxing in his new whirlpool.

Not to mention keeping an eye on the bond market, in which he has a $4,550 interest. Besides the savings bonds, he won a Renault Alliance worth $8,376 and $5,750 in other prizes.

“It was like Christmas, just going on a spree and being able to pick out whatever I wanted,” he said.

Well, maybe Christmas at the Rockefeller mansion. The only thing Lucas failed to win was a trip to Hawaii, but after all, even the nouveau riche should have something to look forward to in adulthood.

“He’s always been lucky,” said Richard’s mother, Anita Lucas, who assembles electronic products for Hughes Aircraft Corp. “It seems like things just go his way.”

Lucas had watched the show, a fancy version of the word game “hangman,” along with his mother and sister for about a year. His family decided he had the knack when he began beating the teen-age contestants from his living room this spring.

“I always knew he was smart with this because we would play it every day, and he would be guessing the words with only two letters up there,” Anita Lucas said. “I said, ‘the kid has it.’ He’s such a good speller.”

Lucas applied to become a contestant in April, and was accepted for a test, in which he solved 13 of 15 puzzles on paper in five minutes. It was no problem for a student who was selected for the gifted and talented classes in elementary school, and maintains a B average.

Then, the show’s producers tested his ability to behave with enthusiasm on the air, which consisted of “a lot of clapping and screaming and jumping around in a sound-proof room,” he said. That part was no problem either, since Lucas has been exposed to Coach Tom Danley, one of the county’s most animated coaches, on the Katella basketball bench.

Lucas would have spent more time on the court, and less time sitting with Danley, if he hadn’t suffered a severe leg injury in a game at the Valencia Tournament last December. He had stolen the ball and was driving for a layup against Rancho Alamitos when he slipped and suffered a broken bone just below his knee, an unusual injury.

He spent a week in the hospital after surgery to bolt the bone together, and the past six months rehabilitating. Now he has his new spa “with two therapeutic jets” to aid in his recovery.

“That was the worst thing that happened to me, my knee, and now this is the best,” he said.

It’s a good thing Lucas wasn’t required to drive away with his winnings. He was still 15 when the Wheel of Fortune show aired--turning 16 on July 9. He may soon own a car before he has the license to drive it. The prizes will be delivered within the next 2 1/2 months.

All that loot wouldn’t have fit in his compact car, anyway--and actually, neither does he. He visited a dealer following his windfall, and discovered that his long legs won’t fit comfortably in that model, no matter how far back he moves the seat. He hopes to trade the new car for a vehicle of more generous proportions, perhaps a truck.

“I just wanted a car so bad, nobody could take it from me,” Lucas said. “I’m ready for a car right now. I’m tired of walking everywhere.”

When Lucas told his teammates that his walking days were history, thanks to the new car, they thought he was kidding.

“I ran in there for the next practice and told everyone, and they didn’t believe me because I joke around a lot,” Lucas said. “Then I came back with the receipts--signed, sealed and delivered--and I said, ‘What does this say? Wheel of Fortune. And what does this say? Renault Alliance!’ Then everyone told their parents and their parents told their friends and everybody watched the show.

“I really didn’t want to tell Coach Danley because I thought he’d say I should have been out practicing and I shouldn’t have been playing a stupid game. But he took it all right.

“He even asked me whether he would get a percentage.”

Lucas, grown sophisticated in the ways of the financial world, told his coach, “The check’s in the mail.”

“I wasn’t going to tell anybody if I didn’t win, I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lucas said. “And if they said they saw me, I’d say it was my twin brother.

“What I didn’t want to do was go on there and win nothing. My sister had hyped it up so much that if I’d left with only the parting gifts (spray starch, sauce mix, a bucket of fried chicken and sportswear), I would have killed myself.”

Instead, Lucas will be known as the “18 Thousand Dollar Man” around the Empire League next season.

And his only regret, apart from missing the trip to Hawaii, was not getting a chance to win the $250 worth of ice cream, a prize that went to another contestant.

Said Lucas, with the wistfulness only a lean athlete of 6-6 and 16 years old can feel: “I would have liked to get that.”