Special Delivery : JCs Sometimes Get Top Players by D Fault

Last season, when the fans at Moorpark College basketball games would chant “D-D-D,” you could never be sure whether they were imploring the team to play tough defense or shouting out the previous grades of star players Woody Jones and Kip Brown.

Jones and Brown are both playing basketball at Oral Roberts University and earning better grades this season, but the road they took to get there was about as direct as that old, traditional Los Angeles-to-New York via Lapland route.

It was the route taken by Walter Berry, a standout player for St. John’s in New York last season, who spent a year improving his grades at San Jacinto Junior College in Pasadena, Tex., before he could enroll at St. John’s.

Coaches at four-year schools commonly hide at a junior college players who are unprepared either physically or academically for the big time. The player hopefully improves his grades and basketball skills before returning to the four-year school the next season.

When Jones and Brown left high school--Jones from Palos Verdes and Brown from Verbum Dei--they figured they were headed for college basketball stardom.

Jones made a verbal commitment to Arizona State, but was ruled ineligible for a scholarship because he didn’t have a 2.0 grade-point average. He decided to pay his own way to Oral Roberts University but had to sit out a year, take 24 credits and earn Cs. He sat out a year, took 24 credits and earned Ds.

Brown qualified for an Oral Roberts scholarship and maintained his eligibility for one semester while playing for the Titans in the 1983-84 season. ORU was the preseason choice to win the Midwestern Collegiate Conference in 1984-85.

But after the 1983-84 season, Brown and Jones never had their grade-point averages exceed Sandy Koufax’s 1966 earned-run average of 1.73.

During 9 a.m. English classes and 10 a.m. religion classes, they said, they would stay in their dormitory. During 1 p.m. classes, they would go to the cafeteria and eat lunch.

Jones and Brown got Ds in English and religion. At Oral Roberts, failing grades in religion are frowned upon, sort of like flunking surfing at the University of Hawaii.

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

Brown’s problems started when the season ended.

“School wasn’t that important to us after the basketball season was over,” he said.

And the Ds kept piling up like firewood in Minnesota. Brown got a pair of them at Southwest College in Los Angeles during the summer. He took a correspondence course from Oral Roberts. Another D. Oral Roberts basketball Coach Dick Acres set up two more correspondence courses each for Brown and Jones.

“We took that. Two more Ds,” said Brown. “I’m like, ‘Damn, five Ds.”’

So Acres called a friend, Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist, and essentially asked him to enroll the pair, restore their NCAA eligibility and help them keep their grades up and the ligaments in their knees intact for one season. Then send them back.

You’ve heard of hidden talent? As far as Oral Roberts University was concerned, it was hidden 1,800 miles away. And even though Acres resigned after last season, the plan worked.

Both players were standouts at Moorpark, leading the Raiders in almost every offensive category. Jones had 20.4 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists a game last season. Brown had 17.1 points and 6.6 rebounds a game.

Moorpark finished second in the Western State Conference, but won the conference tournament. It lost to Riverside in the first round of the state tournament.

“Coaches who have been around a while in programs like ours get some of these situations,” Nordquist said. New Oral Roberts Coach Ted Owens visited his hidden talent at a spring league in Moorpark and brought Brown and Jones back to the Great Plains, where he has great plans for them.

Jones and Brown both played Saturday night against the Spirit Express in an exhibition. Jones started at guard and led the team with 22 points. Brown did not start or score.

“Ted is really high on them. He loves them to death,” said Oral Roberts spokesman Don Ott. “It’s one of the best mistakes we ever made, letting them have grade problems last year. Both of them matured and got great experience. They’re both on scholarship now and coach really laid down the law about them getting to class.

“Right now they’re leading the team in classes attended. And both are doing really well in school.”

So there is no Brown and there is no Jones in Nordquist’s camp this season. But there is a Camp in Nordquist’s camp--Danny Camp, a 6-4, 200-pound all-state guard from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Camp also came, indirectly, through Oral Roberts. But not because he thought textbooks might explode if they were opened. He left South Florida University after a freshman season made uncomfortable by bouts with mononucleosis and basketball Coach Lee Rose.

“He was a high-pressure coach,” Camp said. “It was pressure all the time.”

He was set to transfer this season to Oral Roberts, but the assistant coaches who wooed him, John Block and Dolph Carroll, were fired when Owens took over.

Until last Friday, Nordquist thought Camp was planning on going to Oral Roberts after this season. He’s not.

“I was set on Oral Roberts, but that fell through,” Camp said. “I’d still like to go there for the academics, but I really didn’t like how they handled the situation with coaches Block and Carroll. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I won’t be going back there.”

Nordquist, who is getting used to watching his best players depart after one season, does know that Camp will follow in the footsteps of Brown and Jones. They will lead off the Moorpark campus next spring after one season.

“After this year, I’ll transfer somewhere. But I really don’t know where,” Camp said.

And the revolving door at Moorpark’s Raider Pavilion will need another shot of grease.