FRESH START : After Dropping Out at Fullerton, Rob Lucas Finds Home and Some New Priorities at Southern California College

It is a time that Rob Lucas would just as soon forget but will always remember.

He had just finished his second season playing basketball at Fullerton College in 1984 and, as in past semesters, decided he might drop one or two classes.

Instead of dropping a couple of classes, however, Lucas dropped all of them--his entire spring class schedule.

With basketball season over, Lucas had lost all interest in school. He thought he might get a job and see how things went from there.

“I was going nowhere and I didn’t care,” Lucas said. “I had lost motivation and thought I would get a job. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.”

But Lucas soon tired of his job at a television and stereo service center and decided to explore his options. Make that his only option.

Bill Reynolds, Southern California College basketball coach, had offered Lucas a scholarship and that offer still stood even after Lucas had dropped out.

“I was a little stunned,” Reynolds said. “He was suffering from immaturity and lack of direction. But we were still willing to take a chance on him.”

Two years earlier, Reynolds had tried to sign Lucas directly out of Santa Ana High School. Lucas didn’t receive many other offers, but just the same, he politely declined the scholarship.

“When he contacted me, I thought, ‘Where is that school?’ ,” Lucas said. “I didn’t even know it existed, and I’ve lived in Orange County my whole life.”

Life immediately changed once Lucas decided to attend SCC, a fundamentalist school in Costa Mesa with an enrollment of about 950. Aside from the pledge students are asked to sign to refrain from smoking, drinking, dancing, gambling and sexual activity, Lucas left home for the first time. That made a difference, even though home was only 10 miles away.

“That was the best thing for him,” Reynolds said. “He was very sheltered at home and he became mature and independent.”

Lucas was forced to redshirt his first year, to make up the classes he had dropped, but the year away from basketball gave him the opportunity to experience other aspects of college life.

“When I got here, I met a different group of people who weren’t athletes and I got the desire to study,” Lucas said. “We started challenging each other to get good grades.

“At Fullerton, I enjoyed playing basketball, but my only friends were on the team. Studying became my main priority after I came here.”

He even had a small portion of his scholarship deducted his redshirt year for missing too many practices because he believed it was more valuable to use his time studying.

“I wasn’t really doing anything in practice anyway,” Lucas said. “I felt it was better to do something else.”

Said Reynolds: “It was the first time I had a redshirt on the team and I had to learn how to handle it. It was frustrating from a basketball standpoint, because he wasn’t in tune with practicing like the rest of the players, but it may have been a blessing for him.”

Lucas, a 6-foot 7-inch senior forward, is a co-captain for the Vanguards (7-3) and averages 20 points and 8.5 rebounds a game, both career highs.

Being a captain gives Lucas another duty. He is in charge of washing the team’s uniforms after every game.

“I wouldn’t have volunteered to do something like that before I came here, but now, I actually like the responsibility of having people depend on me,” Lucas said.

Said Reynolds: “At the time we recruited Rob, I wouldn’t have projected him as that type of leader, but he’s quietly become one for us.”

Next summer, Lucas will be in Israel on an eight-week archeological dig sponsored by the college. Would he have made such plans three years ago?

“No way. I wouldn’t have wanted to do the work, but my Bible classes have really sparked me.”