Orange County Prep Player of the Week : He Started Toying With Basketball as a Baby

Joe Small of Bolsa Grande High School has been surprising people with his basketball talents since he was a baby.

During his first Christmas, Small crawled past a pile of Tonka trucks, Hot Wheels and skateboards that his mother, Betty Harris, bought for him and headed straight for the Nerf basketball and hoop in his stocking.

“After I showed him how to shoot, I watched him sit there for an hour tossing the ball up until he made one,” Harris said. “I finally had to take the other toys to the church nursery because he wouldn’t look at anything else but that basketball game.”

When Small was 5, Harris took him to an Inglewood park to enroll in a youth basketball program. The coach, surprised at Small’s above-average height and skill, wanted to see proof of his age.

“He thought Joe was 7 or 8,” she said. “We never went anywhere without his birth certificate after that.”

Small led the youth league in scoring every year, and was named All-American at 9.

At 13, Small enrolled in the Magic Johnson Basketball Camp at Loyola Marymount. After the first day’s tryout, Small was assessed as having 12th-grade ability and was placed on the senior team for players 16 and older.

It wasn’t until the next year’s camp that counselors realized Small’s age. He was told to try out again, but the results were the same. That year, Small, 14, led the senior group in scoring and rebounding.

When Small and his mother moved to Garden Grove two years ago, Tony Lipold, Bolsa Grande coach, was the next in line for a Small surprise. Lipold, hearing about a possible basketball prospect, invited Small to the gym for practice.

Eventually, Lipold placed Small on the freshman team.

“I would have put him on varsity immediately,” Lipold said. “He was by far good enough, but I thought with him coming into a new school, it’d be easier for him to adjust that way.”

Adjustment meant leading the freshman team to a 10-0 league record and being named most valuable player.

Two years later, Small still is providing many pleasant surprises for his coaches and himself.

Small, The Times’ Player of the Week, scored a career-high 40 points against Buena Park in the Santiago Tournament last week. He averaged 25.3 points and 13.6 rebounds per game. He is averaging 22 points and 12.4 rebounds this season.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me it was 40 points,” Small said. “It was fun. I could get used to that.”

Though Small, a 6-foot 2-inch junior forward, said he doesn’t remember the days he played Nerf ball, he admits that his early start is probably what keeps him in the game today.

“I know that at 5, I wanted to make the pros,” said Small, 16. “But mostly it’s because I enjoyed the game so much.”