It’s Triumph and Tumult at Point Loma : Mann, Oh, Mann, Can Terri Play Ball

The other day, in her squeakiest voice, Terri Mann whined: “I’m hungry.” And Lee Trepanier--who coaches her, teaches her, employs her, bosses her, loans her money, screens her phone calls and so on--went and fetched some candy bars.

They had met four years before, when one of Trepanier’s players introduced them after a game.

“Coach T! I want you to meet Terri Mann.”

“Hello, son.”

“Coach T! She ain’t no dude!”

Trepanier did recognize immediately that Terri Mann could play basketball. So he latched on to her and has yet to let go--three girls’ state high school basketball championships later.

Mann is a 6-foot 2-inch, 175-pound senior at Point Loma High School--USC Coach Linda Sharp says she is the best girls’ prep player in the nation this season--but life will be getting complicated soon.

Her mother, Willie Mann, wants her to stay close to home and attend San Diego State. Mrs. Mann, who is separated from her husband, is on welfare and cannot afford a phone. She has 11 family members living in her two-bedroom apartment. Terri and her basketball are the family’s solace. Her mother wants to be able to see every game.

But Coach T--as Trepanier asks to be called--says he would prefer that Mann not attend San Diego State--not because he dislikes the Aztecs, but because he says that USC or Western Kentucky would be better for her and would help her more after graduation. He said: “If she goes to San Diego State, I might have to cut her mother off.”

In the recent past, Trepanier has given Mrs. Mann food and clothes and has helped her find an apartment. He has helped Terri buy a car and has bought the Mann family Christmas presents.

Mrs. Mann, who is not overly concerned, says the family got along before Trepanier started his relationship with Terri.

“We’ll get by,” she says. “We’ll get by.”

For now, the threat is not an issue. It won’t be until after Point Loma wins its fourth straight state title, which it expects to do, and Mann chooses a college. Mrs. Mann still kisses Trepanier goodby after every game.

“He’s a good man,” she said. “Sometimes I say, ‘I wish he was my husband.’ ”

As for Mann, she is noncommittal. She has told friends that she is leaning toward USC, but she declines comment when reporters ask about her college, other than to say that she would like to play in the 1988 Olympics.

And whether USC has an inside track depends on if she has forgotten a bad experience with Cheryl Miller two years ago. Mann had asked Miller--the former USC star--for her autograph. Miller said no. Whether or not it was an isolated incident, it made an impression. Mann said Miller was a snob.

“I’ll never be like that,” she told Trepanier.

Funny, but Terri Mann could be better than Cheryl Miller, because she’s much bigger. She weighs 175 pounds and bulks up to 180 on most weekends.

“I stay home some Saturdays, and all I do is eat,” she says.

Her nickname--and she wears it proudly on her warmup jacket--is “Baby Moses.” As in Malone. She plays like him--using her rear end, banging, rebounding, getting to the free-throw line, swishing the foul shots.

“Yeah, but you know what she does better than Moses?” Trepanier asks. “She steals the ball.”

Mann has learned more than defense. She is averaging 34.2 points, 24.8 rebounds, 6 assists and 8 steals through 24 games. Imagine if she could see straight? She owns a pair of hard contact lenses but won’t wear them.

“Her vision is good enough to play basketball,” Trepanier said. “She doesn’t shoot anything more than six feet away from the basket anyway. And I don’t want her to.”

Point Loma is 112-1 since she has been there. Her scoring high is a San Diego Section-record 65 points, and she needs 130 more rebounds to break the national all-time single-season rebounding record of 672 that Miller set at Riverside Poly in the 1981-82 season.

And she hardly tries.

Point Loma at Patrick Henry High, Jan. 16.

Three boys have come across town to see her play.

“She’ll be doing a Dominique!” says one. “She’ll be taking off from the free-throw line, and BOOOOSH!”

Costs two bucks to get in. They pay.

She blocks a girl’s shot from behind.

She posts up, scores and walks nonchalantly to guard the inbound pass.

She doesn’t run on the fast break.

She fouls.

“The ref just doesn’t want you to play!” Trepanier is saying from the bench. “He won’t let you play!”

She grabs a rebound with one hand, cupping the ball between her wrist and forearm.

She steals the ball. It’s easy. Every player on the other team dribbles with her head down.

Mann dribbles with her head up.

Some of Point Loma’s varsity boys show up (their game is later that night), and she starts dribbling behind her back. She hits a fade-away jumper.

The varsity guys are laughing.

She runs with her thumbs pointed skyward. She runs on the balls of her feet, so her sneakers squeak.

The ref calls her for another foul.

“That’s weak,” she says.

Trepanier takes her out.

The score is 65-15 with 6:25 left in the game, but he puts her back in to play guard. The idea is to improve her defense and ballhandling.

She’s leading the break. Trepanier screams: “Give it up! Give it up!”

He says: “C’mon, Terri.”

She says: “Don’t ‘C’mon Terri’ me.”

She finishes with 46 points and 31 rebounds.

Point Loma wins, 77-24.

Point Loma at Madison, Jan. 20 .

The girl she is guarding beats her down the court three straight times. Trepanier is screaming.

“That’s your girl! That’s your girl!”

He takes her out.

At halftime, he lectures the team.

“You guys don’t want to play defense!”

Two players begin to talk back.

He says: “When you guys start telling me how to play the game, that’s when I leave. I’ve forgotten more than most of you will ever know about the game. You do what I tell you to do! I know what’s gotta be done! I know when you’re hustling and when you’re not hustling. Terri wasn’t hustling!”

Mrs. Mann, who is sitting in the stands, finds out that Terri has 23 points at the half.

“Think how many she’s going to have when it’s over,” Mrs. Mann says.

In the second half, a freshman named TyeastBrown--Terri’s niece--doesn’t box out. So Trepanier sits her down.

He says: “If you can’t find her, than find the bench!”

One of his guards, Lois Guillory, misses a layup.

He says: “You couldn’t make a basket if we all left the gym!”

He’s ahead by 33 points.

Mann blocks a shot with her palm and it carries 30 feet downcourt.

The varsity boys laugh.

Again, Mann’s running with her thumbs pointed skyward, her sneakers squeaking.

Trepanier is ahead by 37 points, but keeps the starters in. With 18 seconds to play, he is still ahead by 37 . . . but he calls time out.

The Madison coach, RaNae Seaman, says out loud: “He calls time out with 10 seconds left and a 30-point lead. I can’t believe it!”

Trepanier says later that he was calling time out to set up a play for one of his guards so that she could score and have her spirits lifted.

But she doesn’t score.

Mann finishes with 47 points and 29 rebounds.

Point Loma wins, 78-41.

Terri doesn’t mean to yawn but . . .

“It gets boring when we play little teams,” she says. “I get 50 (points), and I don’t realize I’m scoring that much because I don’t think I’m shooting that much. People say I’m a ball hog, but what should I do? Throw it away when I’m in the lane or get a three-second call?

“I’d rather play against guys. I don’t like to play against girls, because they get hit in the nose and start crying and say, ‘Take me out.’ I can play with pain. I have ankle sprains, and both my thumbs are swollen. I keep jamming fingers.”

She’s the queen of tape. In a game against Serra, she held up the opening tip because she was wrapping two of her fingers together. Her entire right hand was wrapped by game’s end.

This made it difficult to grip the ball, but Trepanier screamed: “Shoot with your left hand!”

About the coach and his screaming--he used to coach the boys at Point Loma but he quit six years ago, saying: “The boys are a little bit more on an ego (trip). The girls are real receptive and more coachable.”

He’s a high school Bobby Knight. If you’re not in his league and you want to play him, you have to go to his gym. He presses the entire game, and he refuses to play zone. If his players don’t sag on defense when the player they’re guarding doesn’t have the ball, he takes them out. He runs a double, low-post offense, geared to get the ball to Mann.

About 60% of his practices are devoted to defense.

He says that not one of his players’ parents has ever complained about the yelling. But he also says: “I have to take time not to lose sight that they are girls. And I want them to remain feminine. They don’t need to lose their femininity.”

Also, he has been nice enough to buy them state championship rings.

Naturally, operating the way he does, he has plenty of enemies--home and away. He has said that Mann could start for the Point Loma boys’ varsity, which many of the boys say is possible. But one player, Arlando Hill, doesn’t appreciate Trepanier’s coaching methods.

“They’re winning by 80 points,” Hill said, “and he’s sitting there hollering and cussing at them.

“He thinks he’s Bobby Knight, but we’ll see what kind of Bobby Knight he is next year with no Terri Mann. We’ll see. . . . No Terri, no dynasty.”

Imagine how opponents feel. Point Loma was host of an eight-team tournament this season, and the six teams that were eliminated cheered wildly for Point Loma’s opponent--Mount Carmel--in the final. When Mann fell and hurt herself, the crowd cheered.

“He’s beat up and chewed up so many opponents, he’ll get his,” Mount Carmel Coach Peggy Brose said recently. “If other coaches get a chance to bury him, they will.

“Anybody could win with the talent he has. With that talent, Mickey Mouse could’ve coached them to the state. I don’t agree with how he keeps Terri in all game, but what can I say? My team’s never been to the state final. Maybe, I’m doing something wrong.”

Trepanier’s relationship with Terri goes back four years. When he first met Terri, she was finishing the eighth grade. And, months later, Mrs. Mann says Trepanier came over to their home to sit down and talk basketball. Terri didn’t live in the Point Loma area at the time, and was supposed to attend Hoover High School. But Mrs. Mann--after meeting with the coach--said she gave Terri the opportunity to choose between Hoover and Point Loma.

Yet, according to San Diego Section rules, Terri could not attend Point Loma unless she lived in the Point Loma area or joined Point Loma’s Junior ROTC program. So she joined the Junior Naval ROTC program, but hated it. She didn’t like getting wet and she said they didn’t have the shoes or pants to fit her.

According to Mrs. Mann, Terri wanted to quit, but that meant she wouldn’t be able to play for Trepanier. Mrs. Mann says the coach came over one day and started dialing their phone, which they had at the time. She said he was talking to a real estate agent.

Mrs. Mann said he eventually helped them find a one-bedroom apartment in the Point Loma area. Mrs. Mann, Terri (who had just finished her freshman year) and two family members moved in. Rent was $435 a month, then $495 and then $525.

It was too much for Mrs. Mann, who had just lost her job.

This was two years ago, and she hasn’t worked since. The Point Loma apartment became too expensive, and Trepanier went with Terri to look for a new home. They moved into a federally subsidized housing area in Southeast San Diego (out of the Point Loma area). Rent was and still is $460 for the two-bedroom apartment. Eleven people moved in.

But Terri, who had just finished her junior year, still was eligible to attend Point Loma under the Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program, designed to improve the racial balance of schools. Terri had moved to a predominantly black area of Southeast San Diego but could request to be bused to Point Loma, a school made up mostly of whites. Four of Trepanier’s five starters are bused from that area.

Mrs. Mann says she is getting by. She says she gets $187 a month from her husband, $617 a month from welfare and $99 a month in food stamps.

Lynn, 34--Mrs. Mann’s oldest daughter who has two children--works at a nearby fast-food restaurant, so that also brings in some income. But two of Mrs. Mann’s sons are unemployed and she says she’s going to kick them out soon. One of the boys, Jeffrey, allegedly took the family’s portable stereo, according to Mrs. Mann.

“My two boys are sorry,” Mrs. Mann said. “I don’t know what to do for them. I say, ‘I can’t cope with you all.’ ”

Trepanier gave the family a new portable stereo for Christmas and has hired Mann to sell food at boys’ basketball games. He also pays her $3 an hour to clean his office.

Mann had a subcompact car but the transmission went out. She called Trepanier, who helped her look for a newer one. She turned in the old car for $500, and she and Lynn put their money together and found out they needed $300 more to buy a used midsize car. Trepanier loaned them the money, which he says has been repaid.

Said Trepanier: “Sometimes they (the Manns) try to take advantage of me. There are times I have to say no. I don’t like it, but I have to. She (Mrs. Mann) might overextend. She might say, ‘Hey, pay my phone bill.’ I say, ‘No.’ I won’t pay anybody’s phone bill or anybody’s utilities or anybody’s rent. If they need food, I’ll help them.”

In the home, there are four sets of bunk beds. Terri and Mrs. Mann sleep on the floor because they have bad backs.

Mann has decorated one wall with the letters she has received from interested colleges. She has pasted every letter up there, a collage of colleges.

“We need another wall,” Mrs. Mann said.

Mrs. Mann and Terri are close. Her mother won’t let Terri lift a hand in the house, won’t let her cook or clean.

“Terri’s spoiled,” Lynn said with a giggle. “She done been spoiled since the day she was born.”

Terri says of her mother: “We stay up together and watch TV late at night. Like ‘Friday Night Videos.’ Of course, on Saturdays I never stay home. We have parties to go to. We (she and her friends) trip out on the people who are drunk. I don’t drink because I have to drive home.”

Terri playing full-court with the boys at a local gym . . .

She’s at the top of the key.

“Four to two!” she says, announcing the score.

She shoots.

“Five to two!” she says as the ball is in mid-air.

Swish.

Later, she rebounds and dribbles the length of the court for a layup. A teammate says: “I hate a ball hog.”

Later, she misses a sweeping layup and screams an obscenity.

The game ends (her team wins), and she sees a boy from her school. He’s looking at his biology textbook and she says: “You’re crazy. You can’t study in a gym!”

Mann learned how to play basketball on the streets of Detroit. Her father, Cyrus Sr., is 7-feet tall. Her oldest brother, Cyrus Jr., also a 7-footer, played at Illinois State and was drafted by the Boston Celtics. Another brother, Allen, played at Murray State in Kentucky.

Six years ago, Mrs. Mann and Cyrus Sr. were separated, and that’s when she took Terri and left Detroit for San Diego.

Terri remembers playing against her brother Cyrus in Detroit.

“He’d swat my shot, and I’d go home crying,” she says.

Once Mann arrived in San Diego, her next-door neighbor, a kid named Michael Walker (now averaging 24 points a game at Hoover High) taught her how to be “Baby Moses.”

“I’d be crashing into her,” Walker said. “I’d elbow her and give her shots in the side. She’d come over to my house and tell my mom I was cheating.

“We had this nine-foot hoop near our houses, and she’d be dunking. Boom! She’d get on the fast break and look like (Charles) Barkley. Remember how I used to elbow her? Now, she does that to other girls. She’s coming on. She told me the other day she’s leaning to going to USC, and that’d be good.”

But she might not be eligible right away at USC or anywhere else. Her grade-point average is 3.2, but her scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test have not reached the 680 that she needs to be eligible as a college freshman.

Trepanier, who is a math teacher, monitors her academic work, and he says he will sue the NCAA if she doesn’t meet the SAT requirements.

“That’s a culturally biased examination,” he says. “I told her, ‘Don’t you worry about it, sweetheart. I’m taking them to court.’ ”

Point Loma vs. Serra, Jan. 27.

She needs a piece of gum right before tip-off.

She says: “Anybody in the stands got any gum?”

She gets some.

Later, she misses two free throws.

“What’s the matter, girl?” Mrs. Mann says. “Ya’ll playing so bad. You giving me a headache.”

It’s 47-16, Point Loma, at halftime.

An opposing player misses a shot, and Mann runs down the long rebound. Trepanier turns to the scorer and says: “Didn’t you give her a rebound for that?”

The scorer nods.

An opposing player hits a 20-footer over Mann.

“She faced me,” Mann says giggling during a timeout.

The opposing team has 29 points and it wants to break the ever-impressive 30-point barrier. There’s 10 seconds left, and they do it.

They go crazy.

“That’s weak,” Mann says.

She scores 47 points and has 24 rebounds.

Point Loma wins, 74-31.