Orange County Player of the Week : A Clumsy Start Didn’t Stop Reyes

As a freshman, Frantz Reyes of Cypress High School couldn’t jump, pass, dribble, shoot or make a layup with even nominal success. In fact, the only time Reyes felt any connection with a basketball court was when he lay nose down on it--tripped by his size-14 feet.

Throughout junior high school, Reyes was a one-sport kid--tetherball. He played while his friends shot baskets on a nearby court. When they suggested he play in a neighborhood church basketball league, Reyes--then 6-feet 2-inches--admitted he had never played before but would give it a try.

His debut wasn’t pretty.

“All my friends laughed at me,” said Reyes, now a senior. “I looked stupid. I was so uncoordinated and tripped all the time.”

But Reyes stuck with it, his friends’ playful teasing serving as inspiration. When he enrolled at Cypress, Reyes tried out for the freshman “A” team. He failed to make the first cut, was placed on the “B” team and never played more than four minutes per game.

“I’d foul out in the first two or three minutes,” Reyes said. “I’d just start hacking at everyone because I didn’t know what to do.”

But Reyes kept trying. The next summer, Reyes began to hang around the half-court at his apartment complex on Moody Street, waiting to be picked for a three-on-three game.

Moody Street wasn’t a court for tender palms. Passes were thrown by and for men--not squiggly-shaped boys such as Reyes. The court’s rim hung from a concrete pole that leaned into the key, making drives for a layup tricky. If you didn’t duck your head, you had a good chance of gaining a bump. When Reyes was finally asked to play, he started coming home long after dark--and black and blue.

“I would cry about getting fouled and bumped all the time,” Reyes said. “But they let me play a lot. I’d go out around 10 in the morning and play until you couldn’t see the backboard anymore.”

That fall, Reyes began to see benefits from his summer work habits.

“If you saw him as a freshman, and then as a sophomore, you’d never even believe he was the same guy,” said Matt Civitelli, senior point guard. “Before, he’d never get picked for pickup games, then as a sophomore, he was always the first picked. And he couldn’t jump as a freshman either, now he can jump better than anyone I’ve seen in high school.”

Reyes led the sophomore team in scoring and rebounds and shared the most valuable player award with Civitelli.

Reyes is now 6-5 1/2 and 195 pounds and continues to improve. Reyes, The Times’ Player of the Week, set a single-game school scoring record Wednesday with 37 points in a 71-61 victory over Pacifica. Reyes scored 18 points and had 11 rebounds Friday to lead Cypress (7-7, 10-13) to the third-place finish in the Empire League.

This season, Reyes averages 20.6 points and 12.3 rebounds. He is shooting 58.4% from the field.

Still, Reyes wants to keep concentrating on the basics.

“I have so much to work on,” he said. “I still don’t know how to play the game.”