How Nikchevich Ran Into Luck at Loyola

When Chris Nikchevich was a hot-shot senior at Crespi High in 1982--an All-Southern Section guard two years in a row--his ego was being continually massaged by basketball recruiters from about 150 colleges, he said, including most Pac-10 schools as well as Duke and Notre Dame.

Nikchevich picked Brigham Young, but after three years of cultivating his intellect and his jump shot in Provo, Utah, the 6-3 Nikchevich left the college in the summer before his senior year in search of a scholarship at another school. The experience of recruiting colleges instead of being recruited, he said, “was really role reversal. It was very different from before.” What he discovered was the flip side of the star treatment. It’s called humility.

Even though he started for most of his three seasons with the Cougars, there wasn’t a big demand for his services. There was hardly even a little demand.

To play at another college, Nikchevich would have to sit out a season, then have only one season of eligibility left. His market value to a coach looking for a long-term investment was low.

“And a lot of people didn’t even know I’d left BYU,” said Nikchevich, who limited his selection of potential colleges by wanting to play close to his parents’ home in Woodland Hills.

Strangely enough, Nikchevich got his break at a place where schoolboys go to get noticed: the American Roundball Assn. summer league. Nikchevich was officiating games involving 11-year-olds. After a game, he ran into Loyola Marymount assistant coach Judas Prada, who was scouting players, not referees.

When Prada learned Nikchevich was available, he didn’t camp out on his doorstep or send flowers to his mother. Prada merely gave him his business card and told him to call. It took Nikchevich two weeks to finally make contact with Coach Paul Westhead. They had a meeting to discuss Westhead’s coaching philosophy, which, Nikchevich was happy to hear, was similar to his own.

Westhead uses a running game. One of the the major reasons Nikchevich originally chose Brigham Young was the running offense of then-Coach Frank Arnold. But Arnold was fired before Nikchevich’s sophomore season and was succeeded by Ladell Andersen. Although Andersen stuck with the running game during his first season, he switched to a ball-control offense for Nikchevich’s junior year.

“I enjoyed going to school at BYU,” said Nikchevich, 23, “but I had been recruited for a running offense.”

Although the Cougars still used the fast break during Nikchevich’s junior year, it wasn’t the free-wheeling offensive Nikchevich preferred. “We attacked from the sideline on the fast break and it was a bit more careful than Chris liked,” Andersen said.

Andersen also said the Cougars were expecting Nikchevich to return for his senior year and was surprised to get a dear-John letter. Andersen didn’t attempt to dissuade his point guard, but instead, “I wrote him a note wishing him well.”

Nikchevich wound up enrolling at Loyola in the fall of ‘85, even though classes had already begun. As an ineligible player last season, Nikchevich learned another lesson in humility. With no scholarship, he had to pay his own way. Although allowed to practice with the team, he couldn’t travel and could only sit on the bench in civvies and watch the Lions play.

“It was frustrating,” Nikchevich said, “but I learned a lot about basketball. You can really see a lot of things as a spectator.”

When his season of frustration ended, Nikchevich went on scholarship and rewarded Westhead’s faith by becoming a starter this season. Although the Lions are last in the West Coast Athletic Conference, Nikchevich is the team’s top three-point shooter and second-leading scorer, averaging nearly 13 points. He also leads the WCAC in assists going into this weekend’s conference tournament in San Diego.

Accepting Nikchevich at Loyola, Westhead said, “was a little bit of a gamble, but he was worth the risk. It usually takes you a year to find out what you have. But in his case, we went on his background--he was terrific at Crespi and had performed well at BYU. He hasn’t disappointed us.”

Nikchevich will graduate from Loyola this May with a degree in psychology and hopes to play professionally in Europe. But if he doesn’t, it won’t crush him. He knows all about humility.