Renovation Project : Markray Rebuilding Basketball Career; Moorpark Coaches Say He Has the Tools

Jerry Markray has become a specialist at building and repair in his work as a carpenter. He built picture frames as a youngster and constructed portable classrooms in high school.

Now he is restoring his basketball career.

Until the past year, Markray rarely stepped onto the hardwood. He preferred to work with it, not on top of it.

“I wanted to be a carpenter,” Markray said. “I always liked drawing and doing woodwork.”

If Markray had not dropped out of high school in Louisiana--where he played basketball for all of two weeks--he might never have entered the Gary Job Corps Center in San Marcos, Tex., to further his carpentry career.

And if he had never done that, Markray, a talented but inexperienced basketball player, might not now be leading Moorpark College in rebounding and blocked shots.

As it stands, the 6-8, 206-pound reserve center averages 6 points and 6.3 rebounds a game. The rebound average ranks him seventh in the Western State Conference.

Markray, a freshman, had a season-high 19 rebounds against Antelope Valley in the Raiders’ season opener, and he has had other games of 16 and 15 rebounds. In addition, he has 37 blocks and is second on the team with a field-goal percentage of 53.5.

Next season, the Raiders will expect even more.

“I’d hoped he would develop,” Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said. “I knew he could play, that he had the potential. So we made a commitment to play him a lot, because that’s the only way he’s going to get better.”

Possibly a lot better.

“I hope he’ll be a superstar for us,” said Del Parker, a Moorpark assistant. “He’s fully capable of it. It’s a situation where he’s not that far off from doing everything he should be doing out there.”

And while the Raiders wait for Markray to come into his own, they are trying to be patient. Often, that has not been easy.

“At times,” Nordquist said, “I’ve wished he would do more.”

So has Parker, who said, “We’ve tried to tone down our expectations a little bit, but it’s hard to do when we see what he can do. In practice sometimes he’s just great. There are times when he’ll play with confidence and he goes to the basket really well and dunks over everybody.”

Less than a year ago, however, the only organized basketball Markray had played was with a ragtag Job Corps team.

It was in Georgetown, Tex., where Nordquist first saw Markray on a basketball court.

“He had a lot of athletic ability but not much experience,” Nordquist said. “He really had very limited knowledge and very limited skills.”

There was a reason for that.

Markray, 20, had been in the Job Corps to further his work in the carpentry trade, not to develop latent basketball skills. He had been playing basketball with the Job Corps team for just a few months, and he did it strictly for fun.

He did not quite master the sport in high school in Minden, La., though not for lack of trying.

“I tried out when I was a sophomore, but I was too short and I couldn’t keep up,” Markray said. “I was only 5-11 and I couldn’t even dribble the ball.

“Everybody was better than me.”

So, after just two weeks, Markray quit the team.

“I went back to my drawing and making picture frames,” he said.

But not back to school. Instead, he took a General Education Development proficiency test and toured the country with his father, whose work in the Army took him to several different states.

“I got to see a lot of the country,” Markray said. “I wanted to travel, so I didn’t mind picking up and going, and picking up and going.”

By the time he had stopped moving and entered the Gary Job Corps Center for vocational training in November, 1986, Markray had sprouted from 5-11 to 6-5. And he didn’t mind that, either.

“I enjoyed it. It was weird for me at first, but I figured it was going to come,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised I grew.”

That was largely because Markray’s father, Joe Shyne, is 6-8 and his mother, Christine Markray, is 6-1.

While in the Job Corps, Markray grew an additional three inches to his current height of 6-8. All of a sudden, he no longer had to worry quite as much about whether he could dribble. He could do other things instead.

“I found I could block people’s shots, I could rebound pretty well. And I could dunk,” he said.

Nordquist first learned of Markray after receiving a tip from Southwestern (La.) Coach Paul Peak, who saw Markray playing in a summer league tournament.

“He looked like he had a lot of potential,” Peak said, “but he was really, really raw.”

Believing Markray might benefit from playing at the junior college level, Peak called Nordquist and told him he had found an untested player who appeared to have talent.

“He has a lot to learn,” Peak said. “He needs a lot of work on the basics of the game, but you can coach players to know what to do in different situations and you can coach them in the fundamentals of the game.

“But you can’t coach a kid to be 6-8 and have good reach and good mobility.”

Nordquist went to Texas in July and talked to Markray about heading west. Markray agreed.

“I didn’t think I was that good, to be able to play basketball in college,” Markray said. “I had to kind of sit down and ask myself what I’m going to be doing in a few years, and I thought this was a chance for me to play basketball and get an education.”

Markray’s work on the fundamentals has shown steady improvement, but there are still shortcomings.

“He has a better understanding of what’s happening in games than he did,” Parker said. “But the players on the team expect so much of him that it hurts his confidence when he can’t always do some things. We’ve been trying to build up his confidence.”

Moorpark has had a sub-par season with an overall record of 12-14, 4-7 in the Western State Conference.

Next season Markray hopes to be of more help.

“They’re trying to get me to be more of a dominating force,” Markray said. “I’d like to see myself put more weight on, so I’ll be able to be more physical.”

Markray also is counting on being more knowledgeable next season.

“It’s been a real learning season,” he said. “I’m learning more and more every time I go out on the court.”

Having laid the framework for a successful college career, Markray knows from experience that completing a project necessitates time and attention to detail.