49ers’ ‘Odd Couple’ on Verge of Going Separate Ways : After 3 Losing Years, Roommates Who Are Teammates Have Winning Cage Season as Team Gears for Last Games

DeAnthony Langston and Billy Walker, seniors on the California State University, Long Beach, basketball team, form an odd couple: An outgoing big man and a quiet little man, a center and guard who are best friends.

They have been 49ers--and roommates--for four years, and now that bittersweet time has come when they must face the end of their college careers and the uneasy certainty that their paths into the real world will be separate.

“It seems just yesterday we were freshmen, now we are about to vacate the premises,” said Walker, a point guard from Riverside who holds the 49ers’ all-time assist record. “It goes real quick.”

He and Langston, who is from Los Angeles and leads the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. in shooting percentage in league games, were sitting on the patio of the Student Union last week, waiting to go to the gym for another in what to them seems an unending string of practices.

‘All the Losses Don’t Help’

“(College) goes by faster than high school,” Langston said. “I guess all the losses don’t help.”

After three seasons of disappointment and disillusionment that resulted from a 23-64 record, Langston and Walker finally have been able to contribute to a winning team. The 49ers, who conclude their regular season this week with games tonight at Nevada Las Vegas and Sunday afternoon at Cal State Fullerton, are 16-9.

Coaches often treat players with a sense of detachment. One group leaves, destined to become a blur in the memory, and a new group arrives. But 49er Coach Joe Harrington has had his heart touched by this pair.

“I’ve enjoyed both of those guys,” Harrington said. “They have a lot of pride in the school. That’s why we’ve been able to win some games this year.”

Dee and Little Billy, as they are known to their teammates, are as different as Sunday and Monday.

Langston, who has the striking specter of a great ostrich, surveys the world in a lighthearted way from a height of 6 feet, 10 inches.

“There’s a lot of play in DeAnthony,” Harrington said. “He’s always cutting up. He has no inhibitions when it comes to people.”

“People take a liking to him,” Walker said.

On a plane that took the 49ers home from a game at New Mexico State recently, Langston persuaded a stewardess to let him talk over the intercom. “And thank you for flying PSA,” Langston concluded as the jet approached Los Angeles International Airport.

A good job, except it was a Southwest Airlines flight.

Walker is more down to earth, and not just because he is 10 inches shorter than Langston.

“Billy’s more on the serious side, serious about his studies,” Harrington said.

An education major, Walker has a 3.0 grade point average. Langston, a radio-TV major, has a 2.4 GPA. “Teachers make it tough on you because you’re an athlete . . . they don’t want other students to think you’re getting away with anything.”

Walker, who has a firmer idea of what the future holds than Langston, would love to keep playing, perhaps in the professional league for 6-foot-4-and-under players. But he expects to stay in school, get his degree and start preparing for a coaching career by helping the 49ers next season. “I think I know the game,” he said.

Langston, who has averaged 10 points and 5 rebounds a game during his career, had long been obsessed with his chances of playing professional basketball. He finally realized that his play suffered as a result.

“Nine or 10 games ago I said I wasn’t going to worry about what (National Basketball Assn.) scouts were at the games or what they’re thinking about,” Langston said. “Just play and let everything else take care of itself.”

In his last seven games, Langston has averaged almost 15 points a game and has shot 71% from the field.

Taking weightlifting seriously this season for the first time, he has built his body to an impressively muscled 218 pounds. “People don’t push me around now,” said Langston, who powers to the basket occasionally, instead of relying only on jump hooks and 15-foot jump shots.

“He’s improved a lot this year,” Harrington said. “The last three or four weeks he’s been doing some great things. I think he will play more basketball. He definitely can play in Europe. And if he adds strength and experience he may have a crack at playing in the NBA some day.”

If he does not get an offer to play in the pros, Langston said he will attend summer school. He will be about a year shy of his degree after this semester.

Walker, co-captain of the 49ers along with Morlon Wiley, has averaged 5.3 assists a game this season, fourth in the PCAA. He broke Craig Hodges’ school career assist record of 437 earlier in the season and now has 490.

Walker has played despite a lower-back problem he has had since the day he arrived at Long Beach.

“He can’t sleep at night and does these crazy exercises on his bed,” Langston said.

Two Injuries This Season

Walker also sprained an ankle and tore an arch this season.

“I’ve only had to hold him out of one or two practices,” trainer Dan Bailey said. “He’s one tough son of a gun.”

Walker and Langston, at first unaccustomed to the frustration of losing, both thought about quitting as sophomores.

“We all came from winning programs and thought we were pretty decent players,” Walker said. “I felt like transferring. But one of the reasons I stuck it out was the education here. My dad always said God first, then books, then sports. And I had never quit anything in my life.”

Langston almost quit again this season when he lost his starting job to John Hatten. He cried in the locker room after playing only nine minutes against USC on Dec. 9. “I didn’t see any future for me,” he said. “I didn’t want to sit on the bench my whole senior year.”

But he was talked out of leaving by his mother, Vivian Walton, and by Walker, and soon became a starter again.

Now that winning has brought the 49ers some recognition, both players are glad they stayed.

“Most students look up to us more and want to be around us,” Langston said.

Wishes for Respect

But Walker said he still feels that he does not get much respect as a student-athlete. “Most girls say, ‘All you guys do is play basketball, we’ve got to work.’ But I tell them, ‘We have a job, too. We get paid to go to school.’

“Coach Harrington made the point before the season that this is our job. He said not to plan anything till the season was over, that we wouldn’t have the time. He was right.”

And so Walker tries not to fret about the Sundays when instead of going out with friends he must toil in the weight room.

If one of this odd couple could become the other for a day, he would.

Walker, who is amused by the way people gawk at Langston, admits that he sometimes wishes he was that tall: “Then I could do the things I can do on the 8-foot baskets (on the elementary school playgrounds).”

And Langston envies the way Walker can walk around like a normal person.

“When I’m at a mall and see people staring at me, I look down at my hands and feet and they seem really big and I feel awkward,” Langston said. “Girls say, ‘You’re too tall,’ ”

Walker and Langston walked to the campus Wendy’s for double cheeseburgers and fries, a lunch to savor and linger over because it has been a good year that is ending too quickly.

“Now that we’ve had some success we’re having fun,” Walker said. “So I keep thinking we can do it (again) next year. But we don’t have a next year.”

The thought saddened them both.

“All this is coming to an end,” Langston said.