Glendale’s Heicke Wears Look of Winner

National Basketball Assn. fans are accustomed to seeing players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and Thurl Bailey wear protective goggles. Kurt Rambis’ horn-rimmed glasses elevated him to cult-figure status among Laker followers.

But when Bruce Heicke, a 6-foot, 1-inch Glendale College freshman guard, dons his goggles he looks like he could sooner calculate the arch of a free throw with a slide-rule than nail a turn-around jump shot. All Heicke lacks are droopy, dark socks, leather sandals and Bermuda shorts.

Though his moves are straight out of “Hoosiers,” his specs make him look like an extra from “Revenge of the Nerds.”

If Heicke’s high school friends don’t recognize him it’s because he wore contacts at Notre Dame High last season. Last summer, after a defender poked him in the eye in a pick-up game, however, Heicke was told by an optometrist to get goggles.

“At first I’m thinking, wait a minute I’m not wearing no goggles ,” Heicke said. “I shopped around for something that looked halfway all right. Now I kind of like them.”

Off court, Heicke replaces his basketball eye wear with prescription sunglasses--he is smooth, cool. But come game time, when he straps on the bug eyes, opposing players snicker and opposing crowds howl.

The kidding abates, however, when Heicke breaks off a pick and buries a 3-point shot or deftly swipes the ball from an opposing player and swoops in for an easy layup.

Though Heicke averaged 19.8 points and 8 assists in Glendale’s first 5 games and scored 35 in a loss to West Hills, he has not been around long enough to have built a reputation with other teams as an offensive force. So he still gets needled.

“I guess I’m the most talked to guy on the court,” he said.

Talked to, at least, until his shot starts raining down.

And looking green gives him an automatic edge.

“They think I stink and they don’t know I’m pretty good,” he said “They say, ‘Hey, this white guy with goggles is beating me. This isn’t happening. This guy’s wearing goggles, his hair’s messed up, he’s crazy.’ ”

Last week, an Antelope Valley defender was particularly irked and sought crude revenge after Heicke had sufficiently humiliated him.

“He told me to shut up,” Heicke recounts. “I looked at him and he said, ‘Yeah you, four-eyes.’ Then he spit on me.”

Not one to shy away from an altercation, Heicke chased the offender downcourt, extended his foot and sent him crashing to the floor.

Heicke is no stranger to a scuffle.

“In high school a lot of guys pushed me around on the court,” he said. “I like that. I just pick it up a notch when that happens.”

In another game, a defender used the goggles to put a stranglehold on Heicke’s jump shot.

“I came around a pick and the guy grabbed my goggles and ripped them down to my neck,” Heicke said. “You know if someone gets his goggles ripped down, he got it good.”

Heicke’s appearance is so deceptive that even his teammates were taken aback by his ability when practices began.

“He surprised all of us,” Glendale forward Gary Fowler said. “He’s a scorer. He can drive to the hole, hit threes, do everything.”

And, Fowler says, even though Heicke is usually the high-scorer, nobody complains.

“We run the offense and he comes off the screen,” he said. “That’s what’s going in. It doesn’t bother me as long as he’s making them.”

Now teammates call him “Birdman” after Larry Bird, because, according to Heicke, “I can’t jump and I’m slow, but if I get a pick, forget it.”

Glendale Coach Brian Beauchemin says Heicke also has a work ethic similar to Bird’s.

“I like kids like Bruce, they work hard,” Beauchemin said. “And kids that work hard get somewhere.”

Beauchemin, citing Heicke’s passing ability and court savvy, moved him from off-guard to point guard--a position he never played in high school. “I’m getting used to it,” Heicke said of his new responsibility of running the offense. “It’s really different when you’re looking for other people but if that’s what it’s going to take to win, I’ll do it.”