GAME OF FAITH : San Diego State’s Mitch McMullen Is Making Good on Promise He Made to His Brother in Hospital Room

Every time Mitch McMullen steps onto the basketball court, the San Diego State center is keeping faith with his dead brother.

“Before he did pass away, I told him I wanted to dedicate what I did in basketball to him,” McMullen said of a hospital-room promise he made to Corey McMullen the week before he died of leukemia in the summer of 1987.

“Corey was really weak at the time. He basically told me that he appreciated it and he loved me for it. When I do go out there and play, I’m doing it for him.”

Corey McMullen was the eldest of three brothers. He died at age 25, some 3 1/2 years after doctors diagnosed the disease near the end of his senior year at Arizona State, where he had played two seasons of basketball.

Mitch McMullen, 5 years Corey’s junior, was a 17-year-old basketball star at Hart High School in Newhall, when he learned of his big brother’s illness.

The news of Corey’s sickness sent the younger McMullen into a tailspin that very nearly destroyed him as he began using drugs for a time as an escape.

“I just couldn’t face the reality that he was going to die,” McMullen said. “Then I decided, ‘Hey, look, I’ve got to make the best of it for him.’ My parents, everybody in my family, were strong Christians, so I just kind of hung on to that to get me through those hard times.

“Our whole family is close,” he said. “If we weren’t close, who knows? I’d probably be a drug addict on the streets. That’s why family is so important. When you’ve got a strong family, it holds you together. And obviously, if I wanted to keep playing basketball, I had to clean up my act.”

His wife of 1 1/2 years, Kathy, also has been a stabilizing influence, he said.

The first step in putting his life back on track was enrollment at Point Loma Nazarene, a small Christian college in San Diego. Corey also had attended Point Loma before his move to Arizona State.

The 6-foot 10-inch, 250-pound McMullen averaged 10.5 points per game and 6 rebounds as a freshman at Point Loma in 1985-86 before transferring to College of the Canyons, a junior college in Valencia, closer to his hometown of Newhall.

With the encouragement of Corey and his family, McMullen, who backed out of a scholarship offer from Brigham Young after high school, again began thinking about going to a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I school.

“That always was Corey’s dream for me,” McMullen said. “And I wanted to see if I could make it in big-time basketball. I didn’t want to look back 10 years from now and say, ‘Could I have made it?’ ”

He drew the attention of Division I schools by averaging 16.5 points and 9.8 rebounds in his only season at the College of the Canyons. Among the schools recruiting him were New Mexico, Arizona State, Washington and Wyoming, then coached by Jim Brandenburg.

In March, 1987, Brandenburg left Wyoming to assume the San Diego State job. The first player he signed to a national letter of intent to attend San Diego State was McMullen.

“I thought he had the frame and the athleticism to develop into a good inside player,” Brandenburg said of McMullen, who has become the focal point of San Diego State’s early season success. Through Wednesday, the Aztecs were 8-4, and 2-0 in the Western Athletic Conference.

“We were the only California school recruiting him,” Brandenburg said. “Everybody else, the word was out he was not a very good player and this and that. Nothing was further from the truth.”

Last season at San Diego State, McMullen averaged 13 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. This season, he is averaging 17.1 points and 8.9 rebounds while leading the conference in field-goal percentage (67.4). McMullen also has had six 20-point games compared to four all of last season.

“You have to give Mitch every credit in the world because he has really worked hard to develop himself. He’s just made himself into a damn good basketball player,” Brandenburg said.

Brandenburg described McMullen’s improvement as “light years” beyond the level he was playing at a couple of years ago.

“The year that his brother died was very traumatic, very emotional for Mitch,” Brandenburg said. “He copes with it better now but he still thinks about his brother. The family is still very close, and it’s still a real tragedy in that family. But Mitch has made an awful lot of strides. He’s made strides in every phase of his basketball life and his personal life.”

McMullen said his only wish is that Corey could see him play.

“He was the main reason for me to play basketball to begin with, him and my dad,” McMullen said. “But I do have a good feeling that Corey is in a good place.”