Fourth Leading JC Scorer in State : Ernie Woods on Fire, but for a Losing Cause

Although Marymount Palos Verdes College (4-17) has a seven-game losing streak, Ernie Woods is playing winning basketball.

Woods has been on fire during the last seven games. He scored 35, 38, 18, 33, 31, 24 and 30 points and set two tournament free throw records during the Christmas break at the Rancho Santiago College Tournament.

Woods and Marymount forward James Anderson are the state’s fourth leading scorers with a 24.9 average. Not bad for the 6-3 sophomore from Chadwick School who was not recruited by Marymount.

“You could say we got him in the 11th-and-a-half hour,” Coach Jim Masterson said. “He called me a few weeks before school started last year. Ernie told me that he had all but decided to attend college in Idaho but didn’t think he would be happy there.”

“I could not see myself playing basketball in Idaho for four years,” Woods said. “A friend who played at Marymount last year told me about Marymount. I am glad I came here.”

Woods played point guard for the first half of last season and averaged nine points. Masterson moved him to off-guard midway through the year because of injuries to other players.

Woods was hesitant: “I had played at the point position my whole life and I thought that the move would hurt my chances of playing point guard at a Division I school once I left Marymount.”

Masterson persuaded Woods that the team would be better with him at off-guard. After the switch, Masterson said he noticed something about Woods’ play offensively.

“I always knew that Ernie could be a scorer,” Masterson said.

That wasn’t the first time one of Woods’ coaches took note of his ability to score. His high school coach, Tom Myer, watched Woods’ offensive game emerge. “When he came to us, he was truly little Ernie ,” Myer said. “He was very thin and very quick. I never doubted his ability to score, but he did this funny little hitch in his shot.”

Woods is emotional, and no one knows about that better than his mother, Dorothy.

“Ernie has always been a very emotional person,” she said. “When he was a child, he would cry after his team lost a game. I coached him in basketball when he was 9 and told him to get used to crying because the team wasn’t very good and would not win many games.”

Said Masterson: “Ernie is a very emotional player. Sometimes it’s good because his inspiration sparks the other players. Sometimes it works against him because he gets down on himself when things don’t go the way he wants them to go.”

Woods agreed: “I just want to do whatever it takes for our team to win. I hate to lose in anything. No matter how many points I score, if we lose, I always say to myself that there must have been something more I could have done so our team could win. I have got to learn to play as hard as I can, and if we lose, that’s all right because I have given it my all.”

Woods’ desire to be successful goes beyond the basketball court. Myer recalled his first encounter with him: “It was after we had won a playoff game. I was talking to a couple of reporters and this little skinny kid comes up to me and introduced his mom and himself and said, ‘I want to come to your school and play on your team.’ That was the first time a kid had come up like that. It just kinda blew me away. I told him to call the school.”

Woods’ mother recalled: “Ernie had been attending Southern California Military Academy, and when he was in the ninth grade wanted to go to Chadwick.”

He didn’t score high enough on the entrance exam to be admitted to Chadwick. His mother said he came home and cried, but he continued to study and passed the exam the next year.

Woods and his mother have a special relationship. “I was both his mother and father,” she said. “Since his father was not around, I raised Ernie and his older brother, Eric. I coached Ernie’s basketball team, and showed him how to catch a baseball and hit. I guess I am probably his biggest critic.”

Ernie agreed: “I am pretty close to my mother. She comes to all of my games. My mother has always been there for me. One thing she does is speak exactly what’s on her mind.”