Baldwin a Leader--Categorically

Monotony can be a terrible thing. Even the word itself, with all those evenly spaced O’s, makes one want to look for a change of scenery, a change of pace.

When San Fernando High’s Russell Baldwin gets bored, he does exactly that. No sense hanging out in the same stuffy gym with the same guys, day after day, when there is a world full of competition out there. The home front can get really boring, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing when his basketball hoop was torn from front of his home.

“I used to have a bunch of friends come over and we’d always be out there slamming,” said Baldwin, a 6-foot-5 senior, of his driveway court in Pacoima. “The basket finally got ripped down.”

This was not necessarily bad news. Baldwin now cruises the Valley and beyond in search of competition, something to help elevate his game.

“I move around to different places,” he said. “There are a lot of parks, recreation centers and places that a guy can play.”

Baldwin, it should be noted, already can play .

Exhibit A: In the fourth quarter of Friday’s Northwest Valley Conference opener against Kennedy, Baldwin made five of six free throws in the fourth quarter, scored 10 of San Fernando’s 15 points in the period and accounted for the game-winning basket on a swooping drive to the hoop with six seconds left that gave the Tigers a 64-63 victory.

Baldwin had a team-high 17 points--he scored 20 in a 64-47 defeat of Van Nuys on Tuesday--but his importance transcends any 32-minute examination.

Last season, after failing a biology class, Baldwin was declared academically ineligible. The team finished 7-13, placed third in the four-team West Valley League at 3-7 and failed to make the playoffs.

San Fernando is 8-3 with Baldwin. Is this a cause-and-effect relationship? You make the call--but pay particular attention to the term team-high .

Baldwin is shooting a team-high 65.7% from the field (71 for 108) . . . a team-high 86% from the free-throw line (37 of 43) . . . is averaging a team-high 19 points a game . . . a team-high 11 rebounds . . . a team-high two steals . . . and a team-high two blocked shots.

“He would have made a big difference last year,” Coach Dick Crowell said. “No doubt about it.”

Crowell, in fact, already may be getting a little spoiled. Asked after the Kennedy game what kind of a free-throw shooter Baldwin is, Crowell said that the senior center usually “makes the first one, misses the second.”

“I guess I was thinking of someone else,” Crowell admitted this week. “Because after I saw the stats, I knew it sure wasn’t him.”

Baldwin’s name is known all over town, as a matter of fact. The summer before his junior season, he and Garret Anderson of Kennedy formed the nucleus of a three-on-three team that placed second out of dozens of teams in a West L. A. tournament. Nothing like a little outside competition, a few pick-up games, to pick up new moves. Yet, in fact, Baldwin is fast tiring of the schoolyard game. Too monotonous, he insists.

“Lately, I’ve been thinking about going over to Valley College to play,” he said. “I’ve been playing too much with the boys, guys my own age. It’s time to play against some men. That’s the only way to get better at this.”