Family Ambition : USD basketball: His father never slowed down, even after a crippling accident. Why should John Jerome III?

On March 4, 1967, John Elgin Jerome III received more than his father’s name. It would be proved over the next 22 1/2 years that John Jr. had passed to his son many things, including a will to succeed.

Not that the younger Jerome, a senior center and leading scorer on the University of San Diego basketball team, considers himself a tremendous success--there are still points to be scored and games to be won before he would admit to it. But the will certainly is there.

It is a trait he undoubtedly got from his father, who had both legs amputated at the age of 19 but went on to become a world-class athlete.

“I’m kind of headstrong. I don’t like to lose,” John Jr. said. “I drive myself. I think he got that from me too. God knows he drives himself. People don’t realize how much sacrifice is involved. You really have to work at something if you want to get good. And he does.”

Says Jerome, whose style of play, if not yet the success, could be likened to that of Larry Bird: “I always liked Bird, probably because he didn’t have all the athletic ability of some of those other guys. He plays the game with a lot of desire and passion. I think of myself as doing the same. I play the game with a lot of passion.”

That style and attitude is evident on the court--in both practice and games--and transcends to the stat sheet. Jerome is shooting 54.5% and averaging 19.3 points and 7.3 rebounds--all Torero highs.

He has led USD (6-7) in scoring 10 times, in rebounding eight times. His scoring average is slightly ahead of the single-season school record set by Stan Washington (19.2) in 1973-74.

Before the season, he was selected co-captain--along with senior Craig Cottrell--after transferring from Arizona State and sitting out last season under National Collegiate Athletic Assn. regulations

“He’s always tried to be the best,” his father said. “He’s always been the kind of person, if he’s weak on something, he works on it.”

Jerome got that, too, from his father.

Late on a Dec. 27 night in 1957, John Elgin Jerome Jr. and a friend were driving to Akron, Ohio, John III’s hometown, when their car skidded off the road, over a frozen creek and into a ditch.

His friend was conscious and apparently fine, but died two days later of a blood clot in his brain. John Jr., who was 19 at the time, lost one of his legs and remained unconscious in a hospital bed for more than a month.

Upon waking, his other leg had to be amputated because of gangrene. “We laid out there in the cold for two or three hours before somebody found us,” John Jr. said.

After he was released from the hospital, John Jr. wasted little time sobbing about his misfortune.

An avid fisherman and hunter before the accident, John Jr. saw no reason to stop after it. “I still did a lot of hunting and fishing. I just did it on horseback,” he said.

Before the accident, he was planning on playing baseball at Kent State. With no legs from the lower thighs down, that was no longer an option. But his athletic accomplishments thereafter have been extraordinary.

He took up wheelchair basketball instead and played 17 years with the Cleveland Comets and Phoenix Roadrunners. If memory serves him, he was second nationally in scoring a couple of seasons.

He also began kayaking and within three years had a shot at the Olympic team--the regular team going to the 1960 Games in Rome. He didn’t make it but was first alternate in 1960 and the third in 1964.

“I would have liked to have had somebody ride tandem,” John Jr. said. “(Without legs) I couldn’t steer those damn things. I liked beating those able-body people.”

After that, it was on to track and field, where he threw the shot, discus and javelin and threw them well, setting world wheelchair records in each. As a wheelchair participant, he won seven gold medals, two silver and two bronze in four Olympics (1972, ‘76, ’80 and ‘84) and four gold, one silver and one bronze in two World Championship Games.

And now at 51, he’s retired, right?

Hardly. In July, John Jr., already inducted into the Wheelchair Hall of Fame, will be at the Wheelchair World Championships in Holland as an air and free pistol shooter. His goal is the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

“He’s the type of guy who didn’t let the accident get to him,” Jerome said. “I don’t know what he was going through, but he didn’t let it get him down.”

Seven years after the accident, John Jr. found time in his busy life for love. He married Donna, and they will celebrate their 25th anniversary in February. Their sons, John III and Chris, 21, found growing up to be rather normal.

“We used to call them ‘the Odd Couple,’ ” John Jr. said. “Unger and Madison. Chris was always so messy, and John was a neat freak. I know he picked that up from his mother.”

A middle-class family--John Jr. is a gun assembler and Donna a data entry specialist--they went camping, hunting and fishing together. Young John and Chris played sports in high school and helped out their father. “I got them out there and worked their (tails) off,” John Jr. said.

When John Jr. would practice throwing the shot, discus and javelin, John III helped out by throwing the object back.

By doing so, Jerome became a pretty good thrower himself. He was tall and skinny then--6-feet-5, 170 pounds--but using technique won his share of high school medals in the discus.

He also played baseball and basketball but eventually gave up baseball as his basketball skills developed.

“He was so awkward, he couldn’t hardly walk and chew gum right,” John Jr. said. “I told him he was going to have to lift some weights, get some strength to go with his size. Of course, he didn’t listen to me. What did I know?”

Eventually, Jerome did listen--he now carries 225 pounds on his 6-8 frame and can bench press more than 300 pounds.

He is an equal force inside the key and out. Jerome has 36 more rebounds and has been to the free-throw line 27 more times than any USD teammate.

Jerome’s shot is somewhat unorthodox but accurate (11 of 24 three-pointers). A two-hand push from the forehead with plenty of backspin, it looks as if he learned to shoot from, well, a wheelchair. When he was younger, he did play in a wheelchair with his father.

Regardless, it’s effective.

At Prescott High in Arizona, Jerome averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds a game. He played two years and was a community college All-American at Mesa (Ariz.), where he averaged 15.9 points and 7.5 rebounds his sophomore season. He also led Mesa to a 30-6 record that year and a third-place finish in the national tournament.

From there, Jerome accepted a scholarship to Arizona State. After one season, he transferred to USD. The reason, he said, was Arizona State’s coach at the time, Steve Patterson.

“We weren’t on the same level,” Jerome said. “We didn’t see things eye-to-eye. Well, it wasn’t just me, he didn’t see things eye-to-eye with the whole team. So I thought the best thing for me was to get out of there.

“I knew Randy Bennett (a USD assistant coach), and I knew Coach (Hank) Egan and his style. I can relate more to his style than Coach Patterson’s. I’d say (Egan) is more of an authoritarian-type person. He expects the most out of you, and you respect the man.

“When I was at Arizona State, I felt like I didn’t have much respect for Patterson. I didn’t believe everything he said. I never knew what my role was. Nothing was ever established, but that was pretty much the same for everybody. Nobody knew what their role was. There were many nights I’d play a good ballgame, and the next night or so I wouldn’t play at all. It was too much of an extreme. Thirty minutes to zero.

“Coach Egan is more vocal about that. He’s going to tell you exactly where you stand. If you’re the 15th man, he’s going to tell you you’re the 15th man. I think that’s better, rather than trying to guess your way through.”

John Jerome III knew respect. He lived it daily.

Asked if other kids ever made fun of him when he was growing up because of his father’s handicap, Jerome replied half-jokingly, “Kids were afraid of my father. If you met him, you’d be afraid of him. He’s big (before the accident, John Jr. was 6-5). He has a 52-inch chest.

“He’s a tough guy. He doesn’t take anybody’s crap. Don’t get me wrong, he’s the nicest guy in the world. But if you set him off, he’ll go after you.”

Like the time Jerome’s Prescott High team lost a basketball game to Shadow Mountain. John Jr. was not in agreement with certain calls made and let the referee know how he felt.

“The game was over, and the ref started calling technical fouls on me,” John Jr. said. “They had already lost the game. What difference did it make by how many?”

John Jr. has seen Jerome play only two games for USD this season, and they were the wrong two. A friend of a friend who owns a bar in New York arranged for John Jr. to come out and watch his son in the Joe Lapchick Tournament at St. John’s.

The Toreros played poorly and lost both games--to St. John’s (74-59) and South Alabama (77-72). “I went all the way out there, and the damn kids stand around,” John Jr. said.

Said Jerome, “We went through a time when things weren’t good. Expectations were shot to hell. We were struggling. We didn’t expect to be 3-7, but we were. We messed up. But it’s a long season. You can’t dwell on the past.”

Since that 3-7 start, USD has won three in a row, including its West Coast Conference opener against Santa Clara. It plays Pepperdine tonight at 7:30 in the USD Sports Center in search of a fourth consecutive victory.

“I guess what (my father) taught me is to never give up,” Jerome said. “You’ve always got a chance. And if you’re going to do something, do it your best. Find something you like, but don’t do it halfway. I don’t see myself doing a job I don’t like. That’s not me.”

That’s not the way John Jr. raised his son. He raised his son to stand on his own two feet, despite having lost his.