He Was Born to Shoot Baskets : High Schools: Vista’s sophomore guard, Jason Barnes, has one arm shorter than the other, but he holds a hot hand when it comes to basketball.

From the day Jason Barnes was born in 1974, his family had one rule that stood out among all of the others.

His right arm would not be looked upon as a handicap.

The arm is two or three inches shorter than his left. It does not have full flexibility. His right hand and fingers are smaller than those on his left.

Handicap?

Barnes, who shoots with his left hand, is the leading scorer on the Vista High basketball team, averaging 18 points a game.

“Early on, we decided that wasn’t going to come into play,” said Duane Barnes, Jason’s father. “He works hard and is able to deal with things. He has always been very optimistic.”

Meanwhile, this is how much the Barnes family discusses Jason’s condition:

“I don’t even know the name of that condition anymore,” Duane Barnes said.

So much for a handicap.

Did we mention his age?

Fifteen.

He is just a sophomore, and some of the players on the Vista freshman team are older than him. Now that is a real handicap, playing varsity ball with older guys. He’s a skinny 6-feet, 150 pounds.

As Barnes puts it, “I’m physically not as mature and mentally not as tough as the seniors.”

Fierce determination is probably his biggest strength. Next is his shooting range. He is as accurate from 25 feet out as he is from the three-point line itself, which is an arc 19-feet-9 from the basket. But for all the points he collects, he is not what you would call a pure shooter. He has an unusual style--his release point is from somewhere above his head. And his elbows stick out rather than tuck in.

Few of his shots are blocked, but he doesn’t get the normal backspin rotation on the ball, either. Because of this, shots that don’t swish will many times rim out.

Vista is struggling at 4-10 and 1-5 in the Palomar League, but first-year coach Greg Lanthier expected this to be a rebuilding season. Just one starter returned from last season’s 7-19, 2-10 team. There are three sophomores on the Vista roster, and all play quite a bit. Barnes is a point guard but only because, for now, he is the best at kicking the offense into gear. Next year, Lanthier hopes to move him to wing so he can score even more.

“It’s interesting,” Lanthier said. “He’s probably not one of the three best shooters on the team, he’s certainly not the best ballhandler, and he certainly is not the best driver. But he does all three well enough. The one thing you can’t measure is his heart and desire to play. He’s deceivingly strong, and he’s quicker than most people expect, too.”

And he is doing what he has wanted to do all of his life.

Did we mention the blue tennis racket?

It was discarded.

When he was one.

Duane had presented him with the racket. But soon after, Brent, his brother, rolled a small basketball his way. Jason turned his attention to the basketball.

From that point on, a whole lot of dinner-table conversations revolved around basketball. Brent played at Vista and then Whittier College. Duane coached Jason from first through ninth grades, from Youth Basketball Assn. to junior varsity. As a freshman on his dad’s JV team, Jason averaged 25 points a game.

Now his dad is strictly on the sidelines, in the classroom as well as in the gym. Duane Barnes, who has taught history at Vista since 1965, was scheduled to have Jason in his class this year. Neither thought that was a good idea, and Jason transferred.

Of course, Duane has probably taught Jason more than his share of history anyway. The Barnes family has visited each of the 50 states, usually traveling in the family motor home. Washington, D.C., New York, Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills . . . Jason has seen quite a bit. And wherever they went, they took a basketball with them.

Sometimes they would park in a school parking lot for the night and shoot baskets outdoors. At least there, Jason had a lot more room to practice than in the basement of the family home.

Did we mention his basement?

Trashed.

When Jason was young, he and Brent put up a small basketball hoop there. Duane and Nancy Barnes quickly learned that the energy of two young boys is sometimes one of nature’s strongest forces.

It started in 1976, when Jason was two. Brent hung the basket on a door in the basement. One night when their parents were away a few years later, the two boys moved the basket off of the door and bolted it onto a wall. Later, they used tape to make a key and, eventually, a three-point line.

“We did all that stuff when they were gone,” Brent said.

Today, paneling hides the holes knocked in the walls. The old carpeting has been replaced by some new, indoor/outdoor stuff. Plastic vertical blinds have replaced torn curtains.

“Essentially, we ruined the family room,” Brent said.

Oh, and the furniture is all gone, too.

“Talked my mom into moving it, piece-by-piece,” Brent said proudly. “By the time (Jason) was five, the place was falling apart. They plan on re-doing the house when he goes to college.”

By that time, they might have to re-do the Vista record book as well. Jason’s season-high came Jan. 10, when he had 32 points against Fallbrook, 29 in the second half. He scorched Newport Harbor in December for 15 consecutive points in the fourth quarter, but Vista lost, 80-79.

“I knew I was hot against Fallbrook when I shot from about 21 feet out and it banked in,” Barnes said. “I was having a pretty lucky night that night.”

Said Lanthier: “It’s very hard to watch him do some of the things he does night after night and not get an emotional uplift. He’s a tremendous young man. Well-liked by everyone, someone you’d have date your daughter.”

But he’s certainly not the kind of kid you would want to turn loose in your basement, not unless you wanted torn carpet and holes in the wall.