He Has a Name and Game You Won’t Forget

The best thing Larry and Debe Parks ever did for their son was the first thing they ever did for their son.

They named him.

Cherokee was their choice. Cherokee Parks.

Good thing Larry Parks’ heritage was part Cherokee and not some other tribe. Cherokee was fortunate. With a little less luck, he could’ve been a boy named Sioux.

It was a brave move, no doubt, but also a wise one. For the rest of his life, regardless of which path he wandered, Cherokee had a built-in guarantee that he’d never be ignored.

Then he grew to 6 feet, 11 inches by his 17th year.

Such a combination, the name and the frame, tends to leave an indelible impression. As Cherokee puts it, “You can’t forget the name Cherokee. Especially a 6-11 guy named Cherokee. It sticks in your head.”

So do the dunks and the drives and the three-point rainbows and everything else Cherokee does while patroling the hardwood for Marina High School’s basketball team. He’s become a legend before his own time, a high school junior who’s already being compared to Bill Walton and a player whose physical gifts may be unprecedented in Orange County.

Think about this area and think about some of the big men who have posted up down here. From the prehistoric era, there were Swen Nater and Mark Eaton, late bloomers whose coordination didn’t catch up with their long limbs until after high school. “Sticks on the block,” Marina Coach Steve Popovich calls them.

Johnny Rogers? “He was more of an outside player,” Popovich says. “Cherokee plays both inside and outside.”

Clayton Olivier? “He probably didn’t have the mobility Cherokee has,” Popovich says.

Tom Schneiderjohn? “He was pretty fluid, he played a lot like Cherokee,” Popovich admits. But the coach will stick with his guy.

LeRon Ellis? Tougher inside than Cherokee, but not as versatile.

Adam Keefe?

Finally, Popovich is stumped.

“He’s the only one who stands out,” Popovich says. “Keefe plays so hard. He’s so physical and so fundamentally sound.

“But once Cherokee puts some weight on himself. . . . He already is a real refined player. He’s mobile, he’s got a good shooting touch, he learns very easily. If he got up to 225, 230, a good weight, he’d be a complete player.”

At 217 pounds, Cherokee is averaging 22 points and 13 rebounds a game, shooting 59% from the field and 80% from the foul line. But if there’s room to get bigger, Cherokee agrees, there’s room to get better.

“I need to follow my shots more,” says Cherokee, running down his want list. “I need to get some good weight on me. My defense--I play good defense against the good player, but not against the lesser ones. I sink to their level. And, I have to work on my shot selection. I need to develop my pump fake.”

One more thing, Popovich suggests.

“A jump hook,” the coach says. “He’s going to be playing against strong inside players all the time in colleges--6-10, 7-foot guys. To get shots off with those guys guarding him, he’s going to need a jump hook.”

When this is mentioned to Cherokee, it elicits a wry grin.

“I use a jump hook a lot more than he realizes,” Cherokee says. “In the all-star camps last summer, I used it all the time. I was making them, too. But that’s against 6-10, 6-11 guys. Local guys are usually 6-6 and I can post up on them.”

College coaches can hardly wait for the finished package. Already, there have been visits from Nevada Las Vegas’ Jerry Tarkanian, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, UCLA’s Jim Harrick and Arizona’s Lute Olson. Duke has sent a few talent scouts. Kentucky, Maryland and Ohio State have stayed in contact by phone.

And then there’s the mail. “He has his own zip code,” Popovich jokes.

Popovich, who went through the recruiting circus 15 years ago with Rich Branning, already has mapped out the months ahead with Cherokee and Debe Parks. “We’re in the process of working it out, getting it down to a realistic number of schools,” Popovich says. “We’re going to try to prevent it from getting out of hand.”

But college coaches aren’t the only ones. Next season, Marina will play a preseason tournament in South Carolina with all expenses--air fare, hotel rooms, per diem--paid. Call them Cherokee perks. The invitation hinged on the presence of a certain center and Popovich had to sign a dotted line to ensure that Cherokee was indeed coming east.

Cherokee Parks. Don’t leave home without him.

The early grapevine has UCLA holding the inside track on Cherokee, a rumor fanned by Cherokee’s frequent presence at Bruin home games. And if UCLA was good enough for the first Bill Walton, it ought to be right for the next one, right?

Cherokee plays this one behind a screen.

“I think that all started because I’ve been up to UCLA a lot and I played with some of their players last month,” he says. “But I’ve seen ASU and loved it. I’ve been to USC and that’s another school I really liked.

“Besides,” he adds, “I’d keep it quiet if I thought UCLA was going to be the school.”

Besides, there are other things to consider at the moment, such as the Southern Section playoffs. Marina won its first-round game Tuesday and tonight, the Cherokee people venture to San Bernardino to play a 22-3 Cajon High team.

The Vikings are underdogs, but they arrive with a great equalizer, a 6-11 middle man capable of carrying a team a good ways.

Remember, this is no ordinary Cherokee.