Siding With the Rebels : Santa Clara’s Tarver Plays the Field Before Selecting UNLV

Relaxation at last. A two-year stretch of unrelenting pressure to win high school basketball games and the favor of big-time college coaches was finally over. All eyes had been on Shon Tarver long enough.

Now it was Tarver’s turn to do the watching.

This was home telemarketing at its most convenient. Tarver settled back to enjoy what to most viewers was the NCAA tournament round of 16. For the Santa Clara High All-American, however, it was the Final Four.

Months ago, Tarver had narrowed his choices to Nevada Las Vegas, UCLA, Syracuse and Georgia Tech. All four were among the Sweet 16. This was Tarver’s last chance to do comparison shopping.

After Thursday’s games, he had a long talk with his father, John, and a short conversation with Tim Grgurich, a UNLV assistant.

On Friday, Lou Cvijanovich, Santa Clara’s coach and the father of UNLV reserve guard Stacey Cvijanovich, accompanied Tarver to Oakland to watch the Runnin’ Rebels defeat Ball State in the Western regionals. They stayed through Sunday and watched UNLV outscore Loyola Marymount.

Tarver spoke with UNLV Coach Jerry Tarkanian. The die was cast. There is a new player in Vegas and a new tandem--Tarver and Tark.

The choice is surprising only from the standpoint that the future of the UNLV program is clouded by an NCAA investigation of the school’s treatment of Lloyd Daniels, a former New York high school star. Also, there is talk that Tarkanian will resign after the season.

“Tark promised us that if sanctions are severe, Shon would be released from his letter of intent,” John Tarver said.

At this point, Tarver’s commitment to UNLV is only oral: Letters of intent may be signed from April 11 through May 15. However, if Tarver signs and later asks for a release, he will lose a season of eligibility.

“If he wants to ensure four seasons of eligibility, he shouldn’t sign a letter at all,” said Fred Jacoby, chairman of the national letter-of-intent steering committee. “But the problem with not signing is that after May 15, most schools have given out all their scholarships.”

Troublesome circumstances. Yet Tarver’s choice was not made on a whim and a whirlwind weekend. Shon and his father had employed a patient, patterned offensive strategy in attacking the decision, weighing the merits of each school.

They figured they had only one shot.

“Our family has been through this a number of times. We are leaving nothing to chance,” said John Tarver, who attended Colorado on a football scholarship and played running back for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles from 1972-75.

John’s brother, Bernard, played tailback at USC in the late 1970s and another brother, Roger, played fullback at Washington in the early ‘80s. All three were heavily recruited.

Last fall, Shon narrowed the field to 10 schools and his father invited each coach to the Tarver home. “We sat down face to face with the people who will be like his parents for the next four years,” John Tarver said.

The next phase was visiting UNLV, UCLA, Syracuse and Notre Dame before the season. Tarver quickly ruled out the Irish and added Georgia Tech to his list.

“The third phase was to observe the teams,” John Tarver said. “Will he fit in like the coach says? How are the players?

“The decision is made in the fourth quarter.”

That was a new experience for Tarver, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard. The fourth quarter was often a rest period for Santa Clara starters.

Santa Clara competes in the Southern Section 2-AA Division and the team’s average margin of victory was 23 points. During the regular season, college scouts had to venture to such remote Frontier League outposts as Solvang and Ojai to watch Tarver.

The state Division IV final took place March 16 at a more convenient location--the Oakland Coliseum arena--but the Saints breezed just the same, defeating Fairfield Vanden, 56-38. Unleashing everything from feathery three-point bombs to thunderous two-handed dunks, Tarver scored 35 points.

Santa Clara finished the season 28-0 and stretched its winning streak to 45 games. In Tarver’s two seasons at Santa Clara, the team was 55-1 and secured two state championships.

Tarver was named Division IV player of the year the past two seasons and was named All-American this season after averaging 31.6 points, 9.2 rebounds and 4.0 blocked shots a game. He finished his four-year varsity career with 2,445 points and a 25.0 average.

Keith Wilkes has always laid undisputed claim to the title of best basketball player to come out of Ventura County. Wilkes, who earned the nickname Silk for his smoothness while starring in the NBA, played as a sophomore and junior at Ventura High from 1966-68 before transferring to Santa Barbara High.

Those who have seen both continually argue whether Tarver was a better high school player than Wilkes. It comes down to a preference of style. Suffice it to say that since Wilkes, only Tarver has been of Silk ilk.

“He’s reminiscent of Wilkes, except that Shon Tarver has a hell of a lot more athletic ability than Wilkes did,” said Cvijanovich, Santa Clara’s coach for 32 years.

Throughout the playoffs, those watching Shon shine for the first time would break into light-headed looks of wonderment.

There’s the left-handed Tarver deftly tossing home an NBA-length three-point basket.

There he is faking the jump shot and penetrating inside before zipping a pass to a teammate neglected by a defense mesmerized by Tarver.

There he is creeping down the baseline and bounding above the rim to snare a teammate’s missed shot. Before his feet hit ground, he has crammed the ball home.

Delicious stuff. Yet he insists the recipe needs improvement.

“I’m not exceptional at anything but I can do a little bit of everything,” Tarver said. “Passing, running, jumping. I play a balanced game. I can improve my defense, my ballhandling, the release on my shot.”

His own modesty aside, testimonials to Tarver’s ability are like his baskets--they come from all over.

“If I had to pick one player to begin an all-star team, Shon Tarver would be my choice,” said Issy Washington, who regularly has his pick of the top talent in the Southland for the Slam-N-Jam league he has run for 11 years. “He’s always been a great shooter, but this year his ballhandling and court awareness have improved to the same level as his shot.”

Said Cvijanovich: “Shon is never satisfied with his performance. That’s a fine attribute. He wants to pass better, play defense better. He’s one of the best team players we’ve ever had.”

Opposing coaches are struck by the absence of cockiness in a player so full of talent. Tarver is a genuinely nice kid. “He impresses me as being a fine person,” said Dick Sebek, coach at Nordhoff, a Frontier League rival of Santa Clara. “I get that from his demeanor on the court and in our conversations.

“Essentially, it’s just little things, but when a kid is head and shoulders better than everyone he plays against, it would be easy for him to be pompous. He’s not.”

Rumors circulated that Cvijanovich and Santa Clara boosters lured Tarver to Oxnard from Righetti High in Santa Maria after the first quarter of his junior year.

Tarver lived in Santa Maria for only a few months after moving there from Lake Arrowhead, where he had attended Rim of the World High through his sophomore year.

In actuality, the trade school in Santa Maria where John Tarver was employed as an administrator went bankrupt. The nearest job opportunity was in Oxnard. And the Tarvers didn’t need a sales pitch to realize that the best basketball in Oxnard is at Santa Clara, which has won 11 Southern Section championships under Cvijanovich.

“I had never heard of Santa Clara,” Shon said. “My uncle said that it’s a great basketball school and that if we moved to Oxnard, he’d recommend it.”

Perhaps Tarver was a gift from hoop heaven to Cvijanovich for toiling for more than three decades in the high school ranks. More likely, the reputation the coach had built over that period had paid its largest dividend.

For his part, Tarver was convinced he had entered hoop hell the first day he walked into the Saints’ gym.

“I had instant respect for Coach because of all the banners hanging from the ceiling, but he put us through all kinds of drills I was unfamiliar with,” Tarver recalled. “I didn’t know when practice would end. My legs burned.

“I wasn’t used to such a high-tempo practice. There were guys with blood all over their jerseys. Everybody wanted a piece of me.”

As a freshman at Rim of the World, he started his first varsity game at age 13. As a sophomore, he was All-Southern Section.

It wasn’t until his defense improved, however, that Tarver became a candidate for Saint-hood in the eyes of Cvijanovich.

“You tell me how a guy can shoot so well, can be such a fantastic athlete, and not play defense. That’s beyond my comprehension,” Cvijanovich said. “We went to work on that right away. His work ethic is tremendous and we combined that with our hard-nosed approach to practice.

“Now he can play defense with the best of them. That’s what impresses college coaches more than anything.”

Until they become acquainted with Tarver’s family, which is his best defense against everything from a swollen head to a depressed grade-point average.

“I’ve held the family together and Shon hasn’t been exposed to street elements,” John Tarver said. “He has a lot of his mother in him. He’s a humble, caring person.”

Besides Shon, 17, John and Jean Tarver are parents of a 15-year-old daughter, Taryn, and three toddlers--Zach, 4, Joshua, 3, and Seth, 19 months. “When I’m around the house, we all have to chip in,” Shon said. “My brothers are full of all kinds of energy.”

He finds enough study time to carry a 3.1 grade-point average and he easily exceeded 700 on the SAT his first try.

Chuck Lane, the coach at Rim of the World, got a glimpse of the Tarvers’ emphasis on academics.

“I told his father on the phone that Shon wasn’t doing well in biology,” Lane said. “Shon overheard the conversation and was kind of angry with me about telling his father that. About an hour later, Shon called back and apologized to me for speaking unkindly.

“It was apparent to me that between our conversations, Shon’s father had had something to say to him.”

Tarver harbors no resentment these days and in fact uses his father’s athletic career as a model.

“My success has a lot to do with my dad,” he said. “He was a real hard worker. Other players had more talent, but he had the extra drive to make it to the pros.”

In Tarver’s mind, his parents could have done only one thing differently. Because Shon was so tall as a 4-year-old, he began kindergarten a year early. He won’t turn 18 until December.

“He’s always telling me that if he was a junior this year, he’d be the number one rated high school player in the country next year,” John Tarver said.

Instead, he probably will be the No. 3 guard for UNLV, a team that has its sights set on No. 1.