Coping With Reality : Valley’s Rush Changed Priorities to Regain Basketball Eligibility

On a rainy afternoon the day before Valley College opened play in the women’s state basketball tournament, guard Tisa Rush--the team’s leading scorer and its ace defensive player--arrived late for practice. Frazzled, sore and wet, she still was reeling from the effects of an auto accident earlier that day.

On her way to the funeral of a close friend, Rush had stopped her compact sedan at a Pacoima stop sign and was hit from behind by a man in a blue station wagon. When last seen by Rush, “the big blue buggy was backing up” and squealing away, she said, adding with a smile: “But I got his license-plate number and gave it to the police.”

Rush had been wearing her seat belt, so the only real damage was to her car, which was disabled, and to her psyche. The randomness of the accident made her feel vulnerable and helpless, adding to the gloom she already felt in having to attend a friend’s funeral in the rain. “Life is hard,” she said with a trace of melancholy.

Rush’s mood--perfect for reading Edgar Allan Poe, not for playing basketball--wasn’t improved when she went to retrieve her car later that night and discovered the stereo stolen. “It’s been a bad week,” said Rush, who had been forced to miss practice the previous day because of the flu.

Despite a “slightly stiff neck” Rush was not concerned about possibly being unprepared physically and mentally for Valley’s first-round game on Thursday against Merritt College. “I have to just get my mind together and go on out and play,” she said. “But I’m pretty strong-minded. I don’t let things get to me for long. Nothing is going to keep me from playing. I could have two broken feet and I’d still play.”

Rush’s resolve notwithstanding, there is something that has stopped her from playing for the Lady Monarchs: grades. Prior to the 1989-90 season, which would have been her second at Valley, she was declared academically ineligible. It was the first time in her life that she had hit a roadblock--and she was the one who put it there.

“I was immature and wanted to have too much fun,” she said. “I wasn’t focusing my life.”

Valley Coach Doug Michelson was not happy about losing a player who had averaged nearly 19 points a game. “She’s one of the best guards we’ve ever had here and one of the premier guards in the state,” he said. “She’s certainly capable of getting good grades.” Last year, he made sure Rush hit the books. “One of the reasons she became eligible,” he said, “was because we stayed on her.”

Since her academic slip-up, Rush has changed friends and priorities. “For the things I want to do, there’s only one way to go,” she said, “and that’s to stay in school.”

Rush’s “dream” is playing for Cal State Long Beach--”I like their style of play,” she said--and her coaches think she is a bona fide NCAA Division I player. “She can play anywhere,” Valley assistant John Taylor said. “If she develops her left hand some more, no telling how good she could be at that level.”

Considered one of the best woman players in L. A., Rush starred at Kennedy High and could have gone to a Division I school had her grades been better. “We recruited her,” Michelson said, “but only when it it became apparent that her grades wouldn’t get her into a major university, she became interested in us.”

Known for speed and quickness, the 5-foot-5 1/2 Rush averaged about 18 points this season--hitting 35 recently when Valley clinched a share of its fourth consecutive Western State Conference championship--but it was on defense that she struck fear into opponents.

“She gives people bringing the ball up real problems,” Moorpark College Coach Gary Abraham said.

Michelson called Rush “as quick defensively as anybody I’ve seen in the women’s game.” Taylor said, “Most people only see her offense, but she’s a cat on defense.”

Rush’s talents aren’t confined to basketball. Michelson says she astounded him this season when he had the players over to his Valencia home after a game against College of the Canyons and she entertained them by playing classical music on the piano. Michelson called her “gifted musically,” but Rush said she merely “has a slight ear for music.”

Classical, however, is on the opposite end of the spectrum from her favorite music, rap. Rush writes her own rap songs--her first efforts were gospel rap--and has recorded several demo tapes in studios, impressing her teammates. “She’s a damn good rapper for a girl,” guard Falicia Stanley said.

A few hours before the state tournament game, Rush put Zapp on the stereo and relaxed at her parents’ Pacoima home. The cobwebs gone, she went out and scored 10 points in helping the Lady Monarchs to a 63-54 win.

So much for bad weeks.