Tower Finds There’s No Place Like Home : College basketball: Graduate of Westminster High transfers to Cal State Long Beach and discovers his comfort zone.

On a sun-splashed day last week, Chris Tower found a quiet spot to relax in the courtyard between gymnasiums at Cal State Long Beach.

He wore a “Red Hot Chili Peppers” T-shirt--signifying an allegiance to his favorite alternative rock band--black jeans and black high-tops. He had a backpack, stuffed with textbooks, slung over his shoulder and carried a Walkman in his hand.

Except for the fact that he’s nearly 7 feet tall and the starting center for the 17-10 49er basketball team, Tower looked like just another junior among the school’s 35,000 students.

Friends, on their way to a class or the Student Union for lunch, called out hellos. Tower, who sat on the steps leading to an athletic department office, smiled and waved greetings in return.

Life is good at “The Beach.”

Indeed, the results are finally beginning to catch up to Tower’s expectations. For several years after he graduated from Westminster High School, disappointment and discomfort seemed to be his constant companions. The more he hoped for happiness in his college basketball career, the more miserable he became.

Now, it’s not so much a double-figure scoring average, a starting position for all 27 Long Beach games this season, an All-Big West Conference honorable mention or the 49ers’ No. 3 seeding and a game against Cal State Fullerton in the opening round of the Big West tournament tonight that have made Tower happy.

It’s simply that he’s found a comfort zone. Long Beach feels like home, and it should. After all, the campus is only a 10-minute drive north on the San Diego Freeway from his parents’ home in Huntington Beach.

That feeling of familiarity is what Tower hoped to gain when he traded in the Pit, New Mexico’s gleaming 19,000-seat arena, for Long Beach’s 1,900-seat gym that has been called the pits.

It didn’t happen overnight, but four years after graduating from Westminster and three years after transferring from New Mexico, Tower is finally content.

“I’m having a great time,” Tower he said. “This is about what I wanted to have happen. It’s right where I always expected to be.”

And that has had a profound effect on his game. He averaged a less-than-stunning 6.5 points and 3.8 rebounds after becoming eligible at Long Beach eight games into last season. In his first 13 games this season, he averaged 9.8 points and 5.4 rebounds, but in the last 14 games, his averages have zoomed to 16.6 points and 7.2 rebounds.

“I think right now Chris feels good about basketball, and if he feels good about himself, he’ll play better,” Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg said. “I can’t imagine him playing another game for us when he doesn’t score in double figures and get seven rebounds.”

Not long ago, 10 points in a game would have seemed like a career night for Tower.

How it got that way is a sad tale Tower would just as soon forget.

When he left Westminster for New Mexico in 1988, he had all the right credentials. He was 6-10 and, except for a rail-thin build, appeared to have few weaknesses.

Dick Katz, his coach at Westminster, had hammered versatility into each practice session. As a result, Tower’s post moves and rebounding were as sound as his 18-foot jump shot. He averaged 24.2 points, fifth-best in Orange County that season, earned Times’ All-County and All-Southern Section honors.

Greenberg, then an assistant at Long Beach, hustled to sign Tower, but, in the end, New Mexico Coach Gary Colson won the recruiting battle.

“Dick Katz did a great job with him in high school,” said Greenberg, who attended every game Tower played in his senior season at Westminster. “Coming out of high school, he had a solid set of fundamentals. He had an understanding of the game and he had the skills. He understood the hows and the whys.”

Long Beach was fine, but New Mexico seemed like a perfect spot for Tower.

A giant arena, statewide attention, a well-known coach and a perfect tutor in 7-foot center Luc Longley awaited Tower in Albuquerque. But all that came crashing down in a heap before his freshman season began.

New Mexico Athletic Director John Koenig fired Colson, who had led the Lobos to a 22-14 record and an upset over No. 1-ranked Arizona at the Pit, a move that shocked many. Koenig was later fired for alleged misuse of school funds, but no matter, the damage was done.

“I really didn’t want to go, but I had to,” Tower said. “I’d signed a letter of intent. I had this idea when I signed it all was going to be perfect. When that all came out and Colson was fired, what could I do? There was nothing I could do to make the situation better.”

Dave Bliss, the new Lobo coach, knew nothing of this 6-10 recruit from California, and Tower had to prove himself all over again.

“Every high school kid has these great ideas that they’re going to be ‘the man’ wherever they go,” Tower said.

Tower quickly became Mr. Example.

“If I messed up (in a practice drill) everybody knew about it,” he said. “It was little things like that. It wasn’t Coach Bliss’ fault. It was as much a bad situation for him as it was for me.”

As an understudy to Longley, now the Minnesota Timberwolves’ starting center, Tower played 15 games as a freshman, averaging 2.2 points and 1.5 rebounds.

His career wasn’t all he hoped it would be, however. He was downcast and fearful for his future at New Mexico when an ankle injury sealed his fate.

“First, I wanted to get home,” Tower said. “Basketball-wise I knew I had talent. I knew I could play, but I had to prove to myself that I still could.”

There was no question in Tower’s mind that he would play for Greenberg, who became the 49ers’ head coach when Joe Harrington took a job at Colorado in 1990.

It was not a smooth transition for Tower, however. As a redshirt, his patience was tried and his play was not what it should have been when he was finally eligible to play last season.

“I think his competitiveness suffered,” Greenberg said. “I don’t think he’s an overly confident kid to begin with.”

Said Tower: “It had a lot to do with feeling comfortable and finding my niche on this team and the other players having confidence in me.”

Slowly but surely, it’s all come together for Tower.

He has scored in double figures in 14 consecutive games, including a 23-point performance in a 93-80 victory over San Jose State Sunday. Against Fullerton, he had 18 points and seven rebounds in a 78-77 loss Jan. 25, and 17 points and 12 rebounds in an 85-71 victory Feb. 20.

“Every coach I’ve ever played for has said I’m a late bloomer,” he said. “There’s more potentially to learn. I don’t know . . . I still think I can get better.”