Addressing the Taunts : CSUN’s Micelli of Beverly Hills Works Hard to Dispel Public’s View of His Hometown

Peter Micelli has considered adopting a new hometown, preferably one with a more obscure ZIP code. His, he fears, leaves the wrong impression. To wit:

”. . . And at center, No. 32, from Beverly Hills . . .”

The pregame introductions aren’t yet over and Cal State Northridge’s sophomore center already is a marked man.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Micelli said, “if when the refs hear Beverly Hills , they just go . . . “ He rolls his eyes.

If nothing else, the Micelli family’s posh address provides a convenient target for barbs from the fans of opposing basketball teams. Micelli, who is generally fun-loving and personable, might as well have a bull’s-eye on his uniform.

“Hey, Mr. G.Q., Mr. 90210, they should return you postage due!” shrieked one Fresno State fan while Micelli struggled during the first half of a game against the Bulldogs in Fresno. “Time to call your chauffeur!”

Micelli, engrossed, didn’t hear the remark. But he’s not surprised by the sentiment. “A lot of people, they think I must be a spoiled brat,” he said.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

When he enrolled at Northridge, Micelli expected to play for the Matador volleyball team after each basketball season. But after his first year, he decided to concentrate on one sport.

Micelli said his choice was clear-cut. He was attending school on a basketball scholarship, so basketball it would be.

“Growing up in Beverly Hills, I didn’t have to work for much,” he said. “The scholarship was the first thing that I earned. I wasn’t going to give that up.

“It wasn’t so much the money, but the fact that it was something I earned. That I did. It was personal. I wanted to be able to say I earned my own way through school.”

Pete Cassidy, Northridge’s basketball coach, said he never lobbied against Micelli playing two sports. He never had to.

“We sat down and he told me what he was going to do,” the coach said.

Micelli is quick to explain that his family “does not come from a long line of wealth.” He said his grandfather started out as a Pennsylvania coal miner, working with hard hat and candlelight. Later, after becoming an organized labor union head, he moved his family to North Hollywood.

Nicholas Micelli, Peter’s father, said he worked digging ditches “with a pick and an ax” all over California beginning at age 12. He is now an attorney.

“It’s been a little easier for me, but my father wasn’t the easiest person to grow up with,” Peter Micelli said. “He’s very demanding.”

Were son Peter as soft as the Beverly Hills stereotype, Nicholas Micelli said, he would consider himself “(derelict) in my duties as a father.”

“To say I’m demanding is a little like calling King Kong a big ape,” he added.

His son, choosing diplomacy, said, simply, “I’m the only boy in an Italian family. That should tell you all you need to know.”

Thus Micelli is decidedly more blue-collar than blueblood. Though he plays center at only 6-foot-8 and with ordinary physical skills, he routinely holds his own against taller and more talented major-college players.

Micelli is averaging 10.0 points, a team-high 6.1 rebounds and a couple of hours a week in Cassidy’s office, poring over film.

“He spends more time critiquing, finding out what he’s not doing right so he can correct it, than anyone we have,” Cassidy said.

Micelli played for the Matadors in 1990-91 before using a redshirt year last season. As a freshman, he played extensively at the start of Northridge’s inaugural Division I season when injuries and academic problems slowed the team’s other front-court players.

Both team and player had inauspicious debuts. Northridge opened with a three-game trip during which Colorado, Colorado State and New Mexico State outscored the Matadors by a combined 107 points. Micelli, a plow horse among thoroughbreds, epitomized the team’s struggles.

His frustration showed.

“Those guys were going by me so fast . . . I was like, ‘I can’t see anything,’ ” Micelli said.

Recalled Cassidy: “There are times you look at (players) in the face to see if anyone is home,” Cassidy said. “I’m sure there were times I looked inside Pete’s eyes and found him caught between floors.”

Micelli’s playing time decreased dramatically as the season progressed. He appeared in 22 of Northridge’s 28 games but averaged 1.8 points and 1.5 rebounds in less than six minutes a outing.

“He was going against very good athletes and he hadn’t really learned to use the skills he had in a proper way to neutralize people who were older, bigger and quicker,” Cassidy said.

A year of training and practice between seasons of competition seems to have cured most of those problems.

Micelli has gained 25 pounds and is stronger and faster than he was two years ago. He always has possessed a nice shooting touch, evidenced by his 82.4% mark from the free-throw line, the best on the team.

“One thing he can do is put the ball in the hole,” Cassidy said. “People underestimate him that way.”

Many of Micelli’s points come on shots in the 15-foot range. “He has a nice jump shot, so he can score from anywhere,” said Andre Chevalier, the Matadors’ point guard.

Micelli is best suited to play forward, but he was forced to play center this season when Percy Fisher quit the team and Victor Camper, a 6-9 recruit, failed to earn academic eligibility.

Cassidy predicts the best is yet to come if Micelli can be shifted from the post position.

“He’s going to get a lot better,” Cassidy said. “We’re just finding out what his strengths are.”

A willingness to work hard obviously is one of them. So now, about that idea of adopting a hometown that better reflects his working-class methods, a suggestion:

”. . . No. 32, from the docks of San Pedro . . .”