Playing Through Pain

Damon Ollie tried to talk through the tears.

He sat on a chair, stooped forward, his elbows resting on knees, his voice reduced to little more than a whisper.

It has been only six weeks since his mother died and Ollie, the top player on the Santa Monica College basketball team, struggles with the pain every day.

“The last happy time I remember the most is when she was helping me get dressed for the prom,” Ollie said, pausing briefly to collect himself. “She wanted to make sure everything was perfect.”

That was nearly two years ago, just before Gail Ancar’s kidneys became irreparably damaged and finally failed. She died Dec. 15. She was 43.

For Ollie, who turned 20 on Tuesday, it was the second staggering blow in less than a year.

Last February, Ollie’s teammate and friend, Davy Fortson, was gunned down after arguing with reputed gang members at a Santa Monica fast-food restaurant.

Ollie, a former North Hollywood High star, had barely put Fortson’s death behind him when tragedy struck again. Now, using basketball and school as a catharsis, he’s slowly coming to terms with his mother’s death. But the memories sometimes overwhelm him.

“I think about her mainly when I’m by myself,” Ollie said. “I just sit and get all sad.”

Ancar raised Ollie and his stepbrother, Dana Jones. She lived with her parents in Los Angeles and traveled three times a week, usually before dawn, for dialysis treatments at a clinic. She was often depressed and cried frequently.

Then, in August, Ancar told her sons that she would stop the treatments.

“She didn’t want to do it anymore because it was too painful,” Ollie said. “I tried to put myself in that situation. I didn’t want her to continue going through it if she was feeling terrible.”

Ollie, who was living in Santa Monica, returned to school in September. Jones, also a former North Hollywood star, left for Japan to play professional basketball. Ollie visited his mother regularly but cut back when it became too hard.

“I was close to her but not as close as I would have wanted to be. . . . I just didn’t like seeing her like that,” Ollie said. “She couldn’t deal with it, basically. . . . I would never let her see me cry because I wanted her to know I was strong.”

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Despite his sorrow, Ollie is playing remarkably well.

A 6-foot-5 sophomore power forward and team captain, Ollie leads the Corsairs with averages of 16 points and 10.8 rebounds and has been largely responsible for the team’s success the past two seasons.

Going into a home game tonight against Valley (18-8), the Corsairs are 21-3 and ranked eighth in the state. Both teams are 3-1 in the Western State Conference South Division.

Last season, Ollie averaged 21.1 points and 9.5 rebounds during the regular season and helped Santa Monica win the division title.

Ollie says his offensive numbers are slightly off from last season’s because the Corsairs are more balanced.

“There isn’t a lot of pressure put on me to score,” Ollie said. “Last [season], we didn’t have that many big men. This season, we don’t have to rely on one person to score, rebound and do everything.”

Maybe not, but Coach John McMullen knows how indispensable Ollie is to the Corsairs.

“As the season has progressed, he has asserted his role as a leader,” said McMullen, in his 18th season at Santa Monica. “He’s never going to be a rah-rah guy, but he’s been a quiet motivator. He seems to rise and play his best in the big games.”

Ollie had plenty of those at North Hollywood, a school he attended because Jones played there.

Ollie led the Huskies to three consecutive undefeated league titles and was selected All-City Section each season. In 1993-94, his senior season, he averaged 20.1 points and 18.0 rebounds. But he did not meet NCAA Division I academic requirements and chose to play in junior college.

He picked up at Santa Monica where he left off with the Huskies and is being courted this season by several four-year schools.

“I think he’s got the best instincts of any junior college player I’ve seen this year in the state,” said one West Coast recruiter. “He has excellent hands and a nose for rebounding. We’d love to have him in our program.”

Which is no shocker for McMullen, who describes Ollie as likable and easy to coach.

“He has a strong character and that’s a reflection of the care he got from his mother,” McMullen said.

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That quality was thoroughly tested throughout his mother’s illness, particularly the day she died.

The Corsairs were playing in the Cypress tournament when Ollie received a call from relatives that his mother, who remained at home until the end, had taken a turn for the worse. Ollie visited her late one night after a game and returned to the tournament.

“She had been crying a lot but my uncle calmed her down and I was able to talk to her for a while,” Ollie said. “I knew she was bad but I didn’t expect anything like that.”

It was their last time together. She died the next day.

Ollie decided to play the following night in the championship game and scored 23 points to lead the Corsairs to a 95-80 victory over Victor Valley. He was selected the tournament’s most valuable player, the third time he received that honor this season.

All the accolades, however, can’t soften Ollie’s pain.

“My mind wonders off all the time,” he said. “I still think about her every day. I’ll always do that no matter how much time goes by.”