McKnight Wants to Step Up, Fill the Void

Clay McKnight always looked up to Brian Keefe--literally--as UC Irvine’s starting lineup was announced. And once the game started, McKnight was still looking up, at what he hoped to be his future.

Keefe, the sophomore captain who led the team in scoring last season, has asked for and received permission to transfer. Kevin Simmons, the team’s No. 2 scorer and top rebounder, is leaving too.

And for McKnight, the future is now.

“I don’t know their reasons, but you have to respect their choice,” McKnight said. “I really don’t understand it, but for the rest of us who are staying, we have to concentrate on making the best of the situation.

“It’s one of those situations where you have absolutely no control over it, so you just have to stay positive and do everything you can to help the team win. It’s definitely a challenge for the rest of us.”

Actually, the Anteaters have a few months before the challenge begins and the freshman who set an Orange County record for three-pointers while at Mater Dei will be a year wiser. He saw what an off-season in the weight room can do for a skinny freshman when Keefe came back to school at the end of last summer with 10 added pounds of muscle and proceeded to crash to the basket with a ferocity uncommon in slight, 6-foot-4 sophomores.

“I want to be like that,” McKnight said. “I’m going to spend a lot of time with the weights this off-season. Brian is such a thoroughbred, he gets the ball and just goes.”

McKnight now understands what he must do to excel at the Division I level. He has to shoot, of course, but few question this kid’s ability to do that. And he erased any doubts during his freshman season, drilling 34 of 71 three-pointers in Big West Conference play.

But he must dribble and drive and defend too.

“Speed is speed and I don’t know how much quicker I can get,” he said, “but the way Brian goes to the hoop so hard, I think a lot of it is just confidence because he’s so strong. And I can tell you from experience, because I’ve done it in practice, you don’t want to take a charge against Brian.”

McKnight won’t have to worry about that anymore. His father, Gary, the coach at Mater Dei, won’t have to slap his forehead in disgust when Coach Rod Baker pulls his son off the floor so Keefe can come back in.

Playing time doesn’t figure to be an issue: Let us know when you’re gassed, Clay. Then it’s five deep breaths on the sideline and you’re back in.

McKnight say he will do all he can to help the Anteaters hang together next season, but he’s not sure he can be the kind of team leader Keefe was.

“It’s not easy being captain,” he said. “I’m not a very vocal guy and sometimes you have to be [a jerk] to the other players when you don’t want to. But Brian was always there hyping us up for practice, getting us ready to play. He was as a good a leader as any team could have.”

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Support group: The exodus of Keefe and Simmons has shaken the Irvine athletic administration like an earthquake. But doesn’t disaster often bring out the best in people?

Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, who usually heaps out praise for Baker with a teaspoon, is expressing total support for the coach. Remember, this is a man whose highest compliment for his coach after the season was, “this season showed evidence of a learning curve.”

Baker received Big West and District 15 coach of the year honors after Irvine’s 15-12 season and earned a bit of national respect when the Anteaters won on the road at St. John’s, Nevada, Utah State and Long Beach State. But there’s no contract extension in the works.

Baker has a season left on the extension he signed in 1994--which came after Baker’s teams were 23-63 in his first three years--when Horace Mitchell was vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life. Mitchell, a driving force behind that agreement, has taken a similar position at Cal, however, and UC Irvine’s administration has been restructured, giving Guerrero more autonomy.

Guerrero runs Irvine’s athletic department the way Michael Eisner runs the Walt Disney Co. and Baker just doesn’t seem to fit the mold. There’s no place for grim faces or dark humor and Baker specializes in both.

Consider some of Guerrero’s most recent hires:

* Marine Cano. Call Irvine’s director of soccer/women’s coach at home and you’ll either get a guy who’s more effervescent than a bottle of cheap champagne or an answering machine telling you that “Mr. Soccer” is not available. He’s probably out holding a clinic for a dozen AYSO 10-year olds--and selling the virtues of UC Irvine, of course--but you can bet your house he’ll call you back.

* Jeff Johnston. The new golf coach makes Barney look like a pessimist. He envisions the Anteaters as NCAA champions. If they make it, no one will be investigating his program. He’s working on his doctorate. . . . in religion and social ethics.

* Merja Connolly. Talk about high energy, the new women’s volleyball coach could power a small city for a couple of days. Her attributes? Let Guerrero tell it: “Her character is above reproach and her passion, enthusiasm, leadership abilities and technical expertise will surely take our program to the next level.”

Guerrero has yet to issue any facial-hair edicts, but that goatee is probably working against Baker too.

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No (big) deal: Baker insists his contract is not an issue.

“My contract hasn’t come up yet, I’m not at that point,” he said. “I’ve given that absolutely no thought.”

But do recruits consider it an issue?

Baker’s employment status didn’t stop Brian Johnson, a 6-foot-7 forward who averaged 22 points and 15 rebounds last season at Bellflower St. John Bosco High, and Damion Pugh, a 6-2 guard from Laguna Beach High who averaged 11 points, from signing letters of intent in the past week.

And you can bet they were well aware of Baker’s contract status.

“The kids believe in what we’re trying to do enough to want to be a part of it,” Baker said. “Isn’t that the bottom line?”

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Anteater Notes

Junior Skye Green ran the second-fastest 400-meter hurdles in Irvine history a week ago at UCLA and finished in third place. Friday, she broke the school record with a time of 59.11 seconds in the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational and finished second. Her time was under the NCAA provisional qualifying time. The time for automatic qualification in the event is 57.65. . . . Three-time Olympian Steve Scott, who still holds the U.S. record for the mile, will run the 1,500 meters for the first time in three years May 4 when he participates in the Steve Scott Invitational hosted by Irvine’s track and field teams. . . . The men’s tennis team, which moved up to No. 22 on last week’s Rolex/Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. poll, is top-seeded for the Big West Championships this week in Ojai and will open Friday against eighth-seeded Utah State. The Anteaters dropped their last four matches. . . . . The women’s tennis team, which lost to Cal State Fullerton last week, opens play in the conference championships Wednesday against the Titans. . . . The golf team defeated three of the top four Big West teams and four teams ranked in the top 50 during the 54-hole U.S. Intercollegiate Tournament, which concluded last week at Stanford University Golf Course. Irvine, which is unranked, finished sixth out of the field of 19, ahead of No. 31 UTEP, No. 34 Pacific, No. 35 New Mexico State and No. 49 Nevada. The Anteaters will compete in the Big West Conference Championships Monday through next Tuesday at Fort Ord Golf Course in Seaside, Calif.