A Smooth Transition : Lalazarian Handling Life at Notre Dame, Unlike Tustin Teammate

Snow crunches under his size 17 sneakers. Flakes dance wildly around his head, some clinging to his baseball cap for a rest. Wind slices through leafless trees, slapping his cheeks to a crimson glow.

Stepping into the warmth and calm of Notre Dame’s Joyce Center, David Lalazarian shivers and smiles. “This is kind of neat,” he says, “but I hear January and February are brutal.”

Lalazarian has only to wake each morning and sneak a peek out his dorm window to remind himself he’s a long way from home. He ventured here--like former Tustin High teammate Doug Gottlieb the year before him--to embrace the tradition, to fulfill a long-held dream of playing center-stage Division I basketball.

Because Gottlieb found only nightmares, Lalazarian must have had his doubts last summer when he arrived on campus. Was South Bend as cold as the icy St. Joseph River that runs through it?

Last week, in a courtroom a few miles away from that shining golden dome, Gottlieb pleaded guilty to theft for using classmates’ credit cards to purchase $900 worth of jewelry and sporting goods. He was fined $500 and received a suspended one-year jail sentence.

Gottlieb started 23 of 27 games as a freshman last season and led the Irish with 154 assists. But he felt as if no one wanted to assist him when he was slipping into despair. Gottlieb describes his life as days spent in bed with the covers pulled over his head and nights at parties he never felt a part of.

His actions, he says, were a cry for help.

All of which may have caused Lalazarian to pause last summer but only serves to puzzle him now. Because Lalazarian walks this campus looking like a kid with a four-year pass to Disney World.

He had always looked up to Gottlieb and still considers him a close friend. He says Gottlieb’s presence at Notre Dame was not a deciding factor in his decision to play for the Irish, only “a bonus.”

“I was completely shocked when I heard about the credit-card thing. At first I didn’t believe it,” Lalazarian said. “We’ve talked a little bit about it, but basically I just said, ‘OK, you made a huge mistake and you realize it. There’ll be better days ahead.’ ”

Still, Lalazarian can’t relate to factors that drove his friend to prey on three dorm-mates, who had allowed Gottlieb to use their computers and play their video games. Thousands of 18-year-olds go away to college each year. Most of them get homesick. Few steal credit cards.

“The first month here, I was pretty homesick,” Lalazarian said. “There are big adjustments to be made. Classes are tough. You really have to study. And the first few practices were tough, everybody here was a big star in high school.

“But overall it’s been a real enjoyable experience.”

Lalazarian wouldn’t mind a little partying, but he usually can’t find the time. Actually--don’t tell the guys on the team--he’d really rather sleep. But “no matter how tired you are after practice, you’ve got to force yourself to read books,” he said.

Sleep deprivation? A little.

But no long bouts of depression or feelings of alienation.

“I’ve got good friends on the team and I make the effort to make friends in classes too,” he said. “I haven’t had a date since I’ve been here because I don’t have time, but everybody I’ve met has been really nice and very helpful.

“And I figure after the first semester, it will be even better. Of course I’ve got an 8:30 class next semester, so maybe it won’t be any easier because I’ve got to force myself out of bed every morning.”

Lalazarian may have trouble heeding the clock’s alarm, but he’s up and at ‘em all the time on the basketball court. By all accounts, he’s making an incredibly smooth transition from the high school game to the brand of basketball played in the Big East.

A 6-foot-8, 195-pound forward, he played 19 minutes in Notre Dame’s exhibition game against the Australian Junior National team last week and made five of nine shots, five of six free throws and grabbed seven rebounds.

“He’s been very impressive,” Notre Dame Coach John MacLeod said. “He’s an interesting young man, bright, very perceptive, very effective. He doesn’t draw a lot of attention to himself, but he efficiently gets the job done. He knows how to read defenses, he’s a very good passer and he’s stronger than he looks.

“And, since he’s been here, he’s improved his speed. He’s lengthened his stride and is sustaining it down and back and down and back again. The kid can really play and he’s fit in extremely well.”

Lalazarian got this far this fast because of a sharp mind and a cutting-edge work ethic, but he also owes a lot to both the presence--and then absence--of Gottlieb at Tustin High.

During his sophomore and junior seasons, Lalazarian built his reputation and court confidence on a foundation of passes from point guard Gottlieb.

“The first couple of years, it was mostly Doug penetrating and then giving me easy shots around the basket,” Lalazarian said. “But after my junior year, I knew I’d have to expand my game and work really hard to develop an outside game.”

Lalazarian decided to decline early-signing season scholarship offers from Santa Clara and UC Irvine--”I wanted to go to a better school, both academically and basketball-wise”--and concentrated on dribbling and shooting.

The results of his efforts were immediately apparent, and he soon discovered that being on the outside looking in can be a lot of fun. Playing more on the perimeter and less in the post, he set a single-season school record with 668 points as a senior. After pondering scholarship offers from Indiana, Miami, USC and others, he left for Notre Dame as the leading scorer in Tiller history with 1,538 points.

He arrived as one exceptionally refined, poised and well-rounded freshman.

“If he catches a smaller guy on him, he takes him right to the rim,” MacLeod said, “but he’s also got some crafty little hesitation moves and stutter steps he uses to get free on the perimeter. He’s already a quality player who’s only going to improve.

“He’s a freshman, but he doesn’t get rattled. He has the kind of self confidence you like to see, not cocky, but he doesn’t doubt his talent. He believes he belongs here and he’s right, and we’re counting on him. He’s going to play a lot of minutes.”

Not only does Lalazarian make most of the right moves, he also says all the right stuff.

“I’m not worrying about anything but taking advantage of every opportunity they give me,” he said. “I’m going to keep working hard on my ballhandling, shooting and defense. I’m going to try to improve and help the team every time I get on the floor.”

He came here expecting to be on the receiving end of passes from Gottlieb, not locker-room jokes about him, but Lalazarian laughs, too, when his teammates cling to their wallets and accuse him of being just another desperado from that infamous sin city out West . . . Tustin.

“It’s pretty funny and it’s all in fun,” he says.

And maybe it’s because he’s overcompensating in an effort to disassociate himself from the Gottlieb case, but Lalazarian can’t seem to stop talking about how much fun he’s having these days.

“When I first got out here and experienced my first football weekend, oh man, it was wild,” he said. “I mean, these people go crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Gottlieb had never experienced anything like it either, but rather than being swept along by the heady wave of Fighting Irish pride, he was drowning in it.

“It wasn’t any one thing,” Gottlieb’s father, Bob, said. “It was his personal life, his athletic life, his life as a student in the dorms. He internalized it all and the accumulative effect of the situation, the pressure and loneliness that he felt, resulted in him falling apart.

“In his own words, he broke down.”

MacLeod said Gottlieb had talked about being homesick and was dissatisfied with his playing time and his offensive involvement. But he, too, was “very surprised,” when informed his point guard had been charged with theft.

MacLeod believes helping student-athletes cope with the transition from high school student to university student is just as important as dealing with the jump from high school athlete to major-college athlete. He’s unsure how he failed in Gottlieb’s case, but is hopeful “Doug will get therapy and iron this out.”

“You’re going from high school basketball to Division I basketball, from high school to an academic life at a major university,” MacLeod said. “Stepping up to those levels and also controlling your new freedom is a great challenge for all freshmen.

“But this should also be such a great phase of your life. And these kids won’t really recognize how great until they’re 35 and look back and say, ‘Jeepers, that was fun.’ ”

OK, maybe Doug Gottlieb won’t be saying that.

But David Lalazarian is planning on it.