Souza Is Marching to New Beat : Exchange Student Has Made Transition to Dana Hills Basketball

Tadeu Souza had never heard of Dana Hills High when he got a phone call one Brazilian winter day at his family’s Sao Paulo home from a representative of Rotary International.

Three years earlier he had applied to become a foreign exchange student in the United States. Now the caller from Rotary was telling him that he was being sent to a place called Orange County.

And, yes, the high school he was going to has a boys’ basketball team.

That made all the difference in the world to Souza, a standout 6-foot-7, 200-pound power forward/center, who wants to play college ball in the United States.

“I come here to study basketball,” he said through an interpreter.

Souza has definitely found a home at Dana Hills, at least on the basketball court, where veteran Coach Mark Thornton, who came here this season after 14 years at Capistrano Valley, is pleased to have him. Dana Hills is off to an 8-2 start and was ranked eighth in the initial Orange County Sportswriters’ poll. The Dolphins’ only loss was to No. 4 Woodbridge in the Irvine World News tournament last week, a game in which Souza scored 28 points and at times went one-on-one with 6-10 Warrior center Chris Burgess. Burgess, one of the top recruits in the nation, has signed with Duke. He scored 41 points, leading Woodbridge to a 79-62 victory. But Souza’s soft jump shot and his quickness around the basket were impressive.

“Tadeu is a very good athlete,” Thornton said. “He does some nice things offensively. He can really go to the hole.”

Dana Hills Principal Kay Rager said the school didn’t know anything about Souza, or his basketball ability, when he enrolled a week or so after school began this fall.

“We got a call from Rotary asking us if we would accept an exchange student,” Rager said. “We said yes. It’s always good for the kids here to meet students from other countries.

“Someone said he could play basketball,” she said. “Actually, I didn’t think it would turn out this way. When I think of someone from Brazil, I don’t think of basketball players.”

Muscular and mature, Souza appears to have made a big impression on campus, where, according to Rager, he has been scrutinized by students and teachers.

“The first time I saw him,” she said, “I thought he was someone’s dad.”

Thornton said his biggest problem with Souza has been the language barrier. Although Souza studied English for three years in Brazil in preparation, communication has been difficult at times, Thornton said.

“I have some difficulty getting him to do all the things I want him to when he is on the floor,” Thornton said. “He speaks English well enough at school, but it is difficult when you get in a competitive situation, with all the noise and the things you have to think about, to concentrate on what I’m saying in English.”

Indeed, during an interview, Souza preferred to converse through an interrupter in his native Portuguese. His answers were laced with English, however.

“I like basketball. It is better for me to be here,” he said. “I want to play for a college in the United States.”

As an exchange student, Souza is restricted in what he can and cannot do. He is primarily here to attend school as a sort of young ambassador for his country. He lives with a host family, which is responsible for his meals. He cannot hold a job, so any spending money he gets comes from his parents in Sao Paulo.

He is studying English and doing well in his classes, according to Rager. Thornton, who has Souza in a keyboard class, says that the more English Souza absorbs, the more it will help him on the basketball court.

“We think that as we have him in the program more and we can teach him what we want him to do, he will get even better,” Thornton said. “We think by the time the league begins that he will be ready.”