Cunningham Takes Long Way Home, but It’s Worth the Wait

It has been a strange six-year journey, but Jason Cunningham is finally getting his opportunity to play Division I basketball.

It’s odd that it would be at Cal State Fullerton.

When Cunningham finished as Los Alamitos’ all-time leading scorer in 1992, he had no interest in playing for the Titans.

“I wanted to play away from home,” Cunningham said.

As it turned out, Cunningham didn’t play anywhere the next season.

“I failed a geometry class [in high school] and wasn’t eligible,” he said. “My brother was stationed in the Air Force at Las Vegas, so I lived with him there for a year and took a couple of units at a junior college.”

Cunningham hoped to play at Nevada Las Vegas, and got into some pickup games in Las Vegas with UNLV players. Rollie Massimino, UNLV’s coach at the time, showed some interest in him, Cunningham said. But Massimino was forced out at UNLV, and Cunningham ended up at Westark College in Fort Smith, Ark.

After one season there, Cunningham transferred to Fullerton College, where he averaged 18.6 points.

Cunningham still hadn’t given up on playing at UNLV. He enrolled there in 1995, thinking he might get a chance as a walk-on. “But by then Bill Bayno had come in, and he had his own people,” Cunningham said. “I didn’t fit in.”

Cunningham decided to return to his backyard one more time, and asked Coach Bob Hawking for a chance to walk on with the Titans. Hawking gave it to him. But then the NCAA said Cunningham had to sit out last season as a transfer from a four-year school.

Finally, six years after playing his last high school game, Cunningham played his first Division I basketball game for the Titans in November as a fifth-year senior.

*

Cunningham has been in the starting lineup at small forward the last seven games. That has been a tribute, as much as anything, to his solid defense, passing and rebounding.

“He’s as hard a worker as we have in our program,” Hawking said. “‘He gives us a lot of different things. He’s not a one-dimensional player, and he’s been playing a lot better lately.

“Jason was putting too much pressure on himself at the start of the season. He was trying to never miss a shot, never miss a defensive assignment. But he was making some mistakes because he was trying so hard. He’s settled down a lot more now, and he’s doing better.”

Cunningham says he made up his mind that he would become a role player this season.

“This team already had its established scorers in [Chris] Dade and [Chris] St. Clair, and an up-and-coming player in Ike Harmon,” Cunningham said. “I figured the way for me to be an asset to the team was to be a defensive stopper, crash the glass and to look for the open man. All good teams have role players. I’m satisfied with doing the dirty work.”

Cunningham, 6 feet 5 and 190 pounds, led the Titans in rebounding with nine in last week’s victory over Long Beach State. Then he scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds in Saturday’s loss at Pacific.

*

Hawking says he’s considering putting Cunningham on scholarship for the second semester as a reward for his play in the first half of the season.

There’s also a chance Cunningham could gain another year of eligibility.

Normally, players have only five years to play four seasons. But Fullerton plans to seek another season based on the fact that Cunningham was required to sit out the season after his transfer from UNLV, even though he didn’t play there the previous year.

“I think he’ll get the extra year,” Hawking said. “We can’t appeal until this season is over, but the correspondence we’ve had so far with the NCAA has been favorable.”

Cunningham says he’ll just wait and hope for the best.

“I’ll keep on playing this season like it’s my last, and hoping that it won’t be,” he said.

Titan Notes

Volleyball player Carolyn Kittell, who will transfer from Fullerton to Oklahoma, says she decided she wanted “a more traditional college experience.” Kittell said she had no complaints with the Titan program. “I had a great time at Fullerton, and being close to home was good for me as a freshman, but I decided I wanted something else,” she said. “At Oklahoma, everyone is really involved with the athletic program, and it’s a college town.” . . . Titan second baseman Ryan Owens is among the first nine players invited to USA Baseball’s summer team tryouts, which begin June 1 in Tucson. . . . Chris Dade has moved ahead of Cedric Ceballos into the No. 6 spot among the school’s all-time leading scorers in men’s basketball with 1,287 points. Ceballos scored 1,284 from 1989-90.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Coming Attractions

Key games this week for Cal State Fullerton:

* College baseball against California 7 tonight and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, at Titan Field.

* Men’s basketball against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 7 p.m. Saturday in Titan Gym.

* Women’s basketball at UC Santa Barbara 7 tonight and at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 2 p.m. Sunday.

* Women’s gymnastics against UC Santa Barbara 7 tonight in Titan Gym.

* Women’s tennis against St. Mary’s 11 a.m. Sunday at Titan Courts.