Massive Massie

Big, burly Chris Massie was homesick. He missed his family. He missed his daughter. He missed Texas, doggone it.

And he was worried. He had never played high school basketball and there he was, at 23, about to join a college team.

Massie desperately wanted to climb back on the train, back to Houston and life as it was. The whole thing felt more and more like a bad idea, he thought.

He had been in Oxnard all of one day last August and he was miserable.

“I had never, ever been anywhere,” Massie said, a gold-capped front tooth peeking through his smile. “I was ready to go back home. I talked to my mom and she said to stay and see how things went.”

Massie is thrilled he stayed.

After overcoming his doubts and fears, Massie is rounding into a formidable center.

“He’s like a sponge,” Coach Ron McClurkin said. “He’s just soaking up everything. Usually, you just have to tell him once. Most of the things he does are instinctive.

“Here’s a guy who honestly doesn’t know how good he is and how good he can be.”

Massie, 6 feet 8 and 255 pounds, is getting a hint.

There are the stats: 20.6 points per game, best on the team, and 14.4 rebounds per game and 63.6% shooting, both best in the Western State Conference.

There are the feelers from four-year schools such as San Diego State and Fresno State, all jockeying for recruiting position.

There are the true believers.

“He’s a force,” Moorpark Coach Remy McCarthy said. “He moves real well. He’s real athletic. He just needs more experience.”

McCarthy got a close look at Massie on Saturday, when Oxnard defeated Moorpark, 79-74, in a Northern Division game. Massie had 18 points and 14 rebounds.

Behind Massie and several talented sophomores, the Condors were 14-6, 1-0 in division play, before hosting Ventura on Wednesday night, their best start in years.

It might have been a much different season for the Condors had Massie returned home to his job as an electrician apprentice and to the midnight basketball league, where he played twice a week.

That’s where Arthur Zeno, who played for McClurkin at El Camino College, spotted Massie. McClurkin said Zeno, a college scout, was shocked Massie had never played organized basketball.

“I was kind of leery myself, because I get calls all the time from guys who want to play,” McClurkin said.

Massie could play, but never showed it at Elkins High in Arcola, about 25 miles southwest of Houston.

The middle of nine children, Massie grew up playing basketball on a dirt court at home and on playgrounds. His mother, Bernice, was a high school standout in nearby Sugar Land and his sister, Stephanie, played at San Diego State.

But Massie, who already was 6-5 as a freshman, didn’t try out for the team at Elkins.

“I heard the coaches didn’t like me or my friends,” Massie said. “If [they had] something against me, what’s the point of me playing?

“At the time I had no car to go to another school, no way to get back and forth, so I stayed.”

Massie left Elkins during his junior year and later earned a general equivalency degree. He was working for an electrical contractor before coming to Oxnard.

Living on his own is becoming easier for Massie. He is relaxed and laughs easily, and his eyes sparkle, especially when talking about his 8-month-old daughter, Christina. Or about home cooking.

Massie spent the holiday break in Arcola, eating to his heart’s content and visiting with Christina, who lives with her mother.

“He loves my biscuits and pancakes,” said Bernice, who raised most of her children alone after her husband, Carl, died of a heart attack in 1987. “I do a lot of baking and he just loves good food, period.

“I told him he could eat all he wanted. I told him he’d work it off later.”

He already has, for there isn’t an ounce of fat on his muscular body, chiseled by genetics rather than the weight room. It is that physique, and his unlimited potential as a player, that might keep Massie away from home for some time.

“I think I should be able to move on [to a four-year school],” Massie said.

Hopefully, without being homesick again.