Senor Sensation

It has been almost 20 years since Fernando Valenzuela first cocked his eyes skyward from the Dodger Stadium mound and, frankly, L.A. could use another sports mania.

Anything in the works?

Por favor?

Word out of Mexico is that there may lurk a candidate for phenom-dom.

Soccer will always be king of the country, flanked by baseball and boxing in the royal court, but as the NBA continues to make inroads south of the border, a player from Chihuahua named Eduardo Najera is prompting kids to trade in their uniform tops.

“You can go to any basketball court in any part of Mexico City, and you will find one guy with an Oklahoma jersey,” says Jaime Rubio, basketball editor for Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper. “I believe the young ones are putting aside Michael Jordan jerseys in favor of Najera jerseys.”

The name is pronounced NAH-hera.

Najera hysteria?

Well, let’s get the kid out of college first.

A senior forward at Oklahoma, Najera is probably the greatest basketball prospect Mexico has unearthed, a possible first-round pick.

He’s averaging 18.8 points and 9.6 rebounds a game for the Sooners and, in his final home game Saturday, had 25 points and 10 rebounds in an 83-56 victory over Missouri, Najera’s 13th double-double this season.

He will not be the first Mexican to play in the NBA. Horacio Llamas broke the barrier in 1997 when he logged 3 minutes 34 seconds with the Phoenix Suns.

But Llamas, who was not drafted, is king of the 10-day contracts.

Najera, 23, is a potential star, a 6-foot-8, 240-pounder who holds court with the tenacity of a Mexican welterweight, never giving quarter.

Najera plays with his head, heart, elbows, knees and shins, and can shoot to boot--picture Kurt Rambis with an offensive game.

Tough?

In the NCAA Midwest Regional semifinals against Michigan State last season, Najera set a pick on Spartan guard Mateen Cleaves that almost registered on the Richter scale.

Najera lay unconscious on the court as a result, his chin gashed.

He wobbled off the court, but returned minutes later to nearly rally Oklahoma to an upset victory.

“That’s when people started to know about Eduardo,” Rubio says.

Najera may be the first NBA player who requires his own cut man.

“There are kids on my team now who think they’re tough,” Oklahoma Coach Kelvin Sampson says. “But if they had his injuries, I don’t think they’d play. Eduardo is the heart and soul of our basketball team.

“I remember looking at that kid when he was face down in a pool of blood, after knocking heads with Mateen Cleaves in the tournament. He comes back from injuries better than anyone I’ve ever been around.”

He’s making news back home, the broadcast feeds of Oklahoma games having been picked up by TV-Azteca.

Llamas was a hero when he became Mexico’s first NBA player, besieged with endorsement offers.

Najera’s potential?

“Unlimited,” says Roberto Gonzalez, head of El Basquetbol Mexicano. “The way he plays, who he is. His charisma. It’s going to be fun to see how he develops. He will be a credit to any Mexican kid trying to get ahead.”

Gonzalez founded his company in 1995 to help Mexican players cut through the governmental red tape that often dissuades Mexicans from pursuing college careers in the United States.

In his dreams, Gonzalez closes his eyes and imagines Najera in a Laker uniform, a power forward on a team that needs one in a town with one of the largest Latino communities outside Mexico City.

“I think he’d be a great addition to Phil Jackson’s team,” Gonzalez says.

Laker executive Jerry West says he does not discuss specific players, only saying that Najera is a “good player, and getting better.”

West also said a player’s impact on the community probably would not be a factor.

“Whenever we draft, we always try to take the best player,” West said. “We rarely take a player for any other reason.”

But there is a Laker connection.

Gonzalez and Magic Johnson were teammates at Michigan State.

Gonzalez, a 6-7 forward, was second man off the bench for the 1979 NCAA championship team. Gonzalez played three minutes in the title-game victory over Larry Bird and Indiana State.

Gonzalez’s father was born in Mexico but emigrated to Detroit, where he worked for the Ford Motor Co.

After college, Roberto played professionally in Mexico before starting El Basquetbol Mexicano.

Four years ago, Gonzalez lured Johnson’s traveling all-star team to Chihuahua for an exhibition.

“I bring Magic Johnson down to showcase kids,” Gonzalez laughs, “not to showcase Magic. He doesn’t need the publicity.”

Gonzalez wanted Magic to play against Najera.

“Eduardo had 28 or 30 points and Magic came up after the game and said, ‘That boy is really good. Tell him to work hard and I’ll be looking for him in three to four years.’ ”

The Next Step

Four years later . . .

Najera may not land in Portland, but he wants to be a trailblazer.

“I’d like to open the doors for other kids,” Najera says.

Players from Europe have flocked in droves to U.S. colleges to become basketball stars, but almost never from Mexico.

Why not?

“It is tough right now to get out of the country,” Najera says. “The peso is not very valuable. For anybody to come out of there, and get an education in the U.S., it will be real expensive.

“Also, we don’t have the support from the Mexican federation. They won’t give you any help.”

Rubio says the country’s governing body for basketball is a mess, one reason why Mexico hasn’t qualified a basketball team for the Olympics since 1988.

Najera says he was one of the fortunate ones.

“There are a lot of kids who could play major college,” Najera says. “I’m not saying real good programs, but I’m sure a lot of them could play in small schools. A lot of guys had the potential, like I did, but don’t have the opportunity.”

Najera won’t speculate on his chances of becoming a Laker--”Ah, they have too many people up there”--but said he would like to play in an NBA city with a strong Latino population, listing Phoenix and San Antonio as his top choices.

Najera also knows that to have a real impact, he has to be more successful than Llamas.

“I don’t just want to make it,” he says of the NBA. “I want to go out and play. That’s my goal, to stay there for a lot years. I know it’s going to take a lot of work.”

Hard work is nothing new.

Najera is the youngest of six children from a lower middle class family. His father, Servando, is employed at a waterworks plant.

And while soccer was Eduardo’s first love, basketball has long been popular in Chihuahua, only a three-hour drive from the U.S. border.

“We had some TV from El Paso, and they televised professional basketball,” Najera says. “Plus, there are a lot of tall people in the north side of the country. South of Mexico is just short people.”

When Najera sprouted six inches, to 6-6, the year before high school, he became one of the tall people.

With Gonzalez’s help, Najera jumped at the chance to play his last year of high school for Coach Chuck Skarshaug at San Antonio’s Cornerstone Christian Academy.

Within a year, Najera received recruiting bites from Duke and Indiana.

But Norman, Okla., panhandle flat and dirt dry, reminded him of home.

Najera enrolled in language classes at Oklahoma but failed the ACT entrance exam three times because he was not yet proficient in English.

He passed on his fourth try and became a redshirt his freshman season.

Sampson: “We can only imagine what it’s like to be in a foreign land, away from your mother and father, not having a command of the language everyone’s speaking.”

There were Mexican-Americans in Norman, but Najera chose to stay away.

“I try not to hang out with them, because then I wouldn’t learn English,” he says.

Five years later, after refining his speaking skills watching TV sitcoms, you can’t shut Najera up.

He has seized command of a language and a game.

“Eduardo was a tough kid, but he didn’t know how to compete,” Sampson says. “There’s a huge difference in playing hard and hustling and competing. He’s taken that to another level.”

Najera’s breakthrough at Oklahoma has already benefited others back home.

Gonzalez estimates there are five Mexican natives playing Division I, including Najera’s teammate, 6-10 center Victor Avila.

The others are Jose Escobedo and Javier Mendoza at Texas El Paso and David Abramowitz (Jewish father, Mexican mother), a San Diego State sophomore born in Guadalajara.

Gonzalez says it hasn’t been easy getting Mexican players to the states.

“The Mexican culture, I don’t know the right way to say it, but it’s kind of shy and reserved about letting kids go to better themselves in the U.S.,” Gonzalez says. “The federation would rather have the kids stay in Mexico, but there’s no opportunities in Mexico, no scholarships. The private schools are very expensive. There’s not the opportunity to play at a high level.”

With help from Gonzalez’s company, and sponsorship money, Mexican all-star teams now get exposure in L.A. pro summer leagues. A few years ago, Najera was second in steals to the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.

Gonzalez has invited college teams from the United States to Mexico to play in tournaments.

He believes there are more Najeras to come.

“Before it was a dream,” Gonzalez says. “Now it’s very real.”

He Has a Dream

Najera hysteria?

Jaime Rubio, from the newspaper Reforma, says Fernandomania was unique. Valenzuela, remember, won the National League Cy Young Award in 1981 as a rookie.

Hard to imagine Najera having that kind of immediate impact.

“Fernando had a chance to promote himself, because the specific position of pitcher required more individuality,” Rubio says. “In basketball, only the great, great players can have an impact in the first year.”

Rubio thinks it may take Najera more time to match the Valenzuela phenomenon.

First, Najera has to prove himself on the court.

“I think he can have a terrific impact,” Rubio says. “Maybe he can develop Najeramania. Maybe. But only if he has a great impact in his first or second year. I think it’s going to take him time to establish himself in the league.”

Najera doesn’t shy away from the comparisons.

He wants to be the next Fernando.

“I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get to that level, to do what he did,” he says of Valenzuela. “But I dream about it. That’s the beauty of dreaming.”