Mom’s Illness Affects Clancy

Stanford fans chanted a hearty and ruthless “1.9, 1.9” at him every time he touched the ball.

California students made copies of Sam Clancy’s mugshot with “1.9” in huge type beneath his countenance.

Bay Area fans delighted last weekend in reminding the USC senior power forward of his cumulative grade-point average, which on Monday officially knocked him out of consideration for the Wooden Award and the Wooden All-American team. But they weren’t aware of the whole story.

“A lot of people don’t know that last semester my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Clancy said Monday afternoon after practice. “It threw me. My grades kind of slipped a little bit and I dropped below a 2.0 [GPA]. Now I’m working to get it back up....

“But now she’s doing better. They took out the cancer in the lymph nodes. A lot of people didn’t know that that affected me in class and everything.”

Anetta Harris, who lives in Cleveland, has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments since the diagnosis. She will be in town, though, for the Trojans’ final two regular-season contests: Thursday against Pacific 10-leading Oregon and Senior Day on Saturday against Oregon State.

Harris told The Times last month that she was honored by Clancy’s decision to dedicate his senior season to her, though Clancy did not mention at the time that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

“He’s like the power behind the throne,” Harris said of her son. “You can feel his presence. If he wasn’t my son, he’d be my friend.”

Clancy, meanwhile, didn’t make many friends at California’s Haas Pavilion, where the jeers continued to accelerate throughout USC’s 83-64 loss.

“I made a smart comment to [the student section], and that really set the tone for the game about how much they were going to talk about me,” said Clancy, whose streak of 11 consecutive double-doubles ended when he finished with 11 points and six rebounds.

“They were chanting, ‘1.9,’ and I walked over there and said, ‘$1.9 million.’”

Clancy was referring to the NBA riches he could earn after the June draft.

NCAA eligibility guidelines require that students beginning their senior year have a grade-point average that is at least 95% of the university’s minimum required for graduation.

USC’s minimum GPA for graduating is 2.0 and 95% of 2.0 is 1.9, which is why he maintains his eligibility.

“I do school, but it was never my favorite thing to do,” said Clancy, a sociology major. “I was always like a C-student. I never got the A’s and Bs. My brother [Samario] and sister [Samantha] do, and I don’t know how they do it.

“My sister got [an academic] scholarship to go to the University of Richmond and she gets a 4.0. My brother goes to my same high school and he’s getting like a 3.8. I was always like a 2.5. I’ve never been on [academic] probation before.”

Clancy’s said his cumulative GPA dipped below 2.0 after the fall 2001 semester.

“But it’s not that disappointing,” he said. “I’m doing what I like and I’m pretty successful with it.”

The only real disappointment, then, is with his impending exclusion from Wooden Award consideration.

Wooden Award director Mike Solum received notification from USC on Monday that Clancy had not met the committee’s required 2.0 grade average. Clancy had made the cut to 30 semifinalists, but the list will be trimmed to 15 and announced Thursday.

“It’s a shame,” Solum said. “We sure would have liked to have had the local flavor. But that’s how the award was established and what makes it so prestigious.”

Coach Henry Bibby said he felt for Clancy. “On and off the floor, he’s been a model citizen for me, and it’s disappointing because the kid is deserving of that and he’s a good kid,” Bibby said. “He’s too nice a kid.”

Clancy has 17 double-doubles this season and is averaging 18.9 points, 9.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocked shots, but he realizes his chances, even if he were eligible, of winning the top individual prize in college basketball were remote. “Let’s be reasonable,” he said. “It’s nice to be [mentioned], but then they’ll kick me out before they make the five [finalists] anyway.

“People can look at me and say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s just another dumb athlete who’s playing basketball [because of the poor grades].’ But there’s a deeper reason behind it.”