Dwyane’s World

Dwyane Wade, he of the All-American honors, blossoming national profile and Lord of the Rings-length highlight tape, started out as somebody’s little brother. Of course he did. How else to explain the humility, the selflessness, the ego whose growth has been stunted even as his game grows like something in a petri dish?

Wade, a Marquette junior whose talent is as rare as the spelling of his first name, is college basketball’s version of the spork. His multidimensional offerings -- leaping, passing, thinking -- have made all things seem possible for Marquette.

At the moment, with Kentucky and Pittsburgh lying in the Golden Eagles’ wake and Marquette in its first Final Four since 1977, just how relevant is the concept of impossibility, anyway?

In four NCAA games, averaging 23 points and seven assists, Wade has opened eyes like a shot of caffeine, but it wasn’t long ago that he was known as Demetrius McDaniel’s little brother.

At Richards High in Robbins, Ill., just south of Chicago, McDaniel, Wade’s stepbrother who was two classes ahead, starred as a senior while Wade wondered when he would get taller. That, or earn a promotion from the freshman-sophomore team. Whichever came first.

“Demetrius was the big man on campus,” said Jack Fitzgerald, Richards’ former coach.

Demetrius also bragged about his little brother, even before Wade got to Richards. One day, John Chappetto saw why.

He stopped by the Wade home and saw a seventh-grader and his two brothers playing basketball with Dwyane Wade Sr.

“He was just a little guy, just tiny,” said Chappetto, now Richards’ head coach. “He was taking it to the whole family.”

Wade grew several inches the summer before his junior year, and his game grew as well. Able to score almost at will, Wade also made his teammates better with his passing and defense.

“He was really the same player in high school that he is in college,” Fitzgerald said.

Coming out of Richards, where he was considered a top-60 national recruit, Wade failed to post a qualifying SAT score and would have to sit out his first college season. That made DePaul, among others, sour on him. Illinois State made a good pitch, but couldn’t supersede the fact that it was, well, Illinois State. On this unconventional short list, Marquette stood out.

Wade spent chunks of his freshman year sitting next to the Eagle coaches asking questions. As a sophomore, when he earned a 3.0 grade-point average in the spring semester, he averaged 18 points and seven rebounds and made first-team All-Conference USA. He scored a career-high 35 points against DePaul.

This season, as his explosiveness and creativity have been polished by a better understanding of the game, he has taken a step forward: 21.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 2.2 steals, the conference player of the year and first-team defensive honors. Fans love Wade for his high-flying dunks, teammates appreciate the way he shares the ball, and coaches embrace him for doing the little things and saying the right things.

“Everyone who knows me knows I couldn’t have won this award without my teammates,” Wade said when named Conference USA player of the year. “It’s a shared award. I’m player of the year because of them.”

His teammates aren’t responsible for this: If Wade were to make himself eligible for the NBA draft, he could be the best shooting guard available, depending on how high school wunderkind LeBron James is classified.

It’s not easy to categorize Wade, either. Eagle Coach Tom Crean calls him “one of the most unselfish players in America,” but Wade is most remembered for bursts such as scoring 11 consecutive Marquette points against Kentucky and 10 straight Marquette points against Pittsburgh.

To Marquette honor student Siohvaughn Wade, he is a husband, a former neighbor and high school sweetheart. To 13-month-old Zaire Wade, he is “Da-Da.”

“It just made me a more mature person, knowing I’ve got a son at home,” Dwyane Wade said. “Every time he sees basketball on TV, he always thinks it’s Da-Da. I try to keep up the good name of the Wades.”

He has done that since his days at Richards, when his character was so solid that he flipped the traditional dynamics of the school community.

Oftentimes, coaches approach teachers and ask what can be done to help a player in the classroom. In Wade’s case, teachers sometimes went to Fitzgerald to ask what they could do to help this young man they liked so much.

“That’s the first time that ever happened with a kid,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s the type of kid he is.”

Wade’s talent and character are responsible for an unprecedented bloom of Marquette T-shirts in the hallways of Richards, where he has become their middle-American idol.

“I don’t think he has any idea -- he’s so busy,” Chappetto said. “People are just walking around with their chest out.”

Wade tends not to brag on himself. Perhaps it’s best that there are so many others eager to serve notice of just how special this little brother is.

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MARQUETTE (27-5) STATISTICS

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*--* N Player Ht P FG Pct 3-Pt Pct FT Pct Reb Ast Avg 3 Dwyane Wade 6-4 G 502 302 788 6.3 4.4 21.6 55 Robert Jackson 6-9 F 559 -- 780 7.5 0.8 15.4 34 Travis Diener 6-0 G 407 368 809 3.3 5.7 12.1 5 Scott Merritt 6-10 F 477 100 773 6.5 1.6 10.0 20 Steve Novak 6-9 F 524 529 939 2.1 0.5 6.8 1 Todd Townsend 6-7 F 460 385 667 2.7 1.8 6.0 40 Terry Sanders 6-8 F 525 -- 629 2.7 0.4 2.6 32 Joe Chapman 6-4 G 456 467 333 1.3 0.6 2.4 10 Karon Bradley 5-11 G 355 455 600 0.4 0.6 1.7 33 Chris Grimm 6-10 C 571 -- 583 0.6 0.1 0.9 12 Jared Sichting 6-0 G 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.3 0.0 0.7 23 Tony Gries 5-10 G 000 000 750 0.2 0.2 0.5 MARQUETTE 489 404 773 36.5 16.4 79.0 Opponents 411 330 695 31.7 13.4 68.7

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