Rucker Has Brains to Go With the Brawn

There are plenty of players on the Los Angeles Loyola High basketball team who would rush home after practice to watch a college game on ESPN or catch an Eminem video on MTV.

Then there’s the Cubs’ 6-foot-6 center, Chris Rucker, who makes sure he’s watching the BBC world news at 5:30 p.m.

On the plane rides to and from South Carolina for a basketball tournament last week, Rucker didn’t pick up People magazine. He read two books, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” and “A Density of Souls.”

One night in his hotel room, he had a three-hour debate, until 3 a.m. with his roommate, Josh Flynn-Brown, about the wisdom of war with Iraq.

There was no declared debate winner and there never is, unless it’s Rucker. You either concede or you’re stuck in a never-ending verbal duel.

“The last time we had a debate, he goes, ‘You can’t take the heat now, Mom, because I’m politically aware,’ and I walked away,” his mother, Crystal, said. “He’s relentless.”

Coach Jim Williamson said Rucker, who has a 4.3 grade-point average and scored 1,300 on the SAT, is “as good a kid as you’re ever going to meet. If you were to design a student athlete, I’d pick Chris Rucker to make the mold.”

As a senior basketball player, Rucker is averaging 17 points and 10 rebounds for Loyola (10-3) going into the Mission League opener against North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake on Wednesday at Harvard-Westlake.

West Hills Chaminade Coach Bryant Cantwell said, “I don’t think anyone in our league has anyone to stop him.”

Rucker is a sturdy 210 pounds. Centers either get into foul trouble trying to prevent him from posting up or are out-muscled for balls around the basket.

Off the court, Rucker has obliterated stereotypes with his dedication to education.

When he received an e-mail last month confirming he had been accepted to Harvard, it was validation of the choices he had made to embrace academics and basketball.

“I can’t just do one thing,” he said.

Along the way, he has encountered teachers who challenged and inspired him to seek his full potential.

There was Ms. Henry, his kindergarten teacher from the Maria Regina School in Gardena, whom he still communicates with today.

“She was just a great person, someone I could go talk to when I needed,” he said.

There was Mrs. Plourde from the eighth grade.

“She was a math teacher,” he said. “She’d give out the homework, I’d do it and she’d say, ‘No, that’s not good enough.’ She pushed me to do as much as I could.”

There was Mrs. Walsh, his sophomore English teacher at Loyola.

“She recognized my ability,” he said. “She would talk to me after class. She forced me to develop my writing.”

There was Mr. Goepel, his U.S. history teacher.

“He challenged me to learn more, to read, to expand my horizons,” he said.

There was Mr. Mason, his 12th grade English teacher.

“If you meet him, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I want to be him,’ ” Rucker said. “In his class, he plays classical music and you write your journal. He shows how you can balance the lighter side of life with being serious.”

Rucker’s parents divorced when he was 7, but they have remained integral influences in his life.

“He’s like my best friend and when I had no one to talk to, it was Christopher,” Crystal said. “When he told me [about Harvard], I was floored. It was amazing. I’m so proud of him.”

Rucker was at his father’s house when he saw the e-mail from Harvard. He stared at it for five minutes, left the room, came back, built up his courage, opened the e-mail, then told his father, Theron, the news.

“He called my grandmother, then everyone in my dad’s family knew within five minutes,” he said.

Rucker doesn’t know if he’ll attend Harvard. He was busy last week completing applications for Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Columbia.

“I just want to grow as a person, take in everything around me,” he said.

He was glad he went to South Carolina even though he was disturbed by the continuing presence of the Confederate flag.

“What does the Confederate flag stand for -- slavery,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of Mr. [Trent] Lott’s statement of Strom Thurmond becoming president. It evokes a bad taste in your mouth. One T-shirt had, ‘It’s not a hick thing, it’s the right thing.’ No, it’s not the right thing. If it were the right thing, it would have remained.”

Rucker is always passionate when debating important issues. Just don’t invite him to do it in front of an audience of more than five.

He remembers “shaking and sweating” while trying to give a speech at his eighth-grade graduation ceremony.

But put him on a basketball court with thousands of screaming fans and the game on the line, and he’ll calmly sink his free throws.

He’s a 17-year-old Renaissance man determined to play basketball, explore his beliefs and expand his knowledge.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.