Surviving the Many Perils of Paulino

Melva Usher used to lecture her youngest son, Kenton Paulino, about his attachment to basketball instead of his schoolbooks.

Usher had grown up in Belize and didn’t come to Los Angeles until she was 30. She was a nurse and a single mom who worked two or three jobs to raise her eight children -- six boys and two girls.

“I didn’t have time to follow games,” Usher said Friday while she took a break from one of her jobs. “But the teachers would be calling saying Kenton was only thinking about basketball and not the schoolwork, so I would ask him, ‘What about basketball? There’s nothing in basketball. Why do you want to play basketball?’ I didn’t understand the concept.”

Usher gets it now. Thursday night her home in South Los Angeles was bursting at the seams with sons and daughters, cousins and neighbors, friends from work and church, and no one shouted louder than Usher when her baby boy, Kenton, swished an off-balance three-pointer as time expired to give the Texas Longhorns a 74-71 victory over West Virginia.

Paulino, a 6-foot-1 senior, has taken quite a journey to this place he’s reached, the Elite Eight, ready to play Louisiana State today for a spot in the Final Four.

He has grown from a skinny, undersized youngster who would sneak into USC’s gym with his brother Dwayne to shoot hoops, to the most loved of Texas Longhorns, who has persevered through three seasons of daunting injuries.

During his journey, he became a stalwart member of the Fremont High basketball team, once scoring 44 points against rival Crenshaw; went off to Maine a lonely but determined young man to do penance in prep school to get his academics in order; then committed to Rick Barnes while at a Texas football game.

Friday at the Georgia Dome, Paulino’s teammates needled their modest hero.

Forward P.J. Tucker said of Paulino, “When he walked into breakfast this morning he had the shades on, his hat turned around backward and he was wearing new sneakers.”

“And,” Barnes interrupted, “he was saying, ‘Vince who?’ ” in reference to Texas quarterback and Rose Bowl hero Vince Young.

Paulino ducked his head and later told the truth.

“I don’t even have shades,” he said. “The last thing I wanted when I went to breakfast was a lot of attention. I just wanted something to eat.”

And he takes no credit for his basketball success. Paulino said that it was because of his brother, Dwayne, closest to him in age, that he even played the game.

“I followed Dwayne and did what he did,” Paulino said.

He thanks his older brothers and sisters for taking on the responsibility of disciplining him, picking him up from school, fixing his dinner and watching out for him while Usher worked all afternoon and all night.

“Everybody kept an eye on me,” Paulino said. “No one let me get in trouble.”

Usher said it was a hard day when her youngest child went off to Maine: “I said, ‘Kenton, I do not know where Maine is,’ and Kenton said, ‘Mom, I don’t either.’ I didn’t want him to go, but my daughters said it was best for Kenton, that he needed to go and get his schoolwork right.”

Paulino did exactly that.

“Kenton just focused so much on basketball in high school,” Fremont Coach Sam Sullivan said. “He’s not a dumb kid, but he loved the game so much. He didn’t get the test scores he needed, so his choice was junior college or prep school. We thought Maine Central was the best place.”

Paulino had never left California until he went to Maine.

“It is a cliche,” he said, “but what culture shock.”

For fun, Paulino said, he and some friends would go to some railroad tracks and throw rocks into the forest.

“All the trees were kind of scary,” he said. “In the winter we’d do that thing where you make balls from snow and throw them. What’s that called?” Snowball fights, he was told. “Oh, yeah, that’s it.”

But he got his grades in order and Paulino was invited on a recruiting visit to Texas. He went on a football weekend, saw the enthusiasm and committed while standing on the field.

“We used to sneak into the gym at USC,” Dwayne said, “and sometimes coach [Henry] Bibby would let us watch practice. Now look at Kenton.”

Usher tears up when she talks about attending senior day at Texas this season.

“I’ve got to praise God, what is going on in my life,” she said. “Six boys, two girls and all doing well.”

And one too modest to act the star.

“For three years Kenton has had nothing but injuries,” Barnes said. “Now he’s healthy and he’s the glue. We’re glad he’s here.”