Thanks to Francis, he’s back on the ball

Jacobe Shannon would hear it all the time from Ryan Francis. During phone conversations, “You need to start working out.” In text messages, “Get back to the gym.” Through MySpace comments, “You need to go back to school.”

After high school, Francis went to USC on a basketball scholarship while Shannon stayed home in Baton Rouge, La., and worked for the post office.

Shannon had his reasons for stepping away from school and basketball -- his father had been killed and he needed some time -- but his friend couldn’t help but pester him to go back.

“The whole time Ryan was at USC, like every day, he was either on the computer or on the phone, ‘Man, you need to start working out, you are going to be in school next year,’ ” Shannon remembers.

Francis was right. Shannon did return to school last fall -- as a tribute to the friend who wouldn’t let him give up on goals they shared growing up.

Exactly a year ago, Francis was fatally shot while riding in a friend’s car during a visit to his hometown for Mother’s Day. Up to that point, he was living the dream he used to muse about with his buddies, starting as a freshman for a rejuvenated USC basketball team.

Now, with the help of what used to be Francis’ core support group, Shannon has taken up the cause. He is a freshman at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, where last winter -- wearing No. 12 and starring at point guard as Francis used to do -- he helped the basketball team reach the state championship game.

“When he died, it was like, man, I had to get out of Baton Rouge, I had to go to school and I want to play ball,” Shannon said. “That was my dream ... that was all our dream.”

In the last 29 months, Shannon has lost his best friend Francis, his father and another friend -- all murdered. Baton Rouge didn’t offer much. “It’s a lot of violence, a lot of trouble. Not too much positive,” Shannon said of his hometown. “When that happened with Ryan, I had to get out of there.”

Francis’ mother and the USC coaching staff gave Shannon that chance.

The day after Francis died, Trojans assistant Bob Cantu traveled to Louisiana to be with Francis’ mother, Paulette. Trying to console her, the coach received a request.

“I was telling him about a kid that can play,” Paulette Francis said. “He was a good guard. I knew that he could play. He just needed someone to look at him.”

After talking to Francis and Shannon’s mother, Monica, Cantu said he decided Ryan would have wanted him to help his friend. That led to a call from Cantu and USC Coach Tim Floyd to Antelope Valley College Coach Dieter Horton.

“ ‘Dieter, I just think this kid can help you and he needs a good place and I trust you,’ ” Horton recalls Floyd telling him. “Coach Floyd just felt more of a parental thing and just wanted to take care of this kid.”

Said Cantu: “Ryan would have wanted to see Jacobe go away to college and get away from the violence in the city of Baton Rouge. We just felt it would be great to bring him out here and sort of continue what Ryan had started.”

Monica Shannon wasn’t completely sold on the idea at first. “I was kind of afraid to let him go,” she said. “I wasn’t sure of his living quarters and how he would afford it. But my oldest son, Robert, told me I had to let him go. I gave him a chance to grow up.”

Even though the California community colleges are famously inexpensive, they also don’t offer the scholarships that are available in other parts of the country and Shannon still faced out-of-state tuition fees.

However, during his year away from school Shannon had saved about $4,000 from working at the post office and as a grocery store stocker.

That money, coupled with financial aid he receives and the fact he shares expenses with four roommates, made the move affordable. And when Shannon falls a little short, his mother and his grandmother help out.

He also has plenty of moral support. “Three or four times during the year,” Horton says, Floyd called to check how Shannon was adjusting, even offering to drive out to see him if the coach felt it would help.

Shannon was fine, though.

It took him some time to open up to the team, but he eventually got past being shy and homesick and began to fit in.

“In some small aspect he feels like he owes it to Ryan and his family to stick it out,” Horton said. “He has made the decision that he can’t go the other way. He doesn’t want to be the bad statistic; he wants to be the success story.”

So far, so good. With Shannon starting 31 games and leading his team with 3.3 assists a game, Antelope Valley went 31-7 and advanced to the state championship game for the first time in school history.

The playoff run was the most fun he has had since he came to California, Shannon said. And even though he had no family out here, he never felt alone. As USC players said they did during their run to the NCAA Sweet 16, Shannon felt Francis’ spirit on the court with him in the playoffs. His father’s too.

It’s hard for Shannon not to think of them. Every time he picks up a basketball, he is reminded of his father, who taught him how to shoot and play. And when he watched highlights involving USC last season he couldn’t help but think “that should be Ryan out there.”

Watching himself on video even caused pause. “I’m just used to seeing that 12 on Ryan,” he said.

Shannon owns three T-shirts that have either an inspirational message or a picture of Francis, two wristbands about Francis and a chain that has Ryan’s date of birth and death on it. “I’ll always miss him,” Shannon said.

Francis’ good-natured attitude earned him the nickname “Smiley” in high school.

“If you like really disliked Ryan, you know, you needed to check yourself,” Shannon said. “He was fun to be around, he always had a smile on his face, joking with everybody -- if he don’t know you he’ll joke with you. His smile just brightened your day up.”

Francis, on his first trip back home since school started, was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was traveling in the back seat of a car with two friends when their car began to receive gun fire. The driver of another car recognized the driver of Francis’ car as a person he had an altercation with at a club earlier that night, according to police.

Shannon said Francis seemed happy to be home when they played basketball with Torry Beaulieu, another high school teammate, earlier the same day. “He was excited, you know, talking about going out that night and having fun,” Shannon said.

Shannon recalls being tempted to go out with him. “But I had to go to work that night, you know, and at the same time I wanted to keep my job. So I just went to work,” he said.

That decision is something he often contemplates.

“Every day I think that could have been me the Lord took,” Shannon said. “But instead ... I wouldn’t say it’s a blessing that he died, but I don’t know what you call it. I probably wouldn’t have been in the car with him, but who knows what could have happened if I would have gone out?”

What happened instead is that Shannon is now the one playing basketball and going to school many miles from home. A dream living on.

What would Ryan think about it?

Paulette Francis thinks she knows: “Ryan’s reaction would be, what took him so long?”