Thursday, March 12, 1998
Going home again
Remarkable athlete returns from injury to achieve her
championship dreams
By David Arnold
Daily Bruin Contributor
Lace up, folks, we’re going for a four-year walk in Erica
Gomez’s shoes. From this point on you are the point guard on the
UCLA women’s basketball team. You are the student, you are the
athlete, you are the Jersey girl in Pauley Pavilion.
And you will eventually understand what it is that could bring a
young woman across the country, what could bring her back from a
season-ending injury and what brought her to the NCAA
Tournament.
One Pac-10 freshman-of-the-year award, one red-shirted year due
to a torn anterior collateral ligament (ACL), one family, one
starting position, one All-Pac-10 team, one tournament appearance
… the list goes on and on.
If it seems for the next few minutes like you have a little bit
of everything, you may not be far from the truth.
In your three years at UCLA you’ve been through a lot. You’ve
gone from team rookie to team leader, you’ve gone from the bench to
the record books.
"My years have been up and down, like a roller coaster, but I
wouldn’t change them; it’s all been like a learning experience,"
you say.
You were a highly regarded recruit. In high school you were the
leader of a very successful program, played in four state
championships and were the MVP in three of them. You were All-State
and All-America and a rising star. Your teams had an overall record
of 105-15.
Your dad wanted you to go to Stanford – you hated it. You were
ready to commit to Wake Forest until he forced you to take a trip
to UCLA.
Reporters ask you, "Why UCLA?" You say, "There was nothing that
I didn’t like about our school."
You took over the starting job just two games into your college
career, and immediately tied a school record with 15 assists. That
freshman year you had the first triple-double in the conference
since 1978, and only the sixth ever recorded. You were the Pac-10
freshman of the year, but your team went 13-14 and missed the
tournament.
Reporters asked you if that was a tough transition. "It hurt,
but I knew our team was on the rise. We would eventually become a
good team," you said, alluding to the adjustment you had to make
from being on a top-notch team to an also-ran.
On Oct. 8, 1996 you tore your ACL and had to support your team
from the bench.
You’re asked if you’re coming back. "Of course," you answer.
"When you get hurt you question it, and do you really want to come
back? Well, if you love the game then you come back."
This game has been your game ever since you decided to dedicate
yourself to it in eighth grade, and you loved it enough to come
back.
"I think everything happens for a reason," you’ve been known to
say, though you never knew why your knee gave way.
Remember how high the expectations were of the team this year,
expectations that the team put on itself? You wanted to be in the
top three in the conference, you wanted to make the Big Dance, and
when you got there, you wanted to finish up by "doing damage."
Reporters asked you to evaluate your performance this year. You
said, "I don’t feel like I’m playing 100 percent," and your
statistics are down from your freshman year. All of them except the
most important one: the win-loss record.
Well, after you guided your team to a 19-8 season, you’ve got
two goals down and one left to go. Tomorrow you attempt to "do
damage" to Michigan in the first round of the tournament.
Tomorrow you will take the court in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and for
the first time in too long your dad and his parents will be sitting
in the stands to support you.
"My dad has been the most positive person in my whole career,"
you say. "I haven’t seen him for a while."
Sometimes he’ll watch you on the satellite, other times you’ll
tape games for him. But not since high school has he been able to
be there for every game, making every moment more enjoyable.
It was your dad who started you playing basketball in the first
place. "He played it, and I wanted to spend time with him, so I
played," you say.
It was a basketball family, then, as your sister Audrey went to
USC. "I was kinda next in line," you remember.
You also remember how to combine the love of the game with the
work of the game. "Sometimes it’s not a question of it being fun,"
you’ve said, though you always agree that "you have to love it; you
can’t just be here for the money."
You remember sitting on the bench watching your teammates play.
"I knew their games inside and out," you would reflect, noting that
"you see things that you wouldn’t see if you were playing."
This year, even though you had an injured thumb that became
painful when you touched the ball, you continued to play extra
minutes. Not because you wanted the time and the statistics.
Nothing like that. You said, "I want to get it to the players that
don’t score. I want to be the one that gives it to them."
"I asked her at one point if she wanted out, and she looked at
me like I was crazy. You gotta love that," recalls head coach Kathy
Olivier.
Even if it meant staying in the game until the horn blew, you
wanted to get every player to score, a feat you accomplished
against Washington State.
"We’ve got to keep Gomez on the floor just to keep the flow
going," Olivier says about you, "because she distributes the ball
so well, it’s fun for the girls to play with her."
You understand winning. For you that has always meant not having
"any individual goals."
"It’s not about honors or accolades or nothing like that: It’s
about personal satisfaction."
You may remember for one brief instant what it was like to be
the woman that Olivier said "can go forever." You may remember what
it’s like to be able to defiantly retort "I don’t ask to come out
of the game."
Those are the last four years of Gomez’s life. Now you, the
reader, can understand how she may feel.
And when word of her tournament games reaches you, maybe you’ll
remember the pressure she faces.
Maybe you’ll remember the East Coast product who rarely gets
this chance to play collegiate basketball in front of her
family.
Maybe you’ll remember the no-win situation that finals are just
two weeks away, but she can’t focus on them until the team
loses.
If nothing else, try to remember a woman who has a little bit of
everything and a whole lot of promise.JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS/Daily
Bruin
The return of point guard Erica Gomez has been one of the major
factors in the Bruins’ tournament run.