Barkley Jumped at Coach’s Word

When Charles Barkley was a 5-foot 10-inch, 220-pound bench-warmer in high school at Leeds, Ala., his coach told him to either get taller or jump higher if he wanted to play the next season.

“That really made him determined,” his mother told Mike Bruton of Knight-Ridder News Service: “He became obsessed with basketball. He didn’t have time for anything but running, exercising and playing basketball. That’s all he did the whole summer. He’d run and run and run. And it was hot, too.”

His grandmother said: “We had a chain-link fence about five feet high, and he’d jump from one side to the other. I mean flat-footed. And he’d do it over and over again, maybe 15 or 20 times. Then he’d rest and do it again.

“He did that just about every day. I think that jumping had a lot to do with him growing that summer.”

Barkley sprouted to 6-2 and by Christmas was starting for a Leeds High School team that went to the state final.

Said Kenny Walker of the New York Knicks after facing Barkley in Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers: “He’s got as much quickness as some guards in this league. At times, I was saying to myself, ‘He can’t be that fast.’ It’s just so unusual for a guy his size. Some guys say he pushes and bullies to get his rebounds, but I know that it’s his quickness that does it.”

After freshman Marcus Broadnax had come in and scored the decisive basket for St. John’s in Monday night’s win over Fairleigh Dickinson, a reporter asked Coach Lou Carnesecca if Broadnax would be playing more.

“What are you, his agent?” Carnesecca replied.

No, Derrick Coleman, a Syracuse freshman from Detroit, isn’t faked out by the crowds of 27,000 and more for basketball games at the Carrier Dome.

“There are two things to do here,” he said. “Shovel snow or watch the Orangemen play.”

Trivia Time: The Boston Red Sox were the last team in the major leagues to integrate. What player did they sign to break the color line? (Answer below.)

There’s been talk in Kansas City of moving George Brett to first base, and if that happens, he’ll throw left-handed. So says brother Ken Brett, newest member of the Angel broadcasting team.

“George is ambidextrous,” Ken says. “Has been since high school.

“Since he was the smallest of the four brothers, we told him if he was ever going to make it as a baseball player he’d better learn to throw with both hands.”

From Cleveland Cavalier rookie Ron Harper, claiming it’s no trick to score 20 points in an NBA game: “All you have to do is take enough shots.”

John Elway, asked the best team Denver played last season, named not the New York Giants but the Seattle Seahawks.

“If Seattle hadn’t lost those four games in a row in midseason, you never know what might have happened,” Elway said. “We didn’t play a better team in the playoffs. Yes, that includes the Giants.”

Seattle beat Denver, 41-16, in the final game of the regular season.

Add Elway: Raider tight end Todd Christensen, who caught a touchdown pass from Elway in the Pro Bowl, said: “It’s like trying to catch Halley’s Comet. It’s a rocket. Somebody has to tell him he doesn’t have to throw hard all the time.”

Trivia Answer: Pumpsie Green.

Quotebook

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, likening the Clippers to an intramural basketball team: “I’m surprised they don’t have a couple of guys wearing black socks and wristwatches out there.”