Sister, Sister : Though the Gomezes Play for UCLA and USC, Nothing Comes Between These Rival Siblings

Somehow, for the Gomez sisters, it always seemed it would play out this way.

Basketball, a game they love as much as each other, would never be allowed to come between them. And it won’t--not even today, when their teams, UCLA and USC, play.

This was to have been the season when Erica and Audrey Gomez would finally meet on a basketball court, something that has never happened. And, to hear them tell it, it never will.

Both are guards, Erica a 5-foot-9 freshman at UCLA and Audrey a 5-8 senior at USC. Both honed their games on New York City playgrounds, then traveled to Los Angeles to play college basketball.

But play each other?

No way.

Erica, 19, will start today at USC’s Lyon Center gym at 12:30 p.m. Audrey, 22, who will probably sit out her entire senior season because of a knee injury, will watch.

“We’ve never played each other, not even in a one-on-one game at our driveway hoop, back home in New Jersey,” Erica said.

“If I’d win, I’d feel terrible. So would Audrey. We’d both be miserable, no matter who won. We’re just too competitive. We don’t need to know who’s better.

“When I decided to go to UCLA, that was the one thing I worried about, having to play against Audrey. I talked to Kathy [Olivier, UCLA coach] about it.

“She said she could assign me to guard someone else in the USC games but that it was possible in a switch I would have to guard Audrey.”

Said Audrey, on why the two have never played even a one-on-one game: “What would be the point? We’re sisters.”

The Gomez sisters didn’t make it easy on their parents, Larry and Nora Gomez, to watch them play college basketball. They’re from Keyport, N.J.

Larry Gomez, a lifelong basketball addict who taught his girls the game on New York City’s tough playground courts, thought they might play near home.

Gomez, born in Puerto Rico but whose family took him to New York at 14, grew up on city courts.

He was a high school dropout who went to work at 16. Today, he’s a supervisor for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Nora Gomez is a bank secretary.

Basketball, Larry Gomez decided years ago, was going to secure college educations for his daughters. He began driving Audrey to New York’s playgrounds when she was a standout in junior high. Erica, not yet old enough, stayed home.

“I can still remember how upset Erica would get, when Dad made her stay home,” said Audrey, grinning.

Their favorite playground site was near Greenwich Village, an hour’s drive.

“The better players then were always at the Village courts,” Larry Gomez said.

“Audrey caught on fast. In New Jersey, in a game with guys, they’d be polite, not even try to steal the ball from her. In New York, they’d knock her down to get to the ball. And they’d die before they’d let a girl score on them.”

Audrey became a national recruit at St. John Vianney High in Holmdel, N.J., and in her senior year, 1991, scheduled recruiting trips to Notre Dame, USC, Duke, Iowa and Arizona State.

“I went to Notre Dame first, and I was kind of overwhelmed,” Audrey said.

“It was a big football weekend, Rebecca Lobo [a future Connecticut All-American] and Anita Kaplan [Stanford] were on my trip, and the weather was great. I canceled my other trips and committed to Notre Dame, and that was a mistake.”

Halfway through her freshman season at Notre Dame, she blew out her right knee and spent a year in rehabilitation.

“I wasn’t happy at Notre Dame,” she said. “Dad had wanted me to go to USC. He felt Marianne Stanley [USC’s coach at the time] was the best of all the coaches we met during the recruiting process.”

Gomez transferred to USC in 1993, sitting out the 1993-94 season. She was a co-starter at point guard with Erica Jackson last season, averaging 8.5 points and 2.2 steals, which was seventh in the Pacific 10.

But in a pickup game last summer at USC, she suffered a torn knee ligament and had surgery.

“I had hopes of playing late this season, but it doesn’t look good now,” she said.

Erica, meanwhile, had gone through a similar process during a much-publicized high school career at St. John Vianney. She had received her first recruiting letter as a seventh-grader.

“I had exactly the same injury Audrey had,” said Erica, a business and economics major at UCLA.

“Just before the state tournament at the end of my junior season, I was scrimmaging against a men’s team. I came to a sudden stop, and my left knee kept going.”

She was sold on UCLA, she says, by the weather and Olivier.

“Audrey insisted I take all my trips and not make the same mistake she did, so I went to Wake Forest, Stanford, Georgia, Auburn, Duke and UCLA,” she said.

“I had pretty much decided on Wake Forest, but I loved UCLA. I loved the weather, the players and UCLA’s informality. And I really liked Kathy.”

Erica leads UCLA in minutes played and is averaging 10.9 points, and 7.1 assists (third in the Pac-10 and 10th in the nation), and 2.9 steals, with 4.9 turnovers.

The parents saw Erica play against Vanderbilt in Boston in November, and UCLA will play at Seton Hall early next season. “I guess I always wanted them both to go to Rutgers, which is 20 minutes away,” said Larry Gomez.

“But when they became 17, 18, it was time they learned to make their own decisions. I know one thing--they sure love that weather in L.A.

“Erica called and teased me one day last week, when it was 76 in L.A. I told her we had 30 inches of snow in the driveway, and she started talking about shorts and T-shirts.”