Gym Rat Redeemed: ‘The Bald Thing’ Shaves Any Doubts

These things are rare, but once in a while, an athlete exceeds the boundaries of excellence and flirts with the fringes of magic.

It’s a sequence of surprising mastery when, inexplicably, an athlete can warp the laws of probability, defy the demands of ballistics, and dwell in that ever-elusive sweet spot in time.

There’s an almost divine quality to this, so it’s probably heretical to suggest that somebody, gulp, deserves it.

But in the case of Gonzaga’s John Rillie, such a streak seems a justified reward for uncommon devotion to the game of basketball.

For three days, Rillie flamed through Santa Clara like a shooting star.

Which is exactly what he was.

In leading GU to the West Coast Conference Tournament championship, Rillie made 64 percent of his field goals, 71 percent of his 3-pointers (20 of 28), 92 percent of his free throws (22 of 24), and averaged 32 points per game. During this three-day, out-of-body experience, his shots rarely even touched rim.

From all angles and great distances - in the face of defenses designed to stop him - Rillie uncannily found the net. So many fans gasped at the moment he released his deep shots that it seemed to suck the air from the gym.

Granted, this is not Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak we’re talking about. But at Rillie’s level, relative to the competition he faces, it was shocking dominance.

And more important than any of that, Rillie hoisted the Gonzaga team upon his rather bony shoulders and carried it into the NCAA Tournament.

GU coach Dan Fitzgerald paid reverence to the sacrifices Rillie has made to play basketball. And this is where Rillie’s tale assumes a poignant quality.

First, not a particularly high number of Division I athletes are produced in Toowoomba, Australia. The son of a welder, Rillie was considered one the region’s best age-group cricket batsman.

But his burgeoning basketball talents, as he finished high school, proved difficult to export. So there he sat, Crocodile Dunk-dee, realizing that if a chance to play basketball were to be had, he was going to have to pay for it himself.

“I just wanted to come to America to play, to go test myself over here,” Rillie said. “For 2-1/2, I did all kinds of jobs just trying to save money. It was a hard road, but I wouldn’t give up anything for it.”

For those 30 months, “my life consisted of basketball and work - nothing else,” Rillie said.

The kinds of work? “I collected shopping carts at first. That lasted a couple days; then I went to a meat works place and I sliced bacon for about three months.”

Working his way up the food chain, he then began flipping burgers for Hungry Jack’s restaurants.

While some friends actually shunned him for his unrelenting focus on his goal, he saved a whopping $20,000 to pay for his trip to America and his tuition to Tacoma Community College.

At Gonzaga, no one, ever, has been more addicted to the game than Rillie. In addition to games and draining practice sessions, he plays pickup games at lunch hour against whatever pack of gym rats happens to be on hand.

So manic is Rillie for his basketball fix that last summer he rode a bus for three days - to Toronto - to watch the World Championships. And when those tournament games were not being played, Rillie combed the neighborhoods for games to talk his way into.

Still, his senior season had, in some ways, failed to meet most expectations. While his newly shaved head frequently drew comments, his play was a bit inconsistent. He did not make the 10-man all-conference team, averaging 13.6 points a game at the end of the regular season.

During the tournament, though, Fitzgerald summed up the GU offense with the directive: “Get the round thing to the bald thing.”

“It felt like you could just launch anything up and it would go in,” Rillie said. “And for three days it did. For the rest of my playing career, I’ll be wondering why it can’t happen every night. But now, I’m just happy it happened this weekend.”

And the sacrifices, then, were worthwhile?

“Even if this all hadn’t happened, it would have been worth it,” he said. “Basketball has been my life - this is what I’ve worked so hard for.”

And in the end, he has proven that - as far as shooters go - hair may be over-rated.

But dedication is not.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Dave Boling The Spokesman-Review