Huskies Star Makes His Mark Oddly Named Sophomore Already Takes His Game To A Much-Higher Level

University of Washington coach Bob Bender is apparently reading more into the origin of Eumarkjah Tywan Sanford’s given name than Sanford’s mother did when she first dropped it on her newborn son nearly 20 years ago.

According to Bender, “Eumarkjah” has biblical connotations.

“His mother is very religious,” Bender explained. “That’s a biblical name that she picked for him.”

Biblical?

What book? What chapter? What verse?

As it turns out, “Eumarkjah” is nothing more than a compilation.

“My mom just kind of threw it together,” explained Sanford, the Huskies’ sophomore forward, who is better known around campus and the Pacific-10 Conference as Mark. “She used to babysit a kid named Mark, so that’s where ‘Mark’ came from. And her brother’s name is Eugene, so that’s she got the ‘Eu.’

“She put the two together and that’s what she came up with.”

And the “Jah” on the end? Maybe that’s the biblical connection.

In any event, only one person calls Sanford by his real first name, anyway.

“Only my mom is allowed to do that,” he explained.

“No one else even tries,” added Bender, “because you can very rarely pronounce it during the course of a conversation. I’ve heard his mother use it and I’ve had to take a step back and remember who she was talking about.”

The good news for Huskies fans is that there seems to be much less confusion about Sanford’s basketball talents than about his name.

As a prep standout, Sanford played in state championship games in two different states. During his junior year at Kimball High School in Dallas, he led his team to a second-place finish in the Texas state tournament. The following year, after transferring to Lincoln Prep in San Diego, he scored 32 points in the Hornets’ 94-93 win over Verbum Dei in the CIF Division IV state title game.

According to Sanford, he was receiving nearly 25 recruiting letters a day during his junior year at Kimball - some from the most respected programs in the country. But after the move to San Diego, the letters dropped off dramatically.

“We knew about him when he was in Texas,” said Bender, who beat California, Baylor, Tulsa and Wichita State in the recruiting battle. “But the mystery of his recruiting is that a lot of people lost track of him when he left Dallas.”

It was Sanford’s mother, Beverley, who decided a change of scenery might be best for her and her family.

“She basically felt that the crime rate was rising too high and too fast in Dallas,” Sanford explained. “My father (Richard) was killed in 1990, and she really couldn’t get over his death. She felt the best move was for us to get out of Dallas and start all over again.”

To this day, his mother has spared Sanford the details surrounding his father’s death.

“I really don’t know what happened,” said Sanford, who was 14 at the time. “I heard it was drug-related, I heard it happened during a robbery, I’ve heard a few different stories about it. But all I know is that he left and never came back.”

By the time his mother decided to move, Sanford had learned about the evils of the Dallas streets first hand.

“I saw the problems in school every day - and on the streets,” he admitted. “But they weren’t really affecting me, personally, so I never really looked at them as hard as she did.

“I disagreed with the idea to move, but I guess it was the best thing for our family.”

As a Huskies freshman last season, the 6-foot-8, 200-pounder averaged 14.5 points and 5.7 rebounds for a young UW team that finished 5-13 in the Pac-10 overall and 9-18. He led all Pac-10 rookies in scoring and was named to the league’s all-freshman team.

This year, the Huskies are 2-2 and 9-4, and Sanford, who is averaging 18.2 points and 5.6 rebounds, has played a major role in their best start in five seasons.

“He had a good freshman year and burst onto the scene, somewhat, as an unknown,” said Bender. “Everyone expected bigger and better things this year, but you always worry about the so-called sophomore jinx.

“Fortunately, that hasn’t happened. Mark is a kid who is never satisfied and who wants to get better every time out. And you can see in his decision-making, ball-handling and concentration that he is. He’s a young man who has a lot of confidence. He believes he can score, and we need that.”

Washington State coach Kevin Eastman, who must contend with Sanford in today’s 12:30 p.m. matchup at Hec Edmundson Pavilion, likens his versatility to that of his own senior forward, Mark Hendrickson.

“Sanford’s gotten much better, he’s going to be a pro,” Eastman said. “His release is so quick - quicker than last year. And although I keep hearing he’s been inconsistent with his shooting, he’s made a lot of big baskets for them.

“He’s very much like Mark (Hendrickson) in that he can score inside when they need that and he can go outside, too.”

Unfortunately, for the sellout crowd of nearly 8,000 fans expected for today’s game, the much-anticipated Hendrickson-Sanford matchup won’t happen.

Hendrickson, WSU’s 6-9 senior forward, won’t play because of a broken hand - a development that has disappointed Sanford.

“I’d like to play them when they’re fully cocked,” he said. “They’ve got some guys down right now, but they’re 1-3 (in the Pac-10), so they’re going to come in here with fire in their eyes.

“I’ll bet their intensity will be outrageous.”

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