Beyond His Years Cal Freshman Shareef Abdur-Rahim Demonstrates Uncommon Skills, Depth

Basketball is, we are told, the sport of the greatest athletes. They run, they juke, they soar in ways unseen in any other arena. Beyond the physical tools, however, are skills that reside in that gray area unlit by statistics. The players “see the whole floor.” They have “court sense.” These are skills that no coach can bestow yet all hope to cultivate.

Midway through his freshman season, 6-foot-10 California forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim has become the dominant player in the Pac-10 Conference.

For the 6-foot-10 Abdur-Rahim, a devout Muslim (his name means “noble servant of the Most Merciful One”), it is through his religion that all good things flow. His serenity, he said, “is just God helping me through difficult periods.”

Abdur-Rahim has had little difficulty adjusting to college basketball. He is averaging 22.1 points and 8.7 rebounds, first and second, respectively, in the Pac-10.

In a Jan. 25 win at Washington State, Abdur-Rahim had 32 points and 18 rebounds. WSU gets a second chance Saturday in Berkeley.

In the last four weeks Abdur-Rahim has averaged 18.9 points and 10.3 rebounds, all while observing Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month.

During Ramadan, Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours. Every day, midway through practice, Bozeman excuses Abdur-Rahim long enough to get sustenance. “At 5:25 p.m., you would think that a Power Bar is a steak,” Bozeman said.

More important, Abdur-Rahim completed his first semester with a 3.2 grade-point average. The most difficulty Abdur-Rahim has had with Cal involved getting there.When the 31-year-old Bozeman, who is black, reached across the nation to grab Abdur-Rahim out of Marietta, Ga., the phones lit up at NCAA enforcement headquarters. For good measure, add a religion of which most white, middle-aged coaches are ignorant. What started out as a recruiting fight turned ugly.

In four days, the Abdur-Rahims received Bozeman, John Thompson of Georgetown, George Raveling, then of USC, and Kevin O’Neill of Tennessee. Bobby Cremins of Georgia Tech visited, too.

Bozeman won in a knockout. Of all the coaches who stepped into the Abdur-Rahims’ home, only one knew that among Muslims, it is impolite to shake the hand of a member of the opposite sex. Only one coach came with fliers and pamphlets detailing the degree of Muslim life on campus.

“Little things like that can make you think,” Bozeman said. “I took my shoes off in their house. I do that in my house. I wanted them to know I did my homework.”

Shareef decided he wanted to go see Berkeley. He had not yet made his qualifying scores on the standardized tests, so Cal couldn’t pay for his trip. So Hashim Alauddeen, a Muslim graduate student at Cal and a former AAU coach, called friend and Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who bought tickets for Alauddeen and Shareef to make the trip. When Shareef came home, he announced he would attend Cal.

What set some coaches off is that Alauddeen is a Cal student. Rivals claimed Alauddeen acted as a university representative, which meant he was subject to NCAA rules. The NCAA cleared Cal.

Certainly, the relationship of Alauddeen and Abdur-Rahim raised eyebrows. But Bozeman seems to represent something untoward in the minds of his competitors. They don’t like the way he got his job. They don’t like the way he does it. Is it generational? Racial?

“If you’re losing, they will be patting you on the back,” Bozeman said. “If you’re a threat, that’s a little different. When you are threatening the traditional way of other coaches, they say, ‘He’s only getting recruits because he’s young and black.’ C’mon. I’m supposed to apologize for that? That doesn’t make sense.”

John Calipari of top-ranked Massachusetts, a young, white coach who can recruit, suffered for his early brashness. He is one of the few head coaches in whom Bozeman confides. “He’s scary for a lot of coaches in the West. He’s scary because he can get players. That’s scary,” Calipari said. “How many black coaches are out there? No. How many do you want to play for? (Temple’s John) Chaney? All right, you got 6 a.m. practices. Thompson? (Tulane’s) Perry Clark? You’re in Louisiana. All of a sudden, there’s Todd Bozeman. He’s in the hunt. Who else is out there?”