Rogers Big Reason For Success 7-Footer Raises Game When Zags Need It Most

A few years back, Hollywood produced a hit movie called “Big” in which a little kid was somehow transformed - physically - into a grown-up.

But despite his fully formed body, he retained a 12-year-old’s capacity for wonder and amazement and humor.

It made him an entertaining, refreshing and surprisingly successful adult.

Teammates and coaches suggest that Gonzaga University basketball standout Paul Rogers is as convincing in this role as Tom Hanks was in the movie.

“He’s 22 going on 12,” GU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “He’s a great, wonderful guy. He could be a stand-up comic.”

“He kind of acts like a little kid a lot, always messing around,” GU senior forward Jon Kinloch said. “That’s what makes him so funny and fun to be around. He keeps things light-hearted and that’s important.”

If a movie were made about Rogers’ size, it would have to be called “Very Big.”

He’s 7-foot and 230 pounds.

And if yet another adventure were filmed concerning his basketball potential? Well, name that one “Huge.”

Rogers, a junior from Adelaide, Australia, was named the West Coast Conference player of the week last week and has scored double-doubles (double figures in both scoring and rebounding) in the last four games.

And in the last three contests, he’s made 24 of 29 shots for a staggering 83-percent rate of success. He leads the team in scoring (15.5 points per game) and rebounding (7.9).

“He’s a legitimate 7-footer who can run and catch and has great coordination,” said Fitzgerald, who added that NBA scouts have picked up the scent of a legitimate prospect. “He will definitely play this game for money. How much, how soon and where, we’ll have to see.

“He’s certainly as gifted as anybody we’ve ever had.”

But it has not been easy for Rogers, a man who is extremely tough on himself, and who has been pushed to develop a more tenacious attitude toward competition.

“I’ve always been my worst critic; I just get so discouraged when things go wrong, I feel like the world is coming down on me,” Rogers said. “I don’t take that well, but I’ve worked on it quite a bit and I’m better at that.”

An important point that fans should remember, Kinloch stressed, is that Rogers went through a remarkable ascendancy in a short time - going from not even playing on a regular team in Australia to being signed by a Division I university in America.

Rogers took up basketball when he was only 6, but at 13, he gave up playing on organized teams for several years.

When his parents divorced, Rogers went through a difficult adjustment. “My sister dealt with it pretty well, but I didn’t, I handled it pretty bad, in fact,” he said. “I kind of rebelled, I just hated the whole thing.”

Between the ages of 16 and 18, though, Rogers began rebelling against gravity, growing from roughly 6-foot to just short of 7-foot.

Coaches invited him to reconsider basketball, and within a short time, he joined a team that went on to win the national under20 title and was named to an under-23 national team that played in Spain.

In what was the first bit of good fortune for Gonzaga, Don Monson, father of GU assistant coach Dan Monson, was coaching the professional team in Adelaide.

And when Rogers decided he might like to give American basketball a try, he sought the counsel of Monson, who instructed him to take the SAT test.

He passed the test, but did not get the score in on time to meet the Division I deadline, and he opted to join veteran coach Rolly Williams at North Idaho College.

“I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was when I got here, I loved it,” Rogers said. “I just loved the whole experience at NIC; it was the best year of my life.”

But Rogers had seen very little American basketball and was plagued with fears he couldn’t measure up.

“We’d only get a few games (on TV) and usually it was Duke and Kentucky or teams like that, and I thought, wow, these guys are pretty good,” he said. “So I was scared, I didn’t know if I could play junior-college ball.”

He found out in a hurry, averaging 17 points and almost 10 rebounds a game.

Fitzgerald got his signature in the early signing period of Rogers’ only year at NIC before other D-I recruiters could make their pitch.

“We got lucky,” Fitzgerald admits. “He is, in the history of their country, one of the better players. Think about that.”

The GU team is “the best bunch of guys I’ve ever been around,” Rogers said, but that still doesn’t shorten the 11,000-mile distance from home.

Adding to the sense of separation was the fact that his father, a daring man with sky diving and bungee jumping as hobbies, went blind a year and a half ago.

“He has some rare medical condition and it turned his life upside-down,” Rogers said. “He’s always been a very outgoing person and he’s even gone bungee jumping and sky diving since he went blind. But, you know, you’d still like to be there to help out and be with him.”

Despite those obvious concerns, Rogers has been able to keep the mood light for the 12-4 Bulldogs, being quick with the quip, or unleashing wickedly good impersonations of Fitzgerald and GU radio broadcaster Dick Wright.

“The players have always respected his ability and always really liked him because he’s so intelligent and fun to be around,” Fitzgerald said. “But they’re also really respecting his effort now, too. And that’s important.”

In fact, it’s big.

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