Getting It Together Cougars Freshman Fights To Put His Life On Sound Footing

It was early December and Mike Bush was limping.

The Washington State freshman was limping through school, basketball and even life after hitting an icy spot on the sidewalk.

That wasn’t what he needed. Not then. He should have been making strides. Especially after everything he had done to get that far.

But the foundation he thought was strong started to feel as if it were crumbling under the weight of new pressures.

“I didn’t realize how intense everything was,” he said looking back. “What it took.”

It took more than just streetball savvy or floorburn hustle to be a Division I player.

And it took more than just reading textbooks to be a student-athlete.

He had to learn on the floor, in the classroom and in life.

But Bush is aback-up-the-dumptruck-and-unload-more-responsibility-on-my-shoulders type of guy. Always has been.

He was the one who left his family and his friends in Riverside, Calif., for a chance at a better education at Philadelphia’s Mercerburg Academy.

“I was slipping in school,” he said. “I had to get my grades together. My parents, they were kind of in the middle of a custody battle.”

Things were getting bad. They weren’t going to get better.

He’d seen this road traveled by many others - his teammates in so many of those afternoon runs at the park. “You’d see them, 23 or 24, and just think `Man these guys are good. They could have played somewhere,”’ he recalled. “But then after the game, you see them sitting there drinking their beer or whatever.”

So Bush got out.

He had to repeat his sophomore year. He had to play at a school that was off the path of recruiters.

But he had to get his act together.

He did.

Still there was no homecoming. Riverside, his parents, his friends, they were too much about the past. Bush was someone looking for his future.

He went to live with brother, John, a former Seattle University player, in Kent, Wash.

It was a better environment to work on his high school diploma, he thought. And a better place to hone his game. Not on the high school hardwoods, where his eligibility had been used up, but in the leagues of summer with guys like Washington’s Donald Watts or Arizona’s Jason Terry.

The 6-foot-5 guard/forward had already drawn some interest from college programs while playing at the ABCD Camp in Teaneck, New Jersey. Maybe not as much as teammate Lamar Odom, but some glances were cast his way.

There were the usual letters and phone calls. But his academics were still a question. So, some shied away. Washington State’s Kevin Eastman did not.

All the while, John Bush helped guide his brother through the recruiting process.

“He told me the most important thing to ask was, `What if I don’t finish my degree in four years? Will I still be able to stay at school and complete it?”’

Washington State said yes.

Bush said yes to Washington State.

He’d made it to Division I. Now, in the first days of December, with a gimpy ankle and a shaky hold on his academics, he was beginning to realize there was more to it than just making it.

“I just told myself `You’ve got to work harder,”’ said Bush, who is averaging seven points in 24 minutes per game. “I like to have to prove myself to people. No matter what the situation is, I think that I can handle it and succeed.”

He committed himself to defense because his offense had yet to come around.

“Anybody can play defense,” he said. “You just have to want to do it. You have to want to stay in front of your man and stop him.”

Since then, he has spent more time on the floor of Friel Court than a dust mop - always diving for loose balls and making the plays. His teammates have sometimes kidded him about it. But they all admire it.

By the time January rolled around, others were admiring his play too.

In the Cougars’ win over Washington, he shut down Watts in the first half. Then he switched to hot-handed Deon Luton. The 3-point shooter was not a factor in the second half.

Slowly, offense started to become a part of the Bush package. He has averaged 9.5 points in his last four games. The previous four, he averaged 2.5.

“He has really grown as the season has progressed,” said Oregon coach Ernie Kent. “I watched him in their last game against Arizona, and he was as determined a player as I saw out there.”

Maybe that’s because he saw an Arizona newspaper clipping that said he didn’t belong in the same league with Wildcats freshman Richard Jefferson.

“Something like that, it makes me want to go out and play harder,” said Bush, who had five steals and 13 points in the game. “Kind of prove to people that they are wrong.

“You know we might not have the names like a (Dan) Gadzuric or a (Jerome) Moiso or a Ray Young, but we are just as good as players as they are,” he continued.

Or maybe it’s because that was his fourth game in a row to start and he is starting to feel rewarded for his efforts.

“He’s one of the most unappreciated freshmen out there,” added Kent. “But if he keeps playing like he has been playing down the stretch, a lot of people are going to start to notice.”

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because Bush now has both feet firmly planted on the ground in school, in basketball and in life.