GU walk-on Sorenson has heart of a Bulldog

Wanted: Walk-on basketball player.

Qualifications: Positive attitude essential. Leadership qualities recommended. Must be willing to practice long hours with scant playing time – in fact, may not play for an entire season. May not suit up for games, home or away. Probably won’t travel. Must emerge from peers during tryouts. Must be willing to assume any role, including scout team, designated screener and block out Larry Gurganious during a rebounding drill when you can’t raise your right arm.

Still interested?

Allow Gonzaga University walk-on Andrew Sorenson to answer that question: “I’m an optimistic kind of guy.”

One would have to be to try out for the team, get cut; come back the next year, make the squad but not play one second of one game for the entire season. Sorenson did that, but he stayed with it and played 17 minutes last season. He’s logged 15 minutes during this, his junior season.

Has it been worth it, even when he didn’t play in the 2005-06 season?

“I absolutely love the game,” he said. “My dad played at St. Olaf College, and he gave me three basic rules back in third grade on a note card. To this day I have that note card and it goes with me everywhere. No. 1, Have fun. No. 2, Do your best. No. 3, Kick butt. To this day, I try to follow those rules.

“My role is to bring as much energy as I can possibly bring, do whatever needs to be done, the dirty work, and be the best teammate I can be to get these guys to be the best they can be.”

Every year, Gonzaga holds walk-on tryouts. Prospects are put through a myriad of drills for 45 to 60 minutes. Some years, nobody jumps out. Sometimes a player catches a coach’s eye and gets invited for a second look the following year. Sorenson followed the latter path.

“I don’t go into it that we really need a guy,” said GU assistant coach Tommy Lloyd, who oversees the tryout. “I want to take the right guy and one of the first things I look at is attitude. You have to be pretty special to do this.”

Sorenson, who played two varsity seasons at Olympia High School and averaged 6-7 points per game as a senior, had feelers from a community college program, but chose Gonzaga for educational reasons. He also attended GU basketball camps, where he first saw videotape of a play that stuck in his mind.

“It’s footage from the Old Kennel and there’s a loose ball and a Gonzaga player dives on the floor and the ball squirts out. Another guy dives for it and it squirts out,” said Sorenson, volume increasing in his voice. “And then another dives and the ball goes in the backcourt and before you know it, all five guys dove on the floor and the fifth guy gets the ball and passed it to the first guy for a layup. I’m thinking, ‘that’s my kind of thing.’ “

After his initial tryout, Sorenson remembers Lloyd telling him that he understood the game, but he probably wasn’t a Division I athlete. Sorenson was invited to be a team manager.

“A day or two later he said, ‘Hey coach, this isn’t for me. I’m going to make the team next year,’ ” Lloyd said.

Sorenson spent the season with his buddies in the Kennel Club, but he also played tons of basketball, often 3-4 hours daily. Lloyd called to remind him about tryouts for the ‘05-‘06 season, which the 6-foot-2 Sorenson took as a positive sign. He was surprised when several coaches showed up on the first of the two-day tryout. Lloyd was solo on the second day, which Sorenson took as an ominous sign.

Afterward, Lloyd called everyone over and thanked them for trying out. He told them he would help if they wanted to pursue Division II or III avenues, and “I’m thinking he’s talking directly to me and I’m like, ‘Whatever, I’ll be back next year,’ so I’ve pulled myself out of the circle mentally,” Sorenson said.

“Then he says, ‘Thanks again, and we’re going to give Andrew a shot.’ I’m looking behind me, ‘Andrew? Who? What?’ Finally I realize it’s me after five other guys smack me on the chest.”

Sorenson filled out the required paperwork, and he remembers coaches telling him to bring his shoes to practice the next day. He returned to his dorm room and called home.

“My dad started crying; he was just so proud of me,” Sorenson said. “Of course it was my dream, and I was actually living it at that point.”

The team had already been practicing for several weeks so Sorenson was nervous when he first entered the locker room. J.P. Batista was the first to approach him.

“He said, ‘Hey, my name is J.P., welcome to the team,’ ” Sorenson said. That helped put Sorenson at ease, but respect among teammates is often earned over time, through effort and desire. Sorenson passed every check point.

There was the rebounding drill – 5-on-5 – where contact is unavoidable. Sorenson dove for a loose ball only to have a couple of teammates land on him. When he went to push himself off the floor, his right arm gave out. He knew something wasn’t right, but he returned for the next repetition.

“Larry (Gurganious) blasts me, which is what he’s supposed to do, and I’m like, ‘That didn’t feel good,’ ” Sorenson said. “So I yell at ‘Pendo’ (David Pendergraft) to get me, and coach (Mark) Few says, ‘He’s a good enough rebounder already.’ I understand because he has no clue I’m hurt. ‘LG’ is like, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’ I told him, ‘There’s only a minute or two left.’ “

After the drill ended, Sorenson had his shoulder checked. He’d dislocated it and tore a ligament. When he returned to the court more than a month later, an assistant coach wondered if Sorenson would continue his relentless pursuit of loose balls.

“My first day back, the first ball on the floor I dove and got it and I went and handed it to him,” said Sorenson, a business administration major who earned a 3.6 GPA last semester.

Sorenson enjoyed the 29-4 team that featured Batista and Adam Morrison, but his comfort level really grew as he worked with teammates throughout the school year and during the summer.

Sorenson has played in half of GU’s games this season. Even when he doesn’t play, “he adds value to the team,” assistant coach Leon Rice said.

“There are specific things we find when we scout teams, tendencies, maybe it’s something they like to do after a timeout with a lob or a back cut,” Rice said. “We’re managing a whole bunch of things during a game and one of the things I always do with Andrew is to say, ‘Hey, remind me after a timeout what they do.’ And he never forgets.”

Sorenson hopes to experience more memorable moments, but it’ll be tough to top his first game action at the McCarthey Athletic Center last season.

“I’m proud that I’ve worked so hard to get to a place I really wanted to get to,” he said. “So many of my friends are in the Kennel Club and they were going absolutely nuts. It was kind of nice to share it with a bunch of guys in my corner, and then being able to say, ‘Hey dad, guess what?’ “