NU football recruits find hoops spotlight
Nebraska football recruits Pierre Allen and Maurice Purify could have some fun comparing basketball statistics and achievements when they arrive this summer.
Allen can talk about how he led Denver Thomas Jefferson to the Colorado Class 4-A semifinals. On the way, the 6-foot-5 center averaged 19.2 points, 14.8 rebounds and 4.8 blocks a game.
Purify can counter with how he unexpectedly showed up in mid-December to help City College of San Francisco to a 29-3 record. The 6-5 center heads into the Elite Eight of the California state junior-college tournament with averages of 17 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks a game.
Husker football coach Bill Callahan has heard about what they're doing - and doesn't discount the importance.
"I think there are a lot of great skills that you carry over from basketball to football," Callahan said, pointing to NFL players like Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates, who also were basketball stars. "Those are things you look for in your profile of a guy, that they have a wide range of talents that cross over from sport to sport."
Allen, projected as a defensive end in football, even plans to play both sports at Nebraska.
"It's not every athlete who has the opportunity," said Grant Laman, Thomas Jefferson basketball coach. "He'll try it and see what happens. He wants to do it the first year, but he's not locked into anything."
Allen was MVP of last year's Colorado Class 4-A state tournament and recently was named Mr. Basketball in 4-A for this season. Laman said Allen is arguably the best basketball player in the state aside from Gonzaga recruit Matt Bouldin of Highlands Ranch.
Because Allen stated his desire to play football, his basketball recruiting interest was limited to schools such as Colorado State, Denver University, Wyoming and Loyola Marymount.
"I think he would have got pretty good offers if he just said, 'I'm going to be a basketball guy,'" Laman said. "No one at this level can stop him."
Purify was just a few days removed from the City College of San Francisco football season when he was shooting baskets in the Rams' gym. Some CCSF players already had talked with him before assistant coach Adam D'Acquisto approached him.
"I told him to go talk to the head coach (Justin Labagh)," D'Acquisto said. "The next day, he was practicing with us."
Within a week, Purify averaged 14 points and eight rebounds over three games to be named all-tournament when his team played at Delta College. And when teammate and friend Terrell Anderson was shot and killed Dec. 26 outside a Bay Area nightclub, Purify assumed his starting spot in the lineup.
What has amazed D'Acquisto is that Purify, expected to contribute immediately as a Husker wide receiver in 2006, is following the football workout regimen shipped to him by NU strength coach Dave Kennedy.
"He's working out two hours a day before practice, then comes into the gym and plays," D'Acquisto said. "He's just pretty special in that way. We have told him to wait one more week before he starts the running workouts."
Purify doesn't have the urge to play basketball at Nebraska. But the native of Eureka, Calif., is pretty serious about the Elite Eight that starts today in Fresno, Calif.
"Not to sound greedy, but this is my last chance to get a ring," said Purify, who had 35 points and 15 rebounds in a first-round playoff game. "We worked so hard to get one in football and we lost in the championship game two years in a row. That made me want to go get one."
Purify hardly considers himself a post player, but that's where City College of San Francisco needed him. D'Acquisto said Purify just outworks bigger opponents around the basket to get some rebounds and put-back scores.
"He's just stronger than everybody," D'Acquisto said.
