UC Irvine Notebook : Parks Emerges as Shooting Star After Moving Into the Limelight

For a young woman who’s 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds, Natalie Crawford casts a considerable shadow. Just ask Natasha Parks, who never had to stand sideways to be in it.

For 3 seasons, Parks played the role player while Crawford rolled up numbers--such as 15 points and 9 rebounds a game in her senior year--en route to becoming the No. 3 all-time scorer in Irvine women’s basketball history.

“Natasha’s taken any role we’ve had to throw at her,” Coach Dean Andrea said. “For 3 years, she’s been the garbage person . . . the player who does whatever it takes to win.”

This season, Andrea shoved Parks from her spot backstage into the spotlight. Parks, a 6-foot forward who scores about half her points from the low-post spot and the other half facing the basket from the small forward position, has led the Anteaters in rebounding every game and has been the top scorer in all but two. Parks leads the team in scoring (16.1 points a game), rebounds (9.4), steals (19) and blocked shots (10).

“Natasha has a more defined role as leader, offensively and defensively, this year,” Andrea said, “and she’s taken to it like she was born to do it.

“In years past, she had free rein to do that, but she didn’t because she’s so totally unselfish. She’s still unselfish, but she understands we need her to take charge.”

Parks, who admits she had no problem letting Crawford and others grab the glory in the past, said she feels the pressure to perform this season.

“I do feel it,” said Parks, a 21-year-old biology major and the team’s only senior. “I realize I’m counted on more for offense and leadership. Before, if nothing was going right, we’d just give Natalie the ball. Now, I’m shooting two to three times more and I have to be more aggressive with the ball to create things.”

Parks, who attended Regina Caeli High School in Compton, already had applied and been accepted to Irvine when Andrea made his first recruiting overture. By then, Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly Pomona had expressed interest in her talents as a basketball player.

“When Long Beach and Cal Poly talked to me, it was like, ‘Wow, I’m flattered.’ But I was more concerned with what I’d be doing in 4 years than if the basketball team would make the NCAAs. What would my degree be worth?

“I’d already been accepted to the bio department at UCI, so it was an easy choice.”

Andrea is no longer amazed by Parks’ unselfish play, her all-out effort every day in practice, her intelligence, her maturity or even her perspective. But she still surprises him once in a while.

“We’re intelligent coaches and players,” Andrea said. “We knew we were in for a struggle this year. So we had a meeting about it early in the season.

“Natasha stood up and said, ‘This is the best team I’ve ever been on at UCI, not in talent but in quality people, and I’m happy to be part of it.’

“She meant it, too. She’s a great influence on the attitude of this team. She’s just a fantastic young woman.”

The Anteater women, emulating the men’s team, have struggled. They are 2-6 overall and 0-2 in the Big West Conference. And they’ve suffered some humiliating losses. Long Beach beat them, 108-44.

Irvine’s roster includes four freshmen, four sophomores, a junior and senior Parks. And while Parks has played well often, she seldom has been able to enjoy it afterward.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating,” she said. “I just try to go out and play the best I can. The team is so young. A lot of the players are just getting used to college basketball. We’re going to keep getting better, though.”

The same can probably be said for Parks, who has worked with Bob Thate, a men’s team assistant, and her own coaches on improving ballhandling skills and aggressive offensive moves.

“The coaches have always told me to shoot more, but I always had a ‘should I?’ or ‘can I?’ attitude. Now, it’s ‘I want to.’ ”

Anteater Notes

Center Ricky Butler, the Anteaters’ best outlet passer who gets the Irvine fast break started, says he learned the skill from former Irvine player Wayne Engelstad. Engelstad, now with the Denver Nuggets, worked with Butler during a summer league 6 years ago. “Yeah, Wayne taught me the outlet when I was in the eighth grade,” said Butler, a 6-7, 260-pound sophomore. “He worked with me on my whole game and helped me a lot.” Maybe Engelstad could provide some advice on dealing with Coach Bill Mulligan’s “fat guy” jokes. . . . Mulligan wowed the local media during the Anteaters’ recent trip with some of his best lines. The No. 1 hit: “Tarkanian told me a long time ago that transfers were the best kind of players because their cars are already paid for.”

The men’s tennis team, which begins play Jan. 6 in a national collegiate tennis tournament at Palm Springs, is ranked fifth in the nation in the coaches’ preseason poll. The Anteaters are only 8 votes short of second place and 13 behind first-place UCLA. Anteaters Mark Kaplan (seventh), Trevor Kronemann (20th) and Richard Lubner (32nd) are ranked in singles. The doubles team of Mike Briggs and Kronemann is ranked seventh and Kaplan-Lubner is ninth.