SO MUCH TALENT SO MUCH TORMENT : Anthony Miller may be the county's best player. But a multitude of woes put him on the sideline.

By DAVE McKIBBEN

Feb. 17, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NATIONAL CITY — Anthony Miller passed through Madison High’s campus for less than two months last spring, but Madison basketball Coach Jim Thompson remembers the 6-foot-6, 205-pound forward as if he were a mythical character.

“He had our team in awe,” Thompson recalls from games in P.E. class. “the kids just stood around and watched him.”

Nearly every coach who has seen Miller play has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of his talent. Yet Miller, 18, also has confounded coaches, teachers, counselors and even his aunt--with a string of blunders that imperils his future.

Because of his problems, he has played only a season and a half of varsity basketball as he matriculated to five high schools in four years.

But during that brief time, coaches saw enough of Miller to call him simply the best high school basketball player in the county and maybe the best player in five years.

Thompson thinks Miller is more talented than Tony Clark, Darryl Parker, Erik Meek and Jud Buechler, who currently plays for the New Jersey Nets.

At playoff time of his senior year in high school, Miller is enrolled at Sweetwater . . . but not playing basketball.

Coaches who have had him, however fleetingly, lament this waste of talent.

“He is as good a passer as he is a rebounder,” Thompson said. “He can shoot the jumper, and his instincts for the game are as good as I’ve seen.”

John King, who coached Miller at Crawford, his first high school stop, said: “He just has so much talent. And what a physical specimen.”

But only Morse’s Ron Davis and King actually had Miller on their teams. Since entering Crawford High as a freshman in the fall of 1987, Miller has made stops at Castle Park, Morse, Chula Vista, Morse again, Madison, Lincoln and now Sweetwater. Most of the short stays were because Lynette Pearson, an aunt who is his foster parent, moved five times. But he caused at least one of his departures himself.

Miller played last year at Morse, but his season ended abruptly last January when Pearson told him he could no longer play because he wasn’t spending enough time in the classroom. In effect, it ended Miller’s high school basketball career.

Although he might not graduate until December or even later, he will have used up his eligibility at the end of this semester.

To understand Anthony Miller, it is best to start with his troubled childhood.

By the age of 5, Miller was in a foster home because his mother could no longer care for him for reasons Miller preferred be kept private. His father has never been a part of his life.

“I never knew him and have never seen him,” Miller said.

After spending nine years in foster homes, Miller moved in with Pearson, who at the time was living in the Crawford district. Pearson, who has three children of her own, later took in Miller’s brother and three sisters.

As a freshman at Crawford, Miller started the season playing varsity. But King demoted him to junior varsity to give him time to mature. But he soon kicked Miller off the junior varsity.

“I couldn’t keep him out of trouble,” King said. “We made a contract with him, and he broke it over and over. It was a full-time job to keep him in class.”

It was at Crawford that Miller was diagnosed by the special education department as having a severe learning disability.

He left Crawford after a year when Pearson, in need of a larger home, relocated her family to the Morse district.

After playing his sophomore season at Morse and starting for much of the season, Miller moved with his aunt to the Chula Vista district six weeks before the end of the school year.

Just before the 1989-90 school year began, Pearson relocated back to the Morse district. In his partial season as a junior, Miller began to excel--averaging 17 points, eight rebounds, five steals and five assists.

Davis said Miller was one of the best players he’s coached.

“He played all the time,” he said. “He had a great natural instinct to the basket. He did some things that I’d never seen before.”

But Pearson thought Davis was “using” her nephew for his basketball skills. She didn’t think Davis was making any commitment to improving Miller’s education, so she pulled him off the team in January and requested a transfer.

“Everybody liked Anthony because of his basketball,” Pearson said. “He was given special privileges. I saw A’s and B’s on his report card, but I never saw him studying.”

By spring, Pearson arranged with San Diego Board of Education to enroll her nephew at Madison. Thompson recalled the day he saw Miller and his aunt come to Madison to register.

“(Pearson) was giving me these looks, like, ‘Stay away from Anthony,’ ” he said. “I knew (the situation) was going to be tough.”

Thompson knew all about Miller’s academic difficulties and Pearson’s stormy relationship with Davis, but he was willing to give him a chance.

“Some coaches wouldn’t put up with it,” Thompson said. “But I felt it was worth it. I told Anthony, ‘Whatever it takes for you to play, you better conform to it.’ ”

But Thompson said he soon realized Miller wouldn’t be at Madison very long.

“When he was supposed to be in class, we’d find him in the gym shooting baskets by himself,” Thompson said. “He’d have a pass to go to the bathroom, and he’d say, ‘Look coach, here’s my pass.’

“But before long, it just got impossible.”

Pearson acknowledged that Miller was caught running dice games on campus, slamming a door in a teachers’ aide’s face and breaking into lockers during a class.

The last incident effectively ended Miller’s career at Madison in the spring of 1990.

“It was so frustrating,” Thompson said, “because you’re always trying to develop talent. Then, when you get somebody like Anthony . . . He just never saw the connection between staying out of trouble and basketball success.”

Miller’s next stop was Lincoln in the fall of 1990. Ron Loneski, Lincoln’s coach, said he had seen worse cases than Miller, but soon realized getting Miller on a basketball court was not going to be easy.

“He could have really helped us,” he said. “He was the kind of kid who could really fit in on our team.”

“He’s like a little puppy dog. Not many kids didn’t like him.”

When Loneski, a special education teacher, witnessed Miller’s reading level, he began to understand his problems.

“He didn’t want to work,” Loneski said. “He didn’t want to go to school. But who in the hell wants to go to school when you’re not having any fun? It’s difficult for him to say, ‘I will suffer through all of this embarrassment to benefit from basketball.’ ”

After a while, Loneski said, Miller stopped going to class.

After he turned 18 in November, Miller moved out of Pearson’s house and in with a friend. It was during that time that he was caught breaking into a house. He was placed on probation.

Miller returned to live with Pearson, who had moved to the Sweetwater district because she felt the gangs were too prevalent around Lincoln. Before Christmas 1990, Miller landed at Sweetwater.

Lolita Blackman, his special education counselor, said he started out on shaky ground but that he is beginning to fit in.

“Whatever trouble he’d been in was not a concern of ours,” Blackman said. “We don’t give up on kids.”

Blackman says basketball is rarely mentioned these days.

“We want him to feel like he’s more than just a basketball player,” Blackman said. “We want him to be able to go on with his life when he gets out of here. We don’t want him to be another statistic. We feel Anthony has more potential than that. He wants to explore life. Our goal is to get him that opportunity.”

Ralph Mora, Sweetwater’s assistant principal, also has been in Miller’s corner.

“I’ve told Anthony that the fact that you can dunk a basketball has no bearing on your schoolwork,” Mora said. “I’ve tried to convince him that people will still like you even if you’re not on a basketball court.”

Miller said he is finally getting the message.

“I’ve spent too much time thinking about basketball and not enough on school,” he said. “I’m trying to settle down and become eligible to play in (a high school spring league). I was at the bottom, but I’m coming up.”

Although it’s painful for him, Miller said he occasionally attends Sweetwater games.

“I wish I could play,” Miller said. “They probably need me out there.”

Dave Ybarra, Sweetwater’s basketball coach, said Miller practiced with the team for a couple days until his transcripts came in.

“From what I’ve seen, he’s one of the top players in the county,” Ybarra said. “He plays above the rim. He would have made us a legitimate contender (for the section championship).”

Sweetwater forward Brandon Tennant said he occasionally plays pickup games with Miller at Muni Gym, considered maybe the best “playground” basketball site in San Diego.

“He dominates,” Tennant said. “He’d be one of the top players in the county. His leaping ability, quickness and athleticism are outstanding.”

Ex-Crawford Coach King said he will never forget one day at Muni Gym.

“Anthony was going against some pretty rough players and they kept taking advantage of his easygoing personality,” King said. “They were just constantly pounding on him. But he was fearless. He would just keep taking it to these guys. They’d pound on him some more, but he’d just have this big smile on his face. I don’t know if it was because he had so much confidence or that he just didn’t know any better.”

Maybe Miller simply realizes the basketball court is his sanctuary.

“Basketball’s the only thing he’s done in his life that he’s gotten positive feedback from,” King said.

And according to Thompson, basketball might be his only way out.

“A kid at that learning level is not going to have a decent chance in college without something like basketball,” Thompson said. “Basketball would be a perfect vehicle for him.”

Miller has dreams about playing for the University of Nevada Las Vegas and someday in the NBA, but for now he is only thinking about one thing.

“My goal is to graduate,” he said.

Whether he ever gets the chance to realize his basketball dreams is anybody’s guess.

“He could go either way,” Blackman said. “We hope he makes it. If he doesn’t, it won’t be because we didn’t try.”

If Miller doesn’t make it, who is to blame? King said he would place much of the blame on the educational system that allowed him to reach the ninth grade before they discovered his learning handicap.

“Under a different set of circumstances,” King said, “that kid could be something really special. He has a much talent or more than Tony Clark. But if you never get a chance to showcase it, what good is it?”

SO MUCH TALENT SO MUCH TORMENT : Anthony Miller may be the county’s best player. But a multitude of woes put him on the sideline.

More to Read

More From the Los Angeles Times