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A different duck: freshman Malik Hairston doesn't mind going against the flow and flowing against the show in the face of enormous expectations

Sporting News, The, Dec 27, 2004 by Mike DeCourcy

You want to find Malik Hairston, you better be ready to do some work. He is not going to show up where everybody expects. He is not going to do the same things as everyone else, say what everyone expects him to say. If basketball is a team sport played by individuals, Hairston has been boldly individual about the team he has chosen and the nature of how he plays.

He knows what you expect of him. You expected him to play at Kansas. Or UCLA. He chose Oregon, the alma mater of Nike chairman Phil Knight, after flying to the Eugene campus on a private jet, so you expect Hairston some day will have a swoosh tattooed on his biceps.

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You expect him to carry his 6-6, 200-pound frame above the rim and try to dunk every ball that comes his way. You expect he'll treat his teammates like a "supporting cast." You hear he coined the word Carmelo-ize, so you expect he'll be in college long enough to find his way from the dorm to the gym to the green room of next June's NBA draft.

You are not wrong to expect all of this because this is what you've read on the Internet, in chat rooms, on recruiting sites and in newspapers. Malik Hairston would like to tell you a different story. His.

WHY A DUCK

This is not what he planned. On his way to becoming a McDonald's All-American, Hairston combined with Joe Crawford, now a Kentucky freshman, to lead Detroit's Renaissance High to a perfect record and state championship. Hairston pondered whether he'd become a Jayhawk or Bruin. Though most of his classmates chose colleges by November, he still was deliberating in May. "I honestly knew nothing about Oregon," he says.

Hairston's father, Richard, encouraged him to consider the Ducks, and Malik agreed to visit Eugene. There was some wild late-night entertainment during that trip, complete with stripping, groping. Yeah, the players went to the rec center after 10, half stripped to "skins," and there was plenty of physical contact as they played five-on-five for 90 minutes. "Of all the places I went, they seemed more like a family," Hairston says.

When Hairston made his announcement, the question he faced was not, "Why Oregon?" It was more like, "Why Oregon?" This developed despite Oregon winning the 2002 Pac-10 title and the 2003 Pac-10 Tournament and producing NBA first-round picks the past three years.

"We knew we had done things the right way," says Oregon coach Ernie Kent, "and yet the perception was like a slap in the face: You're only Oregon. How can you get a player away from Michigan and Kansas? You tell me why we don't match up with those schools."

THE OREGON PASS

Hairston needs to make only one trip up the court to show you there's something different about him. "He kind of runs like an old man," says ESPN analyst Steve Lavin. It's not that Hairston is slow. It's that he looks to be working very hard.

Hairston moves past defenders not just because his feet are quick but also because his mind is. Lavin, who coached Hairston on a Nike-sponsored summer trip to Europe, compares him to former St. John's star Chris Mullin. "(Malik's) never rattled, never gets hurried or rushed like young players do," Lavin says.

After Hairston signed at Oregon, the thinking was he would inherit the shots and touches of All-American Luke Jackson, now with the Cavaliers. Instead, Hairston, a shooting guard who plays with a point guard's mentality, didn't put up a dozen shots in any game until the seventh of the season.

He excels at penetrating the lane from the wing. But unlike most college players, whose only options once there are to kick the ball out for a 3-point attempt or squeeze a shot through traffic, Hairston is a brilliant interior passer. He displays a pool shooter's feel for bounce-pass angles.

"Malik has surprised me a few times," says Oregon power forward Ian Crosswhite. "You're thinking he'll force up a shot, and he'll flip you a pass, and you're wide open. I love it."

FEELING 'MELO

Hairston says his father came up with the phrase, but it was Malik who issued the declaration that ranks with the year's best sports quotes: "I want to Carmelo-ize Oregon." Some newspapers spelled that with a hyphen. Some did not. But a lot of them printed that nervy assertion.

Carmelo Anthony was an All-American as a freshman, when he led Syracuse to the NCAA championship. Then he left for the NBA.

"The only meaning that had was the effect I wanted to have on the basketball team," Hairston says. Oh. So it wasn't about being a one-year wonder? It wasn't about becoming a star so bright that the next prep whiz would say he wanted to achieve the Malik-ization of his college choice? No. And he's not sorry he said it.

"Not at all," Hairston says. "I really want to have--think I will have--a strong impact. If my team needs me to sacrifice, I'm going to do it. If my team needs me to step up and make a play, I'm there for that."

A different duck: freshman Malik Hairston doesn't mind going against the flow and flowing against the show in the face of enormous expectations

Sporting News, The, Dec 27, 2004 by Mike DeCourcy

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