Man with a plan: Gators forward Matt Bonner has found paradise in a work-'til-you-drop routine that allows little room for fun and even less for errors

Sporting News, The, Feb 18, 2002 by Matt Hayes

We begin with shimmering blue water and sun-splashed beaches and a chemistry exam because this is where the plan took its one and only detour.

This is where Matt Bonner's obsessive, workaholic world was upended by the temptress--Maui.

Bonner's plan always is there. Always. It is meticulous, and it is meaningful, and by god, Bonner never, ever strays from it. Except for this one time three years ago, when Bonner, a heralded freshman recruit for the Florida Gators, was in the midst of 18 hours of coursework as a pre-med major. Of course it was a huge load, with or without the added pressure of playing for one of the nation's best college basketball teams.

But we're talking about Matt Bonner here. He hadn't had anything lower than an "A" on any report card in any subject since the day he stepped into preschool. For all we know, he aced his Apgar, too, drawing stunned looks from the ob-gyn and the delivery-room nurses. Bonner's plan rolled along for years without interruption, without the slightest notion of a hiccup.

Then the temptress.

Bonner was sitting in a hotel room, thousands of miles from home on a basketball trip, trying to take a chemistry exam while the waves sang a sweet, serenading tune. Caught in the moment, he got a "C" on the exam, which led to the first "B" of his scholastic career.

"I place pretty unrealistic goals on myself," Bonner says. "But that will never happen again."

He says it, and you believe it because the plan never has a hitch, never veers for anything. Except paradise. Can't blame a college kid for that. Unless you're Bonner, and you wake every morning and look in the mirror at 6 feet, 10 inches of self-evaluation and motivation.

Bonner's plan, his work-'til-you-drop routine, has played out in his entire life--from a shy boy in the little city of Concord, N.H., to a young man tempted by tranquility, to a basketball career that will be among the best in Gators' history by the time Bonner completes his eligibility next season.

"I've heard people talk about Vernon Maxwell and Ronnie Williams," says sixth-year Gators coach Billy Donovan, who also coached Magic forward Mike Miller for two seasons. "But I think you'd be hard pressed to find two better players in the history of this program than Matt Bonner and (senior center) Udonis Haslem."

Bonner is not your typical NCAA athlete, but he is what every Division I coach wants: a star player who drastically improves each season, who embraces coaching and criticism and who--get this--actually wants to play four years. He doesn't have fanatical parents pushing him--his father is a mailman, his mother a grade-school teacher--and he hasn't become mesmerized by his own talents.

But he does have his plan: Play four years at Florida, gain a degree, get drafted by the NBA.

He is, more than anything, part of a new breed of power forward, and he is a throwback in terms of the student-athlete in this land of green and greed. He has built a 3.96 GPA, now majoring in business administration, and he shoots like a guard and bangs like a center. He scraps for loose balls and moves fluidly on a pressure defense. He finds flaws in his game, then works exhaustively to fix them. He averaged 4.8 points and 3.2 rebounds as a freshmen and more than doubled those numbers to 13.3 and 7.7 as a sophomore.

This season, with the Gators possessing three All-SEC candidates (including Haslem and junior guard Brett Nelson), Bonner is averaging 16.5 points and 7.0 rebounds, and he is shooting 52.9 percent from the field. Those numbers and his free-throw percentage (83.3 percent) all rank among the top seven in the SEC. He has evolved from a nervous freshman who thought too much on the floor to a confident junior whose presence is so powerful that he was named a team captain a year early.

"We should all be fortunate enough to have players like Matt Bonner," Georgia coach Jim Harrick says.

Even if Bonner doesn't exactly know how essential he is. The Gators recently stumbled through a three-game losing streak as Bonner struggled. He sat in the parking lot of a Publix grocery store a day after the third loss, a home game against Kentucky, talking on the phone to Donovan about his drive and direction and how he could continue to develop.

Herein lies the problem with the plan: Bonner wants so much to do what's expected, he forgets to do what's needed. In the three losses, he had no inside game and hit just one of 10 3-pointers. He sat in the parking lot that night running the cell phone battery dry to find answers, minutes after forcing himself to make 100 3-pointers as he shot alone in the Gators' practice facility.

A few days later, he hit six of nine 3s, grabbed eight rebounds and totaled 25 points in a rout of Mississippi State, helping the Gators end their longest losing streak since 1998.

"He is going to do--literally --everything you tell him to do," Donovan says. "He is so unselfish out there. A lot of times, I find myself telling Matt, `You've got to be a star. You've got to be a great player.' If you can tell him what he has to do to get better, he'll work harder than anyone to get there."