Meeting of the Finds

An Eastern prep school boasts a dazzling 1-2 punch who could become the first high school teammates to jump to the NBA

By Bob Sakamoto (Chicago Tribune)
December 22, 2002

BLAIRSTOWN, N.J. -- Their heads rising above all the rest, 6-foot-10-inch Charlie Villanueva and 6-8 Luol Deng play the ultimate two-man game of basketball, shouting directions to each other in the middle of a fast break.

For the moment, the high school basketball world is their stage, and their show leaves little for the most hardened critic to dissect.

Villanueva is a one-time 6-1 point guard who grew 6 inches in a year and was transformed into a high-altitude hybrid, equally comfortable dunking, driving, defending or shooting the three-pointer. If he doesn't enter the NBA draft, he is scheduled to become the highest-rated recruit to enroll at the University of Illinois, where he has given an oral commitment, helping the Illini rival Arizona in pure talent.

Deng is a long-armed, quick-thinking guard/forward who says he feels dominant only when everyone in a Blair Academy basketball uniform is sharing in his equal-opportunity game. He has signed a letter of intent with Duke but hasn't ruled out the NBA draft.

Deng is the nation's No. 2-rated high school player by Van Coleman of FutureStars magazine, a national recruiting publication. He's behind only the sensational LeBron James of Akron, Ohio, the projected No. 1 pick in next year's NBA draft. Villanueva is rated fifth, but the potential of a 6-10 athlete described as a combination of Tracy McGrady and Darius Miles is off the charts.

"Deng is going to create a new niche for the big power guard," Coleman said. "The one weakness: He needs to improve on his three-point shooting.

"You can't really appreciate Villanueva's game in the high school setting. During summer tournaments he would be absolutely dominating."

Good friends off the court, the two may soon be linked in basketball history. If they go pro, Villanueva and Deng would be the first high school teammates to enter the NBA draft at the same time. The practice of leaping from preps to pros has gained momentum since Farragut High School star Kevin Garnett did it in 1995.

"Both of these guys need to go to college to get their games ready for the next level," Coleman said. "Can they make the jump to the NBA right now? Sure, they both have the talent, and especially in Luol's case, the maturity.

"There's a chance they could both be lottery picks."

Deng has acknowledged the NBA is an option, but he won't seriously consider it until after the season. The deadline to apply is May 12. Villanueva has made his intentions clear.

"If I'm projected to be a lottery pick, it's 100 percent I'm going to the NBA," he said. "Every day of my life, I've wanted to help my mother out. She made a huge sacrifice sending me away, and I know she missed me.

"Now could come the payoff."

Converging paths
Blair Academy is a serene prep school in rural New Jersey, founded in 1848. The campus sprawls over a picturesque 315 acres, including a nine-hole golf course, and is characterized as a "blue-collar" Eastern boarding school. Forty percent of Blair's ethnically diverse student body of 426 receives financial aid to offset the annual cost of $29,400.

According to school officials, every graduate in Blair's 154-year history has gone to college.

Deng and Villanueva have turned a school best known for its wrestling team into a basketball hotbed. Deng arrived first, in the fall of 1999, in a roundabout fashion. A native of Sudan, he fled that country with his family when he was 5 during a bloody civil war. The family lived in Egypt and England, where Deng, as a 12-year-old, played point guard on a team that won the national junior championship.

An older brother, Ajou, had attended St. Thomas More Prep School in Connecticut, moved on to the University of Connecticut and now is a fifth-year senior basketball player at Fairfield. UConn assistant coach Karl Hobb passed the word to Blair coach Joe Mantegna that Ajou Deng had a younger brother who was something special.

Mantegna met with the Deng family in England, and the parents decided to send both Deng and his older sister, Arek, to Blair. Arek Deng now plays on the University of Delaware women's team.

Aldo and Martha Deng stressed the importance of education and the value of proper behavior to all nine of their children, making the choice that much easier.

Luol, their eighth child, is fluent in three languages--the Dinka tribal language, Arabic and English--and vows that no matter what he decides this spring, he will go to college one day. He is a dormitory monitor who inspires others with his integrity, teammates and faculty say. In the spring, as a parade of big-name college coaches visited Blair, Deng sought out North Carolina's Matt Doherty to ask for an autograph.

"It turns out we had a manager named Anthony Stival, a 6th-grader who is a huge North Carolina fan, always wearing Carolina blue," Mantegna said. "Luol realized Anthony would probably never get close enough to Doherty for an autograph. Here I am, 32 years old, and I never thought about that.

"Luol is a better human being than he is a basketball player."

Deng credits his parents.

"If you came to my house and I brought you a glass of water in my hand, my mom would scream at me because I didn't serve it to you on a tray," Deng said."That is how we were raised."

Villanueva was a backup point guard at Newtown High School in Queens his freshman year but grew 6 inches and started at shooting guard as a sophomore. But his grades were subpar, and Villanueva knew he had to get out of Queens.

Royal Ivey, a friend from Queens and now a top player at Texas, sold him on Blair. Ivey had spent a year after high school playing for Mantegna and improving his academics.

So Villanueva repeated his sophomore year and began catching up. He roomed with Deng.

"I helped Charlie when he came here because I saw someone who was a little like me," Deng said.

"We have basically grown up together at Blair."

Now Villanueva, 18, is on course to graduate with Deng and the rest of the senior class.

"If I had stayed in Queens, it would've been a disaster because I wasn't concentrating on my schoolwork," Villanueva said. "Once I got here, everything changed.

This was the best move of my life." The year before Villanueva's arrival, Mantegna had vouched for a basketball prospect who ultimately was dismissed for disciplinary reasons. Blair headmaster Chandler Hardwick told his coach he was allowed one mistake--and that had been it.

Mantegna rolled the dice on Villanueva--and cashed in big.

Preparing for future
By preparing Villanueva and Deng for a college education, Blair also may be giving them the discipline they will need as professional athletes. Their weekdays are rigidly structured, with a demanding class load, extracurricular activities in addition to basketball and mandatory study from 8 to 10 p.m.

"The peer pressure at Blair is a positive because it's pressure to do the right thing," said Mantegna, who came to the school four years ago after working as an assistant coach at Boston University and Lehigh. "Everyone is on the same track. They want to go to college and be successful in life."

Each Blair student is required to participate in three sports as a freshman and two after that. The academy offers 19 sports ranging from the traditional football, basketball, baseball and hockey to skiing, squash and crew.

Deng and Villanueva ran track as sophomores, and both performed in the chorus in a production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" as juniors. Good friends off the court, their relationship extends to the basketball floor. Deng takes more risks on defense when Villanueva is in the game, knowing he is a formidable last line of defense. Villaneuva knows when he breaks free, Deng will find a way to get him the ball.

"Luol is the most helpful person you're ever going to meet," Villanueva said.

Deng is averaging 24 points, 10 rebounds and 3.5 blocks a game, while Villanueva averages 19 points, 11 rebounds and seven blocks. Together they have Blair off to a 6-0 start.

"We were on our way to a tournament in Delaware last month when we made a rest stop at a boarding school," said Hardwick. "The students recognized Charlie and Luol and asked them for autographs. Some of the students ran back to their rooms to retrieve white T-shirts for the guys to sign. I was stunned.

"These guys are raising Blair's recognition across the country. I'm quite sure we will not see two players like this at the same time ever again."

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