Villanueva’s Role About To Expand As Men Reload

By Gavin Keefe (Day Sports Writer, www.theday.com)
11/16/04

He’s the opposite of what you’d expect, considering his background.

There isn’t a hint of the New York City basketball attitude in Charlie Villanueva, who’s from Brooklyn. No super-sized ego in his possession despite the hype surrounding him since his high school days when jumping directly to the NBA was a serious option.

He’s managed to stay humble.

Winning a national championship in his first year at UConn hasn’t decreased his desire to be the best. He wants to repeat the feat this season.

He’s also polite and respectful, apologizing for eating his dinner during a recent interview before rushing off to a night class. And he’s blessed with extraordinary basketball talent, poised for a breakout season.

“He’s got the great smile, the bald head,” coach Jim Calhoun said. “You can’t miss him. My wife says he has a smile that will melt you. He’s likeable, bright, a good student. He doesn’t miss a class. He wouldn’t miss a class. We run the other kids for missing classes. He’ll never run for missing classes. He’s a very conscientious student.

“Everything that you think he’s going to be, every single stereotype out there — New York City, the NBA, all the bad stuff — he’s the exact opposite. He’s just a great kid. He’s amazing that way.”

There’s something else you should know about Villanueva. He didn’t wind up this way by accident. He credits his mother, Dora Mejia, proudly admitting that he’s a momma’s boy. A day rarely passes without them talking on the telephone. She’s always been there for her now 20-year-old son.

When Villanueva struggled to deal with a skin disease called Alopecia Areata, which caused hair loss at a young age, she sat by his side and shed tears with him. When a bad case of homesickness nearly caused him to bail out of Blair Academy in New Jersey, his mother talked him out of it. When he considered forgoing college to test the NBA draft waters, she reminded him the importance of education.

“My mom means everything to me,” Villanueva said. “She’s always been there for me. She’s real supportive. ... She has a great head on her shoulders. I just love my mom.”

You can imagine Villanueva’s reaction upon learning of his mother’s accident earlier this month. A truck driver suffered a heart attack, sending his vehicle up onto the New York City sidewalk where she was waiting at the bus stop.

UConn basketball practice had just ended Nov. 1 when his older brother, Rob Carlos, called with the alarming news. A stunned Villanueva quickly left Storrs for Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. His mom is on the mend now, recovering from a shattered elbow and broken arm. Earlier this week, she was about to return to her Brooklyn home.

“She’s a strong woman,” Villanueva said. “She’s real tough. I’m amazed how she’s improving every day. ... If she would have been hit head-on, she probably wouldn’t be here today.”

Mejia, who moved to this country from the Dominican Republic as a teenager, is the rock of the family. As a divorced parent, she’s had the difficult task of raising her three children, Rob Carlos, Charlie and daughter Genesis, now 13, keeping them out of harm’s way living in the Elmhurst projects.

“It was a struggle but we managed to go to school, play basketball and get through it and turned out well,” Rob said. “Not a lot of kids from that area turn out that way. Being that my father wasn’t around, she was like our mother and father. ... She just kept us under her wings and told us to go to school and get education and kept pushing me and Charlie and kept us away from the drug dealers.”

Avoiding the pitfalls of the neighborhood was just one obstacle that Villanueva had to overcome. At the age of 10, his hair began to fall out. He lost his eyebrows, too. The doctor’s diagnosis: Alopecia Areata.

To hide his problem, he’d wear a hat to junior high school and eventually shaved his head. It was a painful period in his life. He couldn’t understand what was happening. Cruel classmates mercifully teased him at school, driving him into a shell.

“It was real tough,” Villanueva said. “It was bad for my mother, too, because she knew what I was going through. ... It was just real hard looking different. There were days where I’d just be in my own world and not want to talk to anybody and come home crying. My mom would be there and cry with me. She’s a strong woman. She was in a lot of pain.”

With encouragement from his mother, Villanueva grew comfortable with his condition. Basketball provided him an outlet to express himself and unleash his frustrations. He admired Michael Jordan whose bald head is one of his trademarks.

On the playgrounds, he answered trash-talking opponents taunting him about a lack of hair by channeling his anger into his game.

“I definitely used basketball to get over that. Basketball came through for me,” Villanueva said. “Instead of throwing a punch, I felt like if I scored on you, that was like me throwing a punch at you. I never fought with nobody over it.”

Rob was amazed how well his brother handled the situation. “He did well and got through it,” Rob said.

“Me, it would have hurt my self-esteem.”

At UConn, Villanueva has learned to laugh off fans’ comments on the road, using it as motivation. He jokes that he’s starting a new trend. And he’s found a way to turn it into something positive. Last season a 10-year-old boy from Pennsylvania wrote the basketball office, asking to talk to Villanueva. The boy and his family drove all the way to Storrs to attend a basketball practice.

“I just made his day and he made me feel good that I could put a smile on his face,” Villanueva said. “I definitely had an impact on him. ... I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. It definitely made me a stronger person. It just gave me the power to help other people out that have this condition.”

His inner strength enabled him to get through another rough spot in his life. He left home to attend Blair Academy for his final three years of high school, but nearly bolted before the end of his first year. Consumed by homesickness, he had trouble dealing with being away from his family for the first time and adjusting to living in the country.

Until his mother gave him a heart-to-heart talk.

“That was the worst possible year,” Villanueva said. “I wanted to go home. My mom said in order to get what you want you’ve got to make sacrifices. She always kept preaching that to me. I really didn’t want to be there my first year but I did it because of mom.”

Life at Blair gradually got much easier. Villanueva thrived there, improving on the court and in the classroom. The lure of the NBA tempted him to skip college. Once again, words of wisdom from his mother led him to make the smart decision.

Now he couldn’t be happier at UConn.

“My mom was right, you know,” said Villanueva, laughing. “So I’m here making the most out of it.”

A fresh start is in front of him. No NCAA suspension, a frustrating experience that forced him to miss the first six games of his college basketball career, is looming. He has a better understanding of his role. While grateful for last year’s chance to contribute as a reserve to a national championship, he hopes to live up to his billing as a blossoming star.

The UConn coaching staff expects great things from him and so do his teammates.

“I think he got frustrated a little bit at times last year,” Josh Boone said. “But I think this year he’s definitely ready to have a breakout season.”

Villanueva has the kind of game that NBA scouts drool over, versatile enough to play inside or outside. He’s added 15 pounds of muscle to his 6-foot-11 frame, checking in at 240 pounds. He’s learning to play with the all-out intensity needed to excel on the major Division I level.

The only reason he didn’t average double figures last year — he averaged 8.9 points and 5.3 rebound while making the All-Big East rookie team — was because of UConn’s depth and the decision to stick with experienced players, Calhoun said.

“People don’t realize how good Charlie Villanueva is,” Calhoun said. “He can hit you in a lot of different ways. His work ethic is 100 percent improved over what it was before. ... He has Cedric Maxwell kind of stuff where he can do an awful lot of things at his size to get the ball into the basket.”

Villanueva is looking forward to opening night against Buffalo Saturday, which just so happens to be the day after his mom’s 50th birthday.

Life couldn’t be better.

“If I can do this forever, this whole college thing, I’d do it,” Villanueva said. “I just love college so much. ... I can’t complain. I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.”

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