Sept. 4, 2002

This is the second of a six part series profiling the touted members of Villanova Men's Basketball Class of 2006. Today's subject is 6-7 forward Curtis Sumpter of Brooklyn, N.Y.

By Mike Sheridan, Villanova Media Relations

It was early in the 1999-2000 prep basketball campaign. Washington, D.C.'s Gonzaga High School was hosting its annual Christmas Tournament and the field was packed with some of the East's most prominent hoops powerhouses and a handful of elite athletes.

Foremost on that list was the nation's No. 1 player, Eddie Griffin of Philadelphia's Roman Catholic High School.

Griffin did not disappoint those who came to see him do battle with Bishop Loughlin High School, a perennial New York City powerhouse. He produced the kind of performance that had earned him his place on the must have list of college coaches across America with 34 points. Fans cheered and left the gymnasium confident they had witnessed the work of a future pro.

As he accepted the congratulations of friends and fans in the aftermath of the game, Griffin sought out a lanky forward from Loughlin.

"Where are you going to college?" Griffin asked.

"I'm only a sophomore," replied Curtis Sumpter sheepishly.

Griffin shook his head. His surprise was understandable: the unknown forward had nearly matched him blow for blow, finishing the day with 27 points.

"Stay with it," Griffin told his young rival. "You've got a great future."

If it wasn't the first indication that Sumpter could be on a basketball fast track, it was certainly an important signal to an untested novice just beginning to spread his wings on the hardwood.

"This was a guy people were talking about going straight to the pros," recalls Sumpter of a frontcourt player who would spend one year at Seton Hall before being selected with the No. 7 choice in the first round of the 2001 National Basketball Association Draft. "So to be able to play like that against him and have him take notice of me was a great feeling."

Griffin's instincts about Sumpter were on the mark. Over the span of the next 24 months, the lanky native of Brooklyn would emerge as one of the finest players in America - and a key component of the coveted Villanova Wildcat class of 2006.

Hoop dreams did not always occupy Sumpter's idle moments as a kid in Brooklyn. In fact, the future that danced through his mind saw him not in shorts and sneakers on the maple wood floor of Madison Square Garden, but in chin strap and cleats on the turf of Giants Stadium. On the sandlots of his youth, Sumpter was much more John Elway than he was Michael Jordan.

"Football was kind of my first love," he says. "I played for my father on a youth team and was most valuable player of the league. I was a quarterback and just couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to stick with it when I got to high school."

As it turned out, someone else had other ideas. And since the individual in question was his mother, Priscilla Robinson, her word carried the day. She vetoed the idea of Curtis the prep football sensation before his career saw so much as one practice snap from center. In her mind, her son had one huge physical disadvantage when it came to the gridiron.

"Too bony," she said to Curtis, shaking her head. In truth, Sumpter's sinewy frame wasn't ideal for the high-speed collisions of football. His mother noted his growth spurt and instead pointed him in the direction of the orange rims found throughout his Brooklyn neighborhood.

"She thought because of my size I would be better off in basketball," says Sumpter.

Four years removed from that decision, it's hard to argue with the notion that mother really did know best. Sumpter's basketball career has been a steadily rising arc that culminated in his being named 2001-02 New York City Catholic League Player of the Year.

No period did more to elevate his status than the summer of 2001. Following an excellent junior season at Loughlin in which he averaged 18 points and eight rebounds per game, Sumpter flourished as a member of the Long Island Panthers, one of the premiere AAU programs in the land.

"We had a great team and that summer was one of the best periods of my life," he says with a smile.

The Panthers captured the Las Vegas Big Time summer tournament and turned countless heads with their play. Sumpter and his buddy, Jason Fraser, were at the center of the storm. Observers, which included hundreds of college coaches, marveled at their competitiveness and ability to make plays at crunch time.

If there were any lingering doubts about Sumpter's desirability as a college prospect - and there couldn't have been many with his name adorning most top 100 lists before the summer - they were put to rest. Sumpter was the object of a heated recruiting battle that all of New York basketball followed intently.

"I loved the attention," admits Sumpter. "It was nice having all of these great college programs express an interest in you."

Yet with the humidity of July and August came a certain measure of fatigue with the process. When Sumpter was out, telephone messages would build in a small pile kept diligently by his family. Upon his return, his mother frequently handed them to him with a simple message.

"My theory was that these coaches wanted to talk to me so they would call back," Sumpter says with a laugh. "But my mother had other ideas. She told me I had to call them all back. I would be like, 'all 20 of them?"

Yes, all 20 of them.

"That part of it got to me," he says. "I would end up being on the telephone for hours."

By early August, Sumpter had an inkling of what his collegiate choice would be. His epiphany came in Las Vegas during the Big Time Tournament and it arrived in yet another telephone call.

The man at the other end of the line in this instance was Jay Wright, a man Sumpter had spoken to literally hundreds of times since first meeting him as a ninth grader. Yet this call was different. Sumpter sensed that instantly.

"Coach called me to tell me about Allan," says Sumpter of his fellow incoming freshman, Allan Ray.

Ray was in Las Vegas that week too. But at the moment of Wright's telephone call, the guard from St. Raymond's High School in the Bronx was in a hospital emergency room after suffering a punctured lung. At the first diagnosis it was clear that this was a potentially dangerous situation.

"Coach never said anything about basketball," recalls Sumpter of the conversation. "He told me about Allan and asked me to call him."

The conversation, though brief, impacted Sumpter in a fashion he had not anticipated.

"What happened to Allan just showed how quickly basketball can be taken from you," he says. "When Coach Wright called me, it just hit home. It showed me that he was a compassionate individual and was interested in us as people, not just as players.

"It touched my heart. That night I called my coach, Gary Charles, and told him that I knew where I wanted to go."

Within weeks, Sumpter had announced his intention to become a Wildcat. He was the second prep standout to announce for Villanova, joining Ray, who recovered nicely from his lung injury.

Earlier in the summer, Fraser had told people that he would follow Sumpter to college. Yet Fraser wasn't ready to decide and Sumpter had the wisdom to allow his friend to reach a conclusion at his own pace.

"I told Jason I wanted him to come to Villanova because he was my friend and I thought it was a great situation for him, as it is for me," he said. "But I also told him I didn't want him to come here because he's my friend. I told him, 'You have to decide what's best for you.'"

Fraser ultimately chose Villanova and, with the October addition of Randy Foye, cemented this class as one of the nation's best. The two pals have bonded quickly with the returning Wildcats through summer pickup games and the first week of the fall semester.

"It's been great so far," states Sumpter. "The returning players have been terrific to us and very helpful. Everyone really has. People have extended their hands to us and really gone out of their way to be nice.

"I haven't been here that long but I already find myself wanting to get back here when I am at home. It already feels like my second home."

That is good news to Wildcat fans, who figure to see plenty of this 6-7 forward who boasts a wide range of basketball skills. Sumpter is a proven scorer and winner eager to aide the cause in whatever way he can.

"It's much better to be a five point per game scorer on a championship team than a 20 ppg scorer on a struggling one," he says.

If Sumpter's promising arc continues to rise, Wildcat fans may want to extend another hand, this one to his mother.

Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

Nova Nation turns its grateful eyes to you.

Curtis Sumpter, quarterback sensation, is gone.

In his place stands a young hoops standout with an intriguing array of basketball possibilities at his fingertips.