NICK
GEORGE SPOTLIGHT11-15-02
With the basketball season close at hand, most of the attention will be on first-year head coach Jeff Capel, who becomes the youngest active Division I head coach once the opening tip occurs November 26 at Western Kentucky. At the other end of the spectrum is freshman forward Nick George (Manchester, England/Montrose Christian), this week's subject of the Ram Spotlight. George will be making his debut as a 20-year-old freshman who learned the game in soccer-crazed England, not the conventional background of a Division I player.
"In England, we practiced twice a week for maybe an hour, then played games on Saturday," said George, who came to the United States two years ago. "The competition was pretty poor, and I had to play in the men's division to get any competition."
George decided to look for better competition abroad and enrolled at Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md., to learn the game from legendary prep coach Stu Vetter. Montrose has produced such college stars as Dennis Scott, Randolph Childress, George Lynch and Jason Capel, Jeff's younger brother. "I was really nervous going in," said George of attending Montrose. "There is so much expected of you when you're on the team there. You're looked down upon if you don't perform."
But George was up to the task, and he found what he was looking for as well. "The competition there was like nothing I've seen before," he said. "They run it like a college program. A lot of the things we do at VCU we did at Montrose. [Playing there] gave me good exposure, since a lot of college coaches came to see us play."
Although George received attention from several college programs, an assistant coach at Montrose helped VCU move to the forefront. "David Atkins, who is a friend of [VCU assistant coach] Kevin Brooks, told me about VCU and thought it would be a great place for me," George said. "I looked up Richmond on the map and checked out VCU's web site at that point and liked what I saw."
Capel played a major role in convincing George to join the Rams. "When Coach Capel was named head coach, he called and told me I was a priority," George said. "He recruited me hard with letters and calls all the time. I was really impressed. I felt like he really believed in me and saw something special in me.
"Before one of my practices, Coach Capel called me over. He said, 'When you get a dunk, you point at me.' Eventually I dunked and I pointed at him, and I guess the other college coaches [watching] knew then that I was going to VCU."
Although it took some time to adjust to college life and living in Richmond, George knows he made the right choice. "The atmosphere is so different here, not as fast-paced as in England," he said. "But everything is beautiful, the campus, classes, the people. Everyone is so supportive of the basketball team. I love it here and my love for it is growing every day."
As for basketball, George is an athletic 6-6, 205-pound small forward who loves to run the floor. At 20, he is more mature both physically and emotionally than most freshmen, and he has a good chance at earning significant playing time in his first season. Although great things seem to be in George's future as a Ram, he will always remember something most everyone else in attendance probably has forgotten by now: last week's exhibition game against the Latvia Select team. "[My first college basketball game] is one thing I'm never going to forget," George admitted. "I looked around and saw all the fans and couldn't believe it. It was an unbelievable experience, really hard to put into words. It got my adrenaline pumping."
Wait until you see a packed Siegel Center this weekend, Nick. And with the opportunity to watch George for the next four years, VCU fans have something to look forward to as well.