Ellington, USC's New Midget?

USC BASKETBALL

Ellington pursuing his first love

Some say Bruce Ellington, the Gamecocks’ new point guard, is a better prospect in football

Written by SETH EMERSON
semerson@thestate.com


Posted on 07.06.10

TIM DOMINICK/tdominick@thestate.com


MONCKS CORNER -- Bruce Ellington slides his 5-foot-10 frame — small for a basketball player, adequate for a receiver or running back — into the sofa chair. He leans forward and tries to explain it for about the 100th time.

“I tried to get them to understand,” he says. “But most of them just kept asking.”

A few feet away, his mother, Gwen, speaks up. Ellington stops talking and allows his mother to explain how she knows the answer to the question that baffles football recruiters and his own high school football coach: Why did Bruce Ellington chose basketball?

Gwen goes back to when Ellington was a kid and would dribble a basketball a mile up and down a dirt road.

To when she would pick up her youngest son from rec league football practice, and he would beg to not go back.

To when she had to force him to go to summer football workouts when all the other kids were excited about them.

“I knew he was gonna play basketball,” Gwen says.

Bruce looks at his mother, smiles and nods.

HIS SECOND LOVE

For all the speculation, Ellington seems to have undergone no tumult over the decision. That’s because there never was any. He was going to South Carolina to play basketball — his “first love.”

But his athletic gifts kept giving others reason to push him to football.

Ellington led Berkeley to the Class 4A state championship last December, scoring four touchdowns as the quarterback in the Stags’ option-oriented offense. He rushed for more than 2,000 yards his senior season.

Berkeley coach Jerry Brown sighs when Ellington’s sport of choice comes up. He thinks Ellington would make a great college cornerback or receiver/running back, a la Percy Harvin.

“He dominated the games in football. In basketball, he’d have some good games, but he didn’t just dominate the games like he did in football,” Brown said. “The talent’s still there in football. And it’s one-of-a-kind talent. And at 5-foot-10, your height doesn’t make as much of a difference in football.”

The best athlete Brown has coached?

“The best athlete I’ve seen,” Brown said, listing former NFL players Freddie Solomon and Stephen Davis among those who don’t stack up to Ellington.

The coach laughed at the notion that Ellington’s heart wasn’t into football.

“Bruce loves football more than any other kid I’ve coached,” Brown said. “He must really, really love basketball.”

He does. As football’s National Signing Day loomed, calls still came in, but they slowed. Ellington said USC coach Steve Spurrier told him he could sign to play football, give it a try and, if he didn’t like it, move on to basketball.

“I want to play basketball,” Ellington recalls telling Spurrier.

Which leads to his the next big challenge.

THE COMPARISON

When he visited USC last year, Ellington met another small point guard — Devan Downey. Ellington this season invariably will face comparisons — unfair ones, according to many — to Downey, a three-time first-team All-SEC pick.

Gamecocks coach Darrin Horn has tried to silence talk of Ellington replacing Downey.

“Nobody replaces Devan Downey,” Horn said at a Gamecock Club function in Lexington, a comment he has repeated often.

Ellington said he hears the talk about replacing Downey “all the time.” But he shrugs it off.

“I’m just gonna go up there and do what I can do to help the team,” Ellington said. “I’m not gonna be Devan Downey, of course, because he’s a special kid. I’m just gonna do what I can do.”

Gwen points out this will not be the first time Ellington will face such pressure. His cousin Andre, now at Clemson, preceded Ellington as a star on the Berkeley football team, so the same was expected of Ellington.

That turned out OK.

“He’s always said, ‘I’m gonna be me, I’m gonna be Bruce. I don’t wanna fill Andre’s shoes or do what Andre did,’” Gwen said. “I admire that in him.”

For all the hoopla surrounding Ellington’s football prowess, he was hardly a slouch on the basketball court. Ellington led Berkeley to the state semifinals, scoring 33 points in a loss to Lexington. He is a consensus top-100 recruit.

While Ellington and Downey both are on the short side, they are not clones. Ellington is stockier and more of a slasher, while Downey is a better outside shooter.

Ellington has been working on his jump shot and his floater. Downey, at 5-9, seldom had his shot blocked because he had an innate knowledge of where and when to shoot.

“Actually, I am trying to develop that a little more, a little ‘teardrop’ (shot) over everybody,” Ellington said. “But I’m also going to work on getting to the hole, getting fouls and getting and-ones. And working on my 3-point shot and jump shot.”

THE DEVELOPMENT

Ellington was born and raised in Moncks Corner, a small, rural town about 30 minutes from Charleston. Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War hero, was born nearby.

Perhaps the town’s best-known athlete, until the Ellingtons, was Rusty Williams, a tailback and free safety at Auburn in the late 1990s. Williams and the Ellingtons are distant cousins.

Ellington is active in his church as an usher and takes care of his two pit bull puppies.

He’s already looked up to in Moncks Corner for his athletic abilities. But he relates to kids how his mother used to tell him that if he didn’t maintain good grades, she would be his only cheerleader — alone in the backyard.

“When I was little, I was a little bad. But after my momma got me into football and basketball, then my grades started coming up and things started going good,” Ellington said. “So I basically tell them my life story and tell them that they’ve gotta get their grades up.”

When he gets to USC, Ellington plans to room with R.J. Slawson, a fellow recruit and a distant cousin. They grew up playing rec league basketball together.

The two consulted before making their college decisions, as Bruce did with Andre. But ultimately, his decision was his own.

Just as it was to play basketball over football.

Just as it was to accept a role that will see him draw comparisons to one of the best basketball players in USC history.

“I’m just gonna go up there,” Ellington said, “and be me.”

Gwen looks at her son, nods slightly, and smiles.