Maurice Purify

[Eric the Red]

Player: Maurice Purify

Hometown: Eureka, California

Position: WR

Height: 6’5”

Weight: 215

40 time: 4.48

Visit Date: Oct. 8, 2005 (TTech)

Scholarships offered: Nebraska, Arizona, Washington, Oregon

Rankings/Stars:

Rivals:

Bid Red Report: JC/ :star

 

 

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Please feel free to copy and paste a few of the questions and give us your "Nsight"

 

1) What are your first impressions of this recruit (speed, strength, character, leadership, grades, etc)?

 

2) Rank his importance to the Huskers 1-10 (10 the most important).

 

3) Will he contribute right away? In what capacity?

 

4) Who does this player most remind you of?

 

5) Where do you see this player in 2010?

[Eric the Red]

Thank god

[HSKRNOKC]

Thank god

 

 

Amen brotha. Whew.

[hskr23]

Eric the Red Posted on Feb 1 2006, 11:02 AM

Thank god

 

 

 

 

Same thing I was thinking!!!

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Yes, he was the one I really wondered about. What a great addition to the team!

[kramer]

1) What are your first impressions of this recruit (speed, strength, character, leadership, grades, etc)?

His size, he's huge. His speed is probably deceiving because his strides are huge.

 

2) Rank his importance to the Huskers 1-10 (10 the most important).

10 - without a doubt

 

3) Will he contribute right away? In what capacity?

He damn well better. A week or two to know a few plays and then more an dmore on his plate.

 

4) Who does this player most remind you of?

Roy WIlliams - hopefully he can produce

 

5) Where do you see this player in 2010?

Second year with the Buffalo Bills

[NUpolo8]

This guy is a monster. I cannot wait to see he and Swift work together on opposite sides

[Fat Tire]

Going to be one hell of a battle at the WR spot this spring and summer! Tons of talent either coming back or now recruited.

[Eric the Red]

Purify has "functional speed", according to Callahan

[Eric the Red]

A leader after death

CCSF basketball team leans on its slain star

- Jake Curtis, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, February 4, 2006

 

Although he was shot and killed early the morning after Christmas, Terrell Anderson is still present at City College of San Francisco basketball games.

 

His seat on the bench -- the only chair to the left of the coaches, apart from all other players -- remains empty, his No. 22 jersey draped across the back. CCSF players exiting the game for a rest sometimes sit to the left of the coaches, but they sit in the first row of bleachers, leaving vacant the final chair on the team bench, the one that, in their minds, Anderson still occupies.

 

Anderson's locker remains locked, even though a coach's set of keys and a teammate's back pack are inside. There are no plans to cut the locker open.

 

Forward Ron Manigault still has the headphones Anderson gave him after Anderson's last game, a Dec. 22 contest against San Jose City College, a game Anderson dominated but a performance that so dissatisfied Anderson he couldn't listen to music on the ride home as he usually does, shedding his headphones and giving them to Manigault, who will keep them for Anderson.

 

Before a recent home game against Ohlone Community College, CCSF coach Justin Labagh showed a five-minute highlight tape of Anderson's final two games, a compilation of jumpers and drives by a superb, 6-foot-5 athlete who had been playing basketball only a few years but had earned a scholarship to play at USF next season.

 

When the tape ends, players neither cry for the tragic loss of the man adored by his 2-year-old daughter nor do they roar in motivational rage on behalf of the 23-year-old teammate who was their unquestioned leader.

 

They are at ease.

 

"It's comforting," Labagh said.

 

The Rams beat Ohlone 68-51 that night to raise their record to 22-3 going into Friday's game.

 

Anderson's gift to his team was making them comfortable, which is a close second to confidence in building athletic excellence, like a perfectly fitting sneaker that makes you believe you can jump higher.

 

The CCSF players will try to accomplish Anderson's dream of reaching the state championship game. But they won't try to get there for Terrell Anderson; they'll try to do it with Terrell Anderson.

 

Anderson's mother, Cassandra Hughes, ensures he'll be present for the journey. She still attends home games, one of the most visible and vocal of Rams supporters, always wearing her son's jersey or a Terrell Anderson T-shirt, occasionally giving the team pregame pep talks.

 

"I love going to the games," she said, "but I'm not going to lie; it's not easy."

 

Her chief recollection of her son is that he danced with her hours before he was shot to death about 2 a.m. Dec. 26 outside a San Francisco nightclub. Her name was tattooed on his arm, and he had planned to put another tattoo on his neck that said, "Momma's Boy."

 

Symbolically, she brings Terrell with her to every game, and her fortitude is almost intimidating to Eric Turner, the Rams' slick point guard.

 

"If I see her at the game, that's when everything flashes back. That's hard for me," Turner said. "Every time I see her, I want to walk the other way, because she's stronger than me."

 

On the court, CCSF's strength comes from Turner, who has replaced Anderson as the team's best player. Some of the nation's top programs have been calling about Turner, and like most of the CCSF players, he would be playing college ball now were it not for academic problems in high school. He became so frustrated when he became academically ineligible his senior year in Westfield, N.J., that he threw in the towel for high school in general. One reason he ended up at CCSF is that California community colleges, for the most part, don't require a high school diploma.

 

Turner is joined in the lineup by shooter Marceo Lassiter, inside force David McSwain and Manigault, a bull-in-the-china-shop player who moved from Harlem to Richmond before his senior year of high school to get away from the problems that led to the death of his uncle, Earl "The Goat" Manigault, one of the most famous New York City playground players and the subject of a TV movie.

 

Anderson's replacement in the starting lineup was 6-4, 220-pound Maurice Purify, who may play professionally some day, not in the NBA but in the NFL. A wide receiver on CCSF's national powerhouse football team, Purify is headed to Nebraska next fall, but figured he'd join the CCSF basketball team a month into its season. Now he's a starter.

 

Things like that happen in the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants world of junior-college ball. Nobody seems to know players' scoring averages, and it's nearly impossible to locate conference standings. The head coach drives the team to and from games in a van, and he pays for the team's uniforms and sneakers out of his own pocket. At CCSF, that person is Labagh, a walk-on at Cal under Todd Bozeman and Ben Braun who was virtually the 14th man on a 13-player squad. He gave up his final year of eligibility to pursue coaching, and took out a loan to finance a trip to Lubbock, Texas, to observe Bob Knight work for a season.

 

That did not prepare him for the knock on his office door in 2003, a few days after he had been named CCSF's head coach. It was a guy named Terrell Anderson, who wanted to give basketball a shot. Labagh did not know a thing about him, but his chiseled body was enough of a resume.

 

Anderson did not have much basketball history. Born in the Bay Area, where his mother still lives, Anderson moved to New Orleans as a young teenager to be with his father. He was a member of the marching band in high school, and it wasn't until the basketball coach saw Anderson fooling around with the ball on the playground that he was invited to join the team his senior year. Anderson attended Navarro College in Texas and San Jose City College, but played basketball at neither, before arriving at CCSF and knocking on Labagh's door.

 

The first thing Labagh noticed was Anderson's smile. The second was his athletic body. The third was his persona, which overpowered everything in the vicinity.

 

The strength of Anderson's personality became evident in one of Labagh's first practices, when Labagh was putting his team through demanding conditioning drills. Anderson suddenly decided he had had enough, and without a word, Anderson smiled, methodically slapped hands with all his teammates and assistant coaches and walked out. He had left in a huff -- without any of the huff.

 

When Anderson returned the next day, asking to get back on the team, Labagh said he'd have to think about it awhile. So, for the next five days of practice, Anderson set up shop just outside the gym door, sitting on a chair and peering through a small window to observe every moment of the workout. Each time Labagh glanced over -- and it was impossible not to sneak a peek -- he saw Anderson's smiling face staring back at him.

 

After a week, Labagh finally removed the chair, so for the next three days, Anderson stood at another door, watching each moment of practice through the window, slapping players and coaches on the back when they came out.

 

When Labagh let Anderson return to the team, as both player and coach knew would happen eventually, Anderson instantly became the consummate team leader.

 

"Usually, in those situations, when a player comes back, he has less respect from the players," Labagh said. "Somehow, when Terrell came back, he had more."

 

He helped the Rams go 22-5 as a freshman, but as soon as the season was over, Anderson went back to Louisiana to be with his sick father and new baby daughter, Sequira. He promised to return the next fall, knowing he would be academically ineligible when he did after missing so much class time.

 

He did return to school but not to the team and the Rams began the 2004-05 season 2-6.

 

The remedy seemed simple to Labagh's wife: Get Terrell back. The fact that he couldn't play was insignificant. So Anderson began sitting on the bench during games, taking his seat alongside the coaches, away from the players. The Rams went 17-4 the rest of the way.

 

"Even when he's on the bench, he's in the game," sixth-man Justin Holmes said.

 

During the next summer, Anderson transformed himself from a hard-working basketball player to a talented basketball player, more than holding his own in the San Francisco Pro-Am league. He wowed USF coach Jessie Evans in the Dons' open-gym sessions during the summer.

 

"Just looking at the guy walking around, I thought his potential was limitless if he learned a few things," Evans said. "As they say, even Ray Charles could have seen it."

 

By that time, Anderson had brought his daughter back to the Bay Area to live with him, and he was the backbone of the team starting this season, commuting to school each day from his East Oakland home with assistant coach and CCSF English teacher Tom McNichol. When they arrived at CCSF each day, McNichol would give his car keys to Anderson, who would then drive his daughter to child care. Those keys were in Anderson's locker when he was killed two days after his father had died of complications of diabetes.

 

Anderson was planning to return to New Orleans the next day to help arrange his father's funeral. Instead, on Jan. 6, Anderson's funeral was held. CCSF canceled its two games that week, and returned to action in the Diablo Valley College tournament.

 

Anderson's mother gave the team a pregame pep talk before one of those games, and she and about a dozen relatives attended the championship game, sitting behind the bench wearing Terrell Anderson T-shirts.

 

CCSF rallied for the win.

 

"That final game was probably the most incredible basketball experience," McNichol said. "I was almost in tears. After we won, I was jumping up and down, and I never react like that."

 

Anderson's picture still hangs outside the CCSF gym. Ostensibly, it's there to request information about Anderson's slaying, because no one has been arrested for the crime yet. But it's obvious the Rams relish any suggestion that Anderson is still around, still their teammate.

 

"He's almost a cornerstone of the team philosophy," Labagh said. "We have to make it so he's still with us."

[DJR313]

If Purify needs work to get qualified, perhaps he shouldn't be playing on the basketball team and should be studying.

[Redman]

If Purify needs work to get qualified, perhaps he shouldn't be playing on the basketball team and should be studying.

[DaveH]

Really looking forward to seeing what this guy can do.

[HSKRNOKC]

Really looking forward to seeing what this guy can do.

Agreed. He comes with A LOT of hype. Hope he can live up to expectations.

[HSKRNOKC]

From what I have read, he is getting tutored and (should) make it.