Marcus Saxon's choices for a college basketball scholarship came down to Utah State, where he could reunite with Aggie assistant Kermit Davis, who coached Saxon's freshman year at Chipola (Fla.) Junior College, and Arkansas, which had just won the NCAA championship.
Saxon chose Arkansas."Do you blame him?" asks USU coach Larry Eustachy.
Mary Ann Saxon of Columbia, S.C., wasn't thrilled with the choice of her only child. "She didn't want me to go to Arkansas," says Saxon.
"This is the place she wanted me to go to all along, and my grandma felt like this was the place for me."
The Arkansas/USU thing was about the only time in his life Saxon ever questioned the wisdom of the two women who reared him.
His mother, a three-sport athlete at South Carolina State, coached all of Saxon's athletic teams, even in his teen years. She let him befriend a few unsavory neighbors, but she made sure he didn't follow their leads.
She kept her son involved in sports to the point where he was drafted in 1995 by the New York Mets as a center fielder, but he turned down their offer of $200,000 plus a baseball scholarship. Basketball's his real love.
Marcus promised his mother he would get his college degree - and he will graduate from USU in sociology next quarter.
But in his few days at Arkansas, Saxon was sure Mom and Grand-ma were wrong about USU. "I was caught up with going to Arkansas. They'd just won a national championship, and they were getting a lot of exposure and TV time," he recalls. "I kind of stopped believing . . . that I should follow what they say all the time."
He found out. "I should listen more carefully," says Saxon, adding that he benefited because he learned early to listen first to his mom and grandmother, followed by Davis and now Eustachy. "The path you lay down is the path you've got to walk - don't make it hard on yourself."
Eustachy demands the same of his players, especially from "the best point guard I've ever coached."
In high school, Saxon was satisfied with average grades, but at Chipola, he applied himself academically. When Davis left for USU, Saxon lost interest. His new coach "wasn't really the same, and I didn't want to be there, so I didn't try real hard." That kept him from playing for Arkansas, and that was a stroke of fortune for USU.
As a Chipola sophomore, Saxon was a first-team JC All-American who averaged 23.4 points and 7.2 assists a game and was one of the nation's top JC prospects. Arkansas signed Saxon but enrolled him in summer 1995 before he finished his junior-college degree; he was late in getting it, though there was no doubt that he would get it. Because Arkansas jumped the gun, the NCAA ruled Saxon ineligible there.
Davis and Eustachy beckoned, but Saxon would have to sit out a transfer year at USU - at his own expense. "My grandma and my mom paid my way here. I'm pretty thankful for that. I plan to repay them sometime in the future," says Saxon, hopeful a pro basketball career of some sort awaits him once this season and his degree are done.
If not, he'd like to work at a homeless children's shelter near home. "I had an uncle who was homeless," he says, "and I know how it is to people who don't have everything that you have in life. I've seen how it is when you can give people something and see their eyes light up."
Despite his parents' divorce when he was young, "my mom did a good job with me and gave me all that I wanted and stuff that I needed," Saxon says.
He has a good relationship with his father and sees him when he goes home to South Carolina, but he spends most of that time with Mom and Grandma.
After his experiences in South Carolina, Florida and a few days in Arkansas, Saxon's first Logan winter - when he wasn't on the team - was difficult, but current senior Kevin Rice was also sitting out, and they became good friends. Saxon says assistant coach Leonard Perry's interest kept him going, too.
In the summer of '96, Davis left to coach Idaho (he has since moved to LSU as an assistant). "I knew he was leaving for the better of his family," says Saxon, who by then was comfortable with USU and just itching to finally play Division I college basketball.
Saxon lived up to his billing. Last season, he was first-team All-Big West and made the conference all-tournament team. He led USU in minutes (948), scoring (13.2 ppg, 15th in the Big West) and assists (4.6, third in the league). He got 4.2 rebounds a game, important for any Eustachy player.
This season, Saxon is averaging a team-high 17.4 points (ninth in the Big West), shooting .491 from the field (eighth, BWC), .784 on free throws (eighth, BWC), 4.1 assists (fifth, BWC) and gets 5.2 rebounds. He's scored 14 or more in eight of nine games, and his 31 at Wyoming is the team high.
Statistics, though, aren't Saxon's measure. For Eustachy, it's "his impact on winning." Since Saxon began playing, USU is 26-12. It tied for the best BWC record (12-4) last season and made the BWC tourney title game.
"I'm just all about winning," says Saxon, who is confident but not a braggart. His goal is the Big West title and an NCAA Tournament berth.
"I do what it takes to win," he says, adding that could be defense, rebounds, assisting Rice and Justin Jones or scoring. "As long as my defense and rebounding don't drop off and coach ain't yelling at me, it's all right."
The coach admits he's been harder on Saxon than on some players, mainly because he wants him to realize his potential. Actually, Eustachy is very fond of Saxon, who sometimes gives the abuse back, especially when Eustachy wears one of his dark turtleneck shirts to games. Saxon calls him a John Caliparri wannabe.
"There have been players," Eustachy says, "that you've had that would be the last person you'd want to go on vacation with. Marcus is the kind of guy you'd want to go on vacation with. He's just witty, down to earth, kind of a prankster, always upbeat - I can't remember when I've seen him down."
Eustachy's tirades can be frightening at first, and Saxon and the other veterans try to comfort the younger players. "All he wants on his team is tough guys," says Saxon, who likes that approach. "He tries to push us. He wants to get the best out of each and every one of us, and that's really good. Down the road, we'll be a better team for it."
Eustachy often tells the media that Saxon's his best point guard ever, but he doesn't tell Saxon. "He just tells me I can improve on a lot of things. I take what he says very closely.
"If he says I'm one of the best he's ever coached, then I thank him for saying that. Probably when my senior year is over and done with, he might say it then."