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Whitman hoops star chooses Lafayette

Monday, May 1, 2006

By the time the men’s basketball team from Lafayette (Pa.) College came to Washington, D.C., to play American University last February, Whitman High guard Michael Gruner was on its radar. The Leopards had taken note of the 6-foot-1 sharpshooter, who was averaging more than 20 points a game, and invited him to watch them play in their Patriot League foe. Gruner, who went to the game with Whitman coach Chris Lun, liked what he saw.

‘‘I liked the way they played, and my coach and I both felt like I would fit in with them,” Gruner said. ‘‘I came away from there with a good feeling.”

Shortly after watching that game, though, Gruner’s stock began to rise dramatically. During the last portion of the basketball season, Gruner led the Vikings on a remarkable 13-game winning streak that culminated on March 13 in a shocking 39-38 victory over Prince George’s County power Eleanor Roosevelt in the Class 4A state championship game. Gruner, who averaged 21.1 points a game during the final stretch, scored 23 points in the championship game to give Whitman its first state title.

By that time, several colleges, including Bucknell, the U.S. Naval Academy and American, were vying for the services of the clutch player who was named the 2005-06 All-Gazette co-player of the year with Montrose Christian’s Kevin Durant, a Texas signee, and honored with a spot on the Capital All-Star roster of the prestigious Capital Classic All-Star Game last month. But Gruner kept coming back to the small school in Easton, Pa. On Sunday night, he finally made his choice, verbally committing to play college basketball at Lafayette next season.

‘‘I went down there for the official visit about two weeks ago, and it was a really good visit,” Gruner said. ‘‘I played with the guys on the team, and I felt like I fit in with them, and I liked that it was in a small town that was pretty involved with the basketball team. I felt like I would get a chance to play there.”

The fact that Lafayette offered him a scholarship certainly helped, too. Until recently, the Leopards offered no athletic scholarships. After finishing their 2005-06 season 11-17 (5-9 league), the school decided in March to award three ‘‘merit-based” athletic scholarships each in men’s and women’s basketball, beginning with the class of 2010, in order to bolster its standing in the Patriot League. Gruner was one of four players recruited and the only guard of the group.

‘‘It feels like I will have an opportunity to play,” Gruner said. ‘‘Playing with those guys, I felt like I had the skills to fit in, and the other guys they brought in were all big men. I feel like there is an opportunity to play early on.”

Gruner said he was also impressed by the straight talk from Lafayette coach Fran O’Hanlon. While several other programs, which Gruner declined to name, guaranteed playing time, O’Hanlon only promised that Gruner would have the opportunity to earn a spot in the rotation. That appealed to his competitive nature.

‘‘I liked that,” Gruner said. ‘‘I think its kind of [unrealistic] when coaches offer playing time without seeing you practice. Coach O’Hanlon was really honest. He didn’t make guarantees or promises.”

What also appealed to Gruner was the fact that O’Hanlon, who took over the program in 1995 and has been named Patriot League coach of the year twice since then, was tied to the program. He signed a 10-year extension in 2004, and though he was a former assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, he quickly took his name out of the running when the Quakers’ head-coaching position came open last month after Fran Dunphy jumped to Temple.

‘‘He seems like he’s a really loyal guy,” Gruner said. ‘‘That was important to me because I don’t want to have to go through a coaching change while I am at college. I want to have the same coach for the next four years.”

Now that the decision has been made, Gruner can get back to enjoying his final months of high school. While people around him said he should have enjoyed the prospect of having several schools wooing him, the low-key Gruner was never at ease. Even now that he has made his decision, he is not sure that he will go the route of many of his peers and publicly sign his national letter of intent on campus. He might just quietly mail back his signed commitment sometime this week.

‘‘I personally wasn’t enjoying this,” Gruner said. ‘‘I was just trying to make the best decision for me. There were so many factors that I was looking at — academics, the campus. It was a long process and I was trying to find the best fit. My coach [Lun] was behind me, and my parents always told me that it was my decision, and in the end, it was Lafayette. I felt like it was the best place for me.”