Thursday, August 2, 2018
HOF9
Hoops to the Hall Moss starred on basketball court with Jason Williams during prep days By Josh Weir Repository sports writer
A
s Randy Moss jumped high above defensive backs and plucked passes from the air during his 14-year NFL career, he looked like a basketball player in shoulder pads and a helmet. That’s because that’s exactly what he was. Moss, who will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night, was a two-time state basketball player of the year in West Virginia during his high school days. “He was excellent,” said Jim Fout, Moss’ high school basketball coach. “He could’ve been a Division I, power-five two guard. His desire originally was to go to college to be a basketball player.” Moss’ focus eventually changed to football, but he still had plenty of scholarship offers to play basketball. Schools such as Ohio State, Notre Dame and Penn State would’ve allowed Moss to play both football and basketball in college, Fout said. Moss teamed up with future NBA player Jason Williams for DuPont High School in Belle, W.Va. They were close friends and had been playing with
and against each other since elementary school. Williams was a grade ahead of Moss. Some of their exploits on the court together can be found on YouTube. They typically showcase Williams, who later gained the nickname “White Chocolate” for his flashy play and terrific ball-handling, whipping passes from all angles to the 6-foot-4 Moss, who finished with some sort of soaring dunk. “It’s one of those things in the moment, you’re caught up with everything going on and you don’t really appreciate it like you would if you’re a fan just watching them play,” said the 70-yearold Fout, himself a prolific scorer at DuPont in the 1960s who later put together a long coaching career in the area. “Then afterwards you’d look at the films and think, ‘Wow, did they really do that?’” Fout’s favorite basketball memory of Moss is from a state tournament quarterfinal against Beckley his junior year — a game considered to be one of the best in West Virginia state tournament history. Late in the game, with the score close, DuPont grabbed a defensive rebound and pushed the ball ahead to Moss in
transition. “He took one bounce and covered about 15 to 18 feet,” Fout said. “He threw down a two-handed thunder dunk. That game was over.” Moss finished the contest with 33 points on 14-of-16 shooting, while Williams totaled 17 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds in the 85-81 win. Two days later (and playing for the third consecutive day), DuPont lost in the state championship game. “It haunts me to his day,” Fout said. As a senior, and with Williams graduated, Moss’ DuPont squad couldn’t get out of the regionals. After college stops at Marshall and Florida, Williams went on to average 10.5 points and 5.9 assists during a 12-year NBA career. Fout recalled a time Williams threw a 60-foot behind-the-back pass to Moss for a breakaway jam. “Jason was a magician with the ball,” he said. One DuPont player struggled to catch Williams’ dishes unless they made eye contact. To prove a point or “just out of orneriness,” Williams would rifle no-look passes off the player’s head, said Fout,
who would charge the turnovers to a dismayed Williams. As for a different teammate, Fout said, “He didn’t bounce any off Randy’s head.” Moss appeared on TNT’s Area 21 in January 2017. The segment is hosted by former NBA star Kevin Garnett, who shared the headlines with Moss in Minneapolis when he played for the Timberwolves and Moss with the Vikings. Moss said Garnett helped him decide on football for his future when the two crossed paths at a Nike All-American basketball camp in high school. As Moss tells it, the two phenoms played an impromptu game of oneon-one during a break in the action. “I (stutter stepped), then tried to go to the hole real quick,” Moss told Garnett. “I laid that thing high off the glass, where that white box is. You went up there and cleaned my ball. You went up there and cleaned it. … I looked up there and said, ‘Man, he can jump that high?’” Fout remembers Moss returning home with his eyes opened. “When he came back,
CHARLESTON GAZETTE-MAIL FILE PHOTO
★ Randy Moss plays in a 1994 basketball game for DuPont High
School in West Virginia. Moss went on to play 14 seasons in the NFL and is being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend.
he said, ‘Coach, I’m not interested in playing college basketball,’” Fout said. “I asked him what happened at the camp and he said, ‘There are a lot of 6-4 kids that can play basketball. There aren’t many 6-4 kids that can play receiver in football.” Smart kid. Moss caught 982 passes for 15,292 yards and 156 touchdowns in his NFL career, which is getting him inducted in Canton as a first-ballot selection. Moss actually played a game with the United States Basketball League’s Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs in 2001. He scored
seven points on 3-of-8 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and added two assists in a 113-112 loss to the Long Island Surf. Moss believes he could have played in the NBA and compared his style to four-time All-Star Latrell Sprewell. What could he have averaged points-wise in his prime? “Me, personally, I think I could’ve been in the 20s, and that’s being real serious,” Moss said on TNT. “I love the game. I love basketball.” Reach Josh at 330-580-8426 or josh.weir@cantonrep.com On Twitter: @jweirREP