Mike Wright Sr. still remembers when his son, Josh, first started turning heads in Utica.

He recalls the stares Wright received as a 3-year-old dribbling a basketball down the neighborhood sidewalks. Whether Wright was on his way to preschool or picking up groceries at the store, dribbling right-handed or left-handed, people marveled at his routine.

But it was nothing out of the ordinary for Wright. He was simply following his father’s advice.

‘I gave him a basketball,’ his father said, ‘and told him, ‘If you want to be good with this, you take it everywhere you go. You dribble this ball until it becomes a part of your hand.”

After 15 years of practice, his father’s advice is paying off. Wright committed to Syracuse last fall and will enroll next year as a freshman.

He averaged 33.3 points, 5.2 assists and 3.6 steals in his senior season at Thomas Proctor High School in Utica. TheInsiderHoops.com ranked the 6-foot-2 point guard the 21st best recruit for the incoming class of 2004. Among all incoming point guards, Rivals.com ranked him seventh, TheInsiderHoops.com ranked him ninth and Hoopmaster.com ranked him 12th.

‘Basketball’s always been my main sport,’ Wright said. ‘I loved it from birth. I’ve been playing ever since I was able to walk.’

Literally. And wherever he walked, he dribbled his basketball. To school, to the store, to the park – everywhere except to church. Having a grandfather who’s a pastor will cause such a ban.

Backyard games with his older brothers soon complemented Wright’s hours spent dribbling. Wright is the fourth-oldest child in a basketball-rich family of nine children with six brothers and two sisters.

Though his uncle, Ken Davis, played basketball for Syracuse in the early 1980s, Wright said he never received any tips from him. Instead, Mike Wright Sr. took on the coaching responsibility.

‘As his coach, I was the hardest person on him,’ said Mike Wright Sr., who coached his son’s third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teams. ‘He would get into a game (playing point guard) and the first thing he would do is he’d shoot up a 3. And I would say, ‘The next time you do that, Josh, you will be taken out of the game.”

It took Mike Wright Sr. a while to teach his son about being unselfish because watching the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s put visions of becoming the next Michael Jordan in Wright’s mind. Eventually, his father’s constant reminders that glory came not only in scoring 30 points but in tallying 18 points, 15 assists and five steals caused Wright to adapt a more all-around game.

‘Of course I liked to shoot more when I was younger,’ Wright said. ‘But as I started playing with better players, I found the game much easier knowing I had solid players around me doing the things that I could do. It was a relief to know I didn’t have to do it all.’

It also helped that he played at an accelerated level in which his coaches didn’t expect him to be a leading scorer. By the time Wright was a sixth-grader, he was playing alongside eighth-graders on Proctor’s junior varsity team. Varsity head coach Norm Stamboly was so pleased with Wright’s development that he named him the starting point guard as a freshman.

Four seasons and 85 games later, Stamboly now calls Wright the best player he’s ever coached in his 25 years on the job. The point guard’s 1,944 points broke the Proctor career record set in 1966, but Stamboly lauds Wright’s passing and ball handling skills more than anything else.

‘He’s an extremely gifted player,’ Stamboly said. ‘I gave him the ball as a freshman, and he set every record in the area. To say I’m not going to miss him is nuts.’

Stamboly found out just how important Wright was to Proctor’s success when four starters graduated from the 2002-03 team that went 20-2. As the only returning starter on a team with no players taller than 6 feet 3 inches, Wright led Proctor to the Class AA-1 final and a 19-2 season.

‘He took the ball when the game was on the line,’ senior teammate Darius Brown said. ‘But other than that, he passed the ball the best that I’ve ever seen. He found me all the time when I was open, regardless of the situation.’

Said his father: ‘When you see Josh sending pinpoint passes from the top of the key, you see him at his best. But his biggest improvement has been in his attitude and behavior toward others, because he’s always been playing with players with less ability. He’s able to encourage them, instead of getting upset about a dropped pass.’

Fortunately for Wright, he won’t be surrounded by inferior teammates at Syracuse.

Instead, he’ll look to bring his speed, ball handling and outside shooting to SU’s deep roster.

That deep roster, along with Syracuse’s proximity to Utica, is one of the main reasons he chose Syracuse over schools like Connecticut, Seton Hall, Boston College and Kentucky. Plus, he likes SU’s chances of winning another national championship, his father said.

But don’t expect the incoming freshman to take a supporting role and merely crack Syracuse’s lineup. Wright has big goals and said he hopes to be named the Big East and national Freshman of the Year.

The key to such success is his ability to pass the ball and run the point, he said. Quite a different mentality than when he first broke into the game as a free-shooting youngster.

‘I see it as a crossroads for him,’ Mike Wright Sr. said. ‘He’s definitely going to accept his role at Syracuse, and I know he’s going to help the team win. But he’s still always going to be my little boy.’

Only now, Wright will be dribbling down Jim Boeheim Court instead of the Utica sidewalks.

Published on April 7, 2004 at 12:00 pm