Like father, like son: Newest Jazzman Ronnie Brewer does dad, family proud

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If Ronnie Brewer really wanted to dodge comparisons, though, he had an out.

He didn't really have to follow his father's footsteps so closely. Or did he? Telling times coming out of Fayetteville High, and a mother's comforting presence, expose the answer.

"When we was going through the recruiting process," Ron Brewer said, "I let him make his choice about where he wanted to go to college.

"Now, I wanted him soooo bad to go to the University of Arkansas. When it first started, I was talking, 'Arkansas, Arkansas, Arkansas.' But my wife said, 'That's not fair. You've got to let him see other opportunities.'"

Enter Oklahoma. Oklahoma State. Kansas. Enter even UConn for a recruit ranked 19th at the time by ESPN in a Class of 2003 that merely had LeBron James No. 1, Luol Deng No. 2 and Charlie Villanueva No. 3.

"He was talking to (Emeka) Okafor and Ben Gordon," the elder Brewer said, dropping the names of two UConn stars. "We was coming back on the plane, and I just knew. I told my wife, 'He likes UConn.'"

Ronnie's ensuing words, however, persuaded Ron to scratch coach Jim Calhoun's Huskies.

"He said, 'Mama, are you gonna move with me to Connecticut?'" the father said. "And when he said that, I said, 'He ain't going nowhere. ... UConn's out of the picture now — so I've got to look at schools that are closer to Fayetteville.'

"Mama's gotta get there — you know what I'm saying? ... As much as me and him are close, he's a mama's boy."

It's true.

"Yeah," Ronnie fesses with a certain shyness. "Always.

"I was like, 'If I go there, you're gonna move there, right?' She said ... 'I'm not going. I'm staying.'"

Next to go: the Jayhawks.

"Kansas took its scholarship off the table," Ron said, "because they wanted Ronnie to make a decision — and Ronnie said, 'I want my mom and my dad (to visit).' ... They said, 'We need to know before then.'

"It upset Ronnie, because Kansas was where he really wanted to go — up there with Roy Williams (now North Carolina's coach)."

Soon, then-OSU coach Eddie Sutton (Ron's coach at Arkansas) and the Cowboys also were eliminated.

"So now it's Oklahoma and Arkansas," Ron said. "We needed to make a decision on (a) Wednesday. You know when I found out where he was going to school? Tuesday night.

"We're all sitting in the family room, and I'm like, 'We've got to know something tomorrow.' So, I got tired. I went to go get in the bed. My wife came and said, 'I think you need to come in here. I think Ronnie made a decision.' I said, 'Aw, yeah — right.'