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

Everyone who was anyone from coach Nolan Richardson's 1994 University of Arkansas national-champion basketball team, the one that beat Duke behind Scotty Thurman's fabled last-minute 3-pointer while President Bill Clinton watched, was there.

Corliss Williamson, who at last check was still playing in the NBA, was there. Corey Beck, who bounced around the NBA a bit, and Dwight Stewart were there. Mike Anderson, the new University of Missouri coach who then was an Arkansas assistant to Richardson, was there.

That's why the kid could not cry.

There simply is no shedding tears when the whole dang '94 title team is celebrating at the lake, even when you're in fourth grade and your right arm, your shooting arm, has snapped in half because troublemakers super-slicked a waterslide.

"I didn't cry at all," the kid recalls now, some dozen years later, his own NBA career soon to begin. "I was like, 'I can't cry. These are my idols. If I cry, they're gonna be like, 'Aw, he's a chump.'

"So I just held it in."

Ronnie Brewer's parents — the father who played in the NBA himself, and the mother whose influence cannot be overstated — will never know how he did.

"Somebody said to us, 'It's just a normal kid accident,'" Carolyn Brewer said. "But at the time, it wasn't. Because it was ugly."

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Before emerging when Utah made him the No. 14 overall selection in the 2006 NBA Draft, Ronnie Brewer — who plays his first NBA summer-league game when the Jazz open Rocky Mountain Revue play tonight against Atlanta at Salt Lake Community College — spent many of his 21 years living in the shadows.

Such is the case when your father, Ron, was a storied star on his college team who played for six teams — Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland, Golden State, New Jersey and Chicago — and averaged 11.9 points per game over eight NBA seasons from 1978-86.

Such also is the case when you're the youngest among siblings, including one sister, Candice, who played guard at the University of Tulsa, and another, Elisha, who was an All-America sprinter at Arkansas.

No wonder Ronnie and Mama Brewer are so close.

"It happened because Ronnie was the last one, and each one of the kids, they'd say, 'OK, Dad, it's my turn,'" Carolyn Brewer said. "So, he (Ron) worked with our daughter first, through AAU, to try to help get her prepared for a college scholarship.