"He (Ronnie) would be like, 'When is it my turn, when is it my turn? I want to go to the camps.' And I'd always be like, 'OK, just be patient.' In the meantime, I'm gonna love on you. ... I'd say, 'Ronnie, it's going to be OK. Just wait your turn. I promise you — Dad's gonna work with you.'"

· · · · ·

Work may not be the word.

What Ron Brewer did with Ronnie seems more like "mold."

Some things, the father could not help but pass along. They were in the genes.

"I see a lot of his mannerisms," said Carolyn Brewer, who also played at Arkansas. "I see the way he holds his hands. When he runs, the defense — I see a lot of his dad."

The rest revolved around prepping Ronnie for what it takes to play in the NBA — while also not overwhelming him with the burden of trying to live up to the legend.

For a while, all was well.

"I didn't have no clippings to show him, I had no film to show him," said Ron, who along with Marvin Delph and five-time NBA All-Star Sidney Moncrief — the famed "Triplets," as NCAA lore knows them — led Arkansas to the 1978 Final Four. "Nothing. So he never knew. He never knew how good I was. He was hearing what other people were saying about me, (but) all he knew is, 'I'm Dad.'"

Ron, however, couldn't keep Ronnie in a cocoon.

At one point, he recalls, "Somebody brought a tape out of me hitting the last-second shot against Notre Dame."

That would be the basket by Brewer, who went on to earn all-tournament team honors, that won what was then the third-place game at the '78 Final Four.

"He (had) the opportunity to see with his own eyes," Brewer said. "He said, 'Dad, you could jump, couldn't you?' I said, 'Well, Ronnie, I played a little bit.'

"That's when he realized, 'My dad can play.'"

It would not be the only time.

· · · · ·

As much as he tried sheltering his son from history, the name was the same.

"The thing about him," Ron Brewer said, "is the pressure that's put is put on by me — because they say, 'Kid, are you gonna be as good as your dad?' Because they remember when.

"See?"

Ronnie saw, and — unfortunately, from his father's perspective — heard.

"What he wanted more so than anything," Ron said, "was to shut people up, because he didn't want them even mentioning 'As good as Dad.' ... He wanted them, when it was said and done, to say, 'He was better than his dad.'"

Yet doing so, no matter what Ronnie accomplished, would prove so much easier said than done.

"How can I stop them," Ron Brewer asked with a certain sadness, "from saying, 'Oh, is he going to be as good as his dad?'"

Ultimately, he could not.

Stop them, that is.