The Ending of an Era : Jeff deLaveaga Concluding Brilliant CLU Career in the Basketball Footsteps of His Brother Steve

During his first days in organized basketball, Jeff deLaveaga would jump from the bench and wave his towel in the air to punctuate the exploits of his older brother Steve.

The younger brother never begrudged his sibling the spotlight, and now that the glare has centered on Jeff, Steve is looking for a towel to wave. The two have enjoyed a special bond since their teen-age years, which they faced with an absentee father. It was then that they vowed to help each other achieve success.

For seven years, the Cal Lutheran gym has served as a second home for the deLaveaga brothers, who have been the lifeblood of an otherwise lackluster Cal Lutheran basketball program. And now, in Jeff’s final season, the Kingsmen have clinched at least a share of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship. Moreover, CLU’s 14-11 season record assures the Kingsmen of just their fifth winning record and the program’s first back-to-back winning seasons.

Jeff, 22, a senior guard at Cal Lutheran, leads the NCAA Division III in scoring with a 29.0-point average and soon will begin play in the Southeast Australian Basketball League, joining his older brother in that country’s second-level professional league.

Steve, 24, played guard at Cal Lutheran under Larry Lopez from 1986-89, when the Kingsmen played in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics. He also led the nation in scoring, topping all NAIA players his junior and senior seasons when he virtually rewrote the Kingsmen record books. Steve averaged 28.1 points as a senior.

During one of Steve’s rare trips home from Australia, he recently joined his brother in the Cal Lutheran athletic department to reflect on the deLaveaga era, which is nearing its end.

Tonight’s home game against Caltech (5-20, 0-13 in SCIAC play) might be Jeff’s final home appearance. Cal Lutheran (10-3 in SCIAC play) needs a win to clinch the conference title outright and claim an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs. But even if CLU wins the title, the Kingsmen likely will open the playoffs on the road, making tonight’s game the last time a deLaveaga is certain to appear in the home team’s starting lineup.

“When people look back on the deLaveagas, they won’t remember all the points,” Jeff said. “They’ll remember the SCIAC championship. I think that would just typify my years at CLU.”

Steve, however, wants to be remembered for the way he and his brother played.

“If you looked at (the deLaveagas) in the gym--even in the Cal Lutheran gym--we would be the eighth- or ninth-most talented guy,” Steve said. “But you see, you can’t measure heart, you can’t measure competitiveness, you can’t measure desire to win, desire to excel, to succeed,” he said.

That desire drives Jeff, too. But he also is driven by Steve’s strict workout regimen, which became a way of life for the boys when normal family life was disrupted.

The boys’ mother, Michelle Tyler, divorced when Jeff was 11, and she worked long hours to support herself and her two sons.

“We had a lot of free time,” Steve said. “We could have drank, we could have done drugs--I guess we could have been better students. But for us. . . as soon as school was out-- bam --we would get into a gym somewhere and we would play for 2 1/2 hours. Then, we would go find a place and we would lift (weights) for an hour.”

But basketball was more than just a distraction for the deLaveagas in their youth, it was a way of filling the emptiness they felt from the divorce of their parents.

Even with a mother they call “world class,” they say they needed success in their own lives because their parents couldn’t succeed in marriage.

“I think it scared us more than anything and we were afraid of failure,” Jeff said.

Thus, a silent pact was cemented. Neither would allow the other to fail.

The brothers played on the same varsity team at San Ramon California High when Jeff was a sophomore and Steve a senior. Steve was the go-to guy that season, averaging 21 points. Jeff was relegated to little-brother status, a role he accepted without rancor.

“Every time he did something great, I was the first one standing up and waving my towel,” Jeff said. “I was so young, it didn’t really matter. I was just happy to be on varsity.”

Tyler served as a role model in her sons’ lives when they lost contact with John deLaveaga, their father. DeLaveaga, a golf pro in Walnut Creek, has resumed contact with his sons.

At one point in his senior season at California, Jeff was shooting less than 70% from the free-throw line, so his mother tried to offer some encouragement. “Will you concentrate!,” she shouted from the front row of the student section. “This is a free shot! It’s free! You’re late every day for dinner because you shoot these things.”

Remembered Jeff: “I had to step off the line because I was laughing so hard.”

He improved his shooting from the line to 78% after that. Still, despite a 29-point average, college recruiters did not bang Jeff’s door down.

“(Recruiters) all said the same thing, ‘(I) can shoot . . . the ball, but I’m one step slow,’ ” he said.

Jeff enrolled at Southern California College in Costa Mesa to free himself from Steve’s shadow, but transferred to Cal Lutheran after one season when he grew disenchanted with a lack of playing time and the school’s religious orientation. But Jeff redshirted in 1988-89, Steve’s senior season.

“People say there is nothing like playing for experience,” Jeff said. “But for me, I learned by watching what (Steve) did and how he got his shots off and how he got open.

“That year, I got bigger, stronger and smarter. That’s the best thing I was able to do, was to sit out.”

Apparently, Jeff also copied his brother’s unorthodox shot, which he describes as “ugly.”

“It’s not a textbook jump shot,” said Cal Lutheran Coach Mike Dunlap, who arrived at Cal Lutheran the year after Steve left. “(Jeff) does some things that are fundamentally incorrect at the beginning, but he has beautiful follow-through.”

At the beginning of this season, Jeff already held school records for most three-point shots made and most three-point shots attempted (He currently has hit 250 of 595.) In last week’s win over Claremont, he broke Steve’s career record for most free throws made and earlier this season he broke Steve’s record for free throws attempted. (He currently has hit 528 of 731.)

Jeff and Steve are the only Cal Lutheran players to score more than 2,000 points in a career. Steve tops the list with 2,549, which is out of reach for Jeff, who has scored 401 fewer points in one less season.

But the records mean little to Jeff.

“When I look back, it will be nice to see that Steve and I shared a lot of records together,” Jeff said.

After the season, Jeff will share something else with his older brother--a spot on the Australian basketball courts. Jeff is scheduled to fly to Australia on March 5, and although he already has the ticket, those plans my change. If Cal Lutheran makes the playoffs, it will play its first-round game that night.

Steve, who has played the past two seasons for the Nunawading Spectors, was the SEABL’s co-most valuable player in 1990 and the MVP and the league’s leading scorer in 1991, when he averaged 43 points per game.

The SEABL is considered a level below the National Basketball League (Australia’s version of the NBA). Because Nunawading and Jeff’s Canberra Gunners play in different conferences, the brothers won’t meet in the regular season but could square off in the playoffs in September.

Jeff already has been tabbed by an Australian newspaper as the man who could challenge Steve as the league’s leading scorer. But don’t expect a heated rivalry. If Steve wins the scoring title, check the nearest bench.

The guy waving a towel over his head and cheering loudly will be Jeff.