So what are Eric Chenowith’s plans for this offseason?
“I will try to go to 20 Dave Matthews concerts,” says Chenowith, Kansas University’s 7-foot-1 center from Villa Park, Calif.
He’s kidding, folks.
Chenowith he averaged 8.6 points and 5.6 boards his junior season, down from 13.5 points and 9.1 boards his soph campaign was a popular whipping boy on the talk shows this past school year after revealing he attended eight Dave Matthews Band concerts last summer.
Fans figured Chenowith would have played better had he concentrated more on hoops than music.
“That was blown out of proportion,” Chenowith said. “I went to eight concerts over three months. People will come up to me and say, ‘I heard you went on the whole 21-show tour.’ I’d work out in the morning and go to the show at night. Two of ’em I went with my high school coach after working out … but all everybody wants to talk about is how I’m not doing anything. It’s not like I had a rock-star lifestyle.”
Be that as it may, Chenowith pledges a different type lifestyle this summer.
“I will have a great summer. I’m going to get a lot better,” Chenowith said. “I’ll be back here the last two weeks of June for coach Williams’ camp. I’ll be here playing pick-up games with the ex-KU players (who yearly return to Lawrence).
“Before that I’ll be at home (in California) helping my high school coach. I’ll practice with his team and lift weights at Villa Park High School.”
Then in August, he’ll really go to work.
“The first week of August I’ll go to Tim Grguvich’s camp,” he said of the camp for college and pro players in Las Vegas. “After that I’m 75 percent sure I’m going to Hawaii for Pete Newell’s big man camp. I went there my senior year in high school. You go against NBA guys. I went against Jermains O’neil, Dickie Simpkins and Eric Montross, Big Country (Bryant Reeves). It helped me tremendously. I improved leaps and bounds.
“Pete Newell is the guru of big guys,” he added. “He’s worked with Shaq, David Robinson, name any center in the NBA, they’ve been to it.”
Chenowith says he’s aiming for a breakout senior season.
“I just have a great chance to be a lottery pick in the NBA. I can’t let that slip by,” Chenowith said. “Last year at this time, a lot of people were talking about me being a lottery pick right now. I always wanted to stay four years, so I really didn’t think about it. Now it’s my last chance. I really want to make the best of it.”
Chenowith says a lot would have had to happen for him to exit KU after three seasons things that did not happen.
“If we won the national championship or had gone to the Final Four and I was guaranteed to be in the top five and coach Williams told me to think about it, yeah I’d have thought about it,” Chenowith said.
“Guys who talk about possibly leaving early set themselves up for failure. If I had talked about leaving early and had a year like I did, how bad would things have been then? They are pretty bad now, think about what they’d be like.
“My dad has always taught me, ‘Never kid yourself.’ If I left now, I’d still be a first-round pick,” he added, “but it’s not what I want. I want to stay in college, maybe be a lottery pick and make $8 million.”
He also wants to reach his first Final Four.
“I still have a deal with Jim Rome (radio talk show host) that if we go to the Final Four, he has to have a tour stop (appearance) in Kansas City,” Chenowith said. “I really want a Final Four, national championsihp for myself and my teammates, but especially for coach Williams. The team comes first always; individual awards second.”
Chenowith believes the Jayhawks will have a great team next year, even if numbers are declining with the loss of four seniors and Marlon London. DeShawn Stevenson, KU’s only signee, has yet to qualify academically.
“The eight at pickup games now … we’re like Hoosiers,” Chenowith said of the movie about an Indiana high school team that won state without much depth. “Hoosiers had seven guys and look what they did.”
