Drew Gooden does not live on basketball alone.
Gooden, Kansas University’s 6-foot-10 All-America candidate from Richmond, Calif., has a wide variety of interests including …
l Academics. A sports management major, Gooden compiled the highest GPA on the Jayhawk team during the 2000-01 school year.
l Music: Gooden plays the piano regularly and also mixes beats with friends on D.J. equipment on campus.
l Travel and the outdoors: Gooden likes to relax with a pole in the water, as he did with relatives on a trip to his mother’s native country of Finland last summer.
“I’ve always been good at doing something whether it was basketball, football, playing the piano a lot of things,” Gooden said. “Not many people know this but I love golf. I have not golfed in a year but if I went out there today I guarantee you I’d shoot an 88. Things have always come easy for me.”
Like fishing for instance.
“I’ve been fishing since I was 3 or 4,” Gooden said. “I’ve always liked to go fishing, but I am not a Bass Pro. You won’t see me on any TV fishing shows. I’m no expert.”
Nevertheless, he had some success angling in August in Finland.
“I caught three pike out there. I have never caught a pike before,” Gooden said. “The only pikes in America are north in Minnesota or Montana. There are pikes up in Canada.”
He was intrigued by the pike in Scandinavia.
“The first day I caught a small one, it was like this big,” he said, holding his hands apart a foot. “I was like, ‘I want a big one.’ The next day I went with my cousin and caught two that day, a little bigger.
“They get real big, about 10 feet long, almost like baby sharks. You don’t want to hook a 10-foot pike, though. They’ve got razor sharp teeth almost like pins. There’s hundreds of ’em at the bottom of the mouth. It’s why once you hook one, you catch it.”
Gooden also likes to fish in California and at his mother and stepdad’s home in Arkansas.
“My father likes to fish a lot at home (in California). He spends more time in the ocean than with me. He’ll take me out and we won’t catch anything,” Gooden said with a laugh. “When I go out, I want to catch something.”
Always open to new hobbies, Gooden took up badminton last summer.
Yes badminton.
“When I was in Finland, one of my friends … his father wanted to play badminton with me,” Gooden said. “I’d never played it. It looked like tennis with a small racket, hitting the birdie in the air. I went out there the first day and the first couple games I was horrible. Then four games after that I was beating this guy who has been playing it for 20 years.
“He was amazed how quick I picked it up. Part of it is being athletic and coordinated. This guy was a doctor and said, ‘I’ve never seen a big guy move as fast as you can.’ The next day, I was killing him.”
One thing is for sure: Gooden likes to make things happen whether at sea or on land.
He averaged a team-leading 15.8 points per game last year. He hopes to increase his numbers after working hard over the summer.
Gooden played pick-up basketball with Michael Jordan and some other NBA greats at Jordan’s camp for youths in July in Santa Barbara, Calif. He played 1-on-1 against former Cal standout Shareef Abdur-Rahim, defeating the Atlanta Hawks’ forward “40 percent of the time” in individual workouts back in June back in the Bay Area.
“I was like ‘Broke Pippen’ … running the floor, getting rebounds, getting the outlet. I was doing little things,” Gooden said, comparing himself to former Bulls running mate Scottie Pippen. “He (Jordan) started giving me the ball for the game point. I was playing well.
“I thought he was shooting too much and he thought I was shooting too much,” Gooden added with a grin. “He told coach (Roy Williams), ‘There are some things Drew needs to work on, like his jump shot and passing the ball a little more.’
“Coach said, ‘That’s funny. Drew said the same thing about you.”‘
Of his games against Abdur-Rahim, Gooden said: “I worked out with him last year and he would beat me every time. This year 60-40. I think I’ve improved. I think anybody looking to go to the NBA should work out with a good pro at least a week, to match their ability and talent,” he added. “Pros are so much smarter than a kid in high school.”
Gooden says he’ll think about a possible move to the NBA only after this season.
He’s motivated to win his first Big 12 title and reach his first Final Four.
“I’ve been here two years and we’ve always been predicted to finish first in the conference or Big 12 Tournament. We haven’t done it either year. I think two years is enough,” he said.
“My freshman year we were young. We had some guys hurt, me Nick and Kirk were young. The next year they had us picked to finish in first again. We let ’em down. We were supposed to be experienced sophomores with Kenny and Eric. But we let ’em down again.
“Now the question has popped up how we will do this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re not predicted to finish first in the Big 12 this year. I want to win the Big 12. I will be driven as an individual, also.”
Gooden feels a sense of urgency and not because he could leave after this season for the NBA.
“You always want to take advantage of the present,” Gooden said. “I don’t want to look back and keep banking on my senior year to win. I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I wish I woulda done it my junior year.’ This is the perfect time to start now. This year before my senior year. It’s like my midpoint. It’s time to win.”
