Sharif Bray: Cheyney's elder statesman

Sharif Bray's Cheyney University teammates like to call him "Pop-Pop."

When you're 26 years old and still playing college hoops, the name works even if you're the team's leading scorer.

Bray is back playing college hoops, as a junior guard, after almost half a decade spent "underground," as a Philadelphia recreation center director put it. Although Bray was out of school, he never left the game. In fact, basketball became his therapy.

The former Central High School star had been a Division II freshman all-American at California (Pa.) in 2004 before leaving the following year.

A series of events had knocked him back. In 2005, Bray watched a close friend die on a basketball court, weeks after Bray's father had suffered a serious stroke. A couple of more friends then died violent deaths on the streets of Philadelphia.

"That was a lot for me at one time," Bray said.

Although Bray averaged 21.6 points a game in this regular season in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference - he was the second-leading scorer in the PSAC - his story isn't best told by statistics. He has played a lot of games in which nobody kept track of anything but the score.

Then there were all the days Bray was alone in a gym, working on his shot for hours - until his cell phone rang.

"Since I wasn't playing for a school, I had to make my name somewhere," Bray said over the weekend. "I'd play anybody anywhere."

Whenever Jameer Nelson and John Salmons, both NBA players, got back to town in the off-season and wanted to work out, Bray would be among the first to receive their phone calls. His standard answer: "What time? I'm there."

Those guys were basketball acquaintances. Danny Rumph was his buddy. They had grown up playing together. When Rumph went off to Western Kentucky University and Bray to California, they would still try to talk every week.

In the spring of 2005, both had just gotten home from school and were on the indoor court at the Mallery Playground in Germantown. Rumph hit the winning shot in a pickup game and then collapsed. An autopsy revealed that the 21-year-old former Parkway High School star died of cardiomyopathy, an inflammation of the heart.

"Right after it happened, I didn't play basketball for three weeks," Bray said. "I didn't touch a basketball. I didn't watch basketball."

"It affected him - he went underground," said Leroy Berry, director of the recreation center, now named the Daniel E. Rumph Playground. "We always said it took more out of Sharif than anybody in that neighborhood. We said he should have gotten some counseling."

In the weeks ahead, two more friends and former Mallery teammates were killed. Micheal Blackshear, who had just transferred from Temple to Cheyney, was shot in his car after a late-night argument in Center City. Then Tyree Wallace got in a shoot-out with police officers conducting a drug sting.

"Three of them - that was a lot for me at one time," Bray said.

Not to mention what happened in his own home: His father, a doctor, was debilitated by the stroke. His father had always been his No. 1 supporter.

Bray didn't go back to school and he didn't get a job, he said. He played ball.

"He would come up every day and just shoot around for about two hours - shoot, shoot, shoot, every day," Berry said. "The kids would come up and watch him shooting [and] say, 'Wow!' His jump shot was probably the best around as a college player, Division I or II or III."

PSAC coaches hadn't forgotten him.

"Don't get me wrong, schools were calling about him," Berry said.

In a way, the workouts served as his counseling sessions. When Salmons was with the Sacramento Kings and then the Chicago Bulls, he would be home in the summer and call Bray, and they would go to Salmons' high school, Plymouth Whitemarsh, and play one-on-one.

Then Nelson would come home, and the Orlando Magic guard needed workout partners. They had mutual friends, so Bray became part of the workout group.

"We'd shoot every day, lift, run, swim - everything, all kinds of conditioning," Bray said. "You can never not learn from an all-star."

Bray remembered running on a track with Nelson one day at 9 a.m., then going to the Rumph Playground for pickup games, then playing with Salmons at night.

In the summer of 2008, Nelson hosted a bunch of his Magic teammates. Dwight Howard was off at the Olympics, but Rashard Lewis, Vince Carter, J.J. Redick, and others were there. They would lift weights and play ball. One day, they went paint-balling.

"Jameer told everybody, 'Get Sharif,' " Bray said, laughing. "I was already out. He shot me like 12 times."

Carter and Lewis, the taller guys, were easy targets, Bray said. "I don't know why they even play. The harder ones were Jameer and Redick."

All this time, friends were in Bray's ear. Get back to school, they said. Get your degree.

Last year, Bray realized it was time. Years back, Cheyney coach Dominique Stephens played against Bray in pickup games at a YMCA - "when I still had a little basketball in my system," the coach said. He knew Bray could shoot. He had a spot for him on his team, and Bray also knew assistant coach Ellis Gindraw from all the workouts run by John Hardnett that featured top pros and college players from the area.

Bray said he checked with Cheyney senior guard Tamir Smith to make sure this would work for him. "Most definitely," was the answer. "He does all the good things, all the hard stuff - penetrating, rebounding," Bray said of Smith, a former star at Simon Gratz High School.

Bray is a different player than he was in his first tour in the PSAC, he himself said.

"I can't get up no more," Bray said. "I had hops for like a year or two. I can't jump anymore at all. I used to dunk on fastbreaks. Now I just lay it in."

Stephens remembers the same thing.

"He always could shoot the ball," Stephens said. "He actually was very athletic. A lot of his athletic ability left. I remember when he came here as a freshman, going down the lane and dunking on people. . . . The older Sharif is a guy who can really stroke the ball, who can make some tough shots. He brings a maturity to his game."

Stephens defined everyone's role before the season, Bray said. His job was to score.

"I always thought it would take him a year or so to get his legs under him," Berry said.

Even at that, Bray scored 33 points in his first game back. He released some anger that day, he said.

Adversity isn't going to faze him now. He was the PSAC East player of the week twice in February, and led the conference with an 85.5 free-throw percentage for the season.

On Saturday, Cheyney was behind hot-shooting Shippensburg all game, trailing by 15 points at halftime. The team kept grinding and was down by three points in the last 30 seconds.

A minute earlier, Smith had told Bray, "I'm going to drive and they're going to help. Make sure you hit it."

"I'm going to hit it," Bray told him.

With 25 seconds left, Smith drove, the defense collapsed on him, and Bray was wide-open - having one of those almost-too-open shots after Smith delivered on his promise and kicked the ball to him.

Nothing but net - tie game. There was no celebration, though. Shippensburg scored on a follow-up shot with eight-tenths of a second left to pull out a 73-71 upset.

Last night, Cheyney lost to East Stroudsburg, 76-65, in the first round of the PSAC tournament. Bray led the Wolves, who finished 16-12, with 24 points.

Beyond the basketball, Bray said he was back in the swing of going to class. He remembers that on the first day of the fall semester, his Creative Culture professor said, "This class isn't for the easy!" Bray thought, "I'm not ready for this." But he did well in the class, he said.

Another thing that has eased his mind is his father's recovery from his stroke.

"He's actually doing real well," Bray said. "He doesn't come to the games, but he keeps up with all the stats. He knew more about our schedule than I did. He watched games on the computer and put them on a DVD for me."

In Cheyney's gym, at the top of the bleachers across from the benches, there is a sign for the Daniel E. Rumph Foundation. The foundation has raised money to put automated external defibrillators at Philadelphia recreation centers.

Moreover, Cheyney had been the first college in the country to perform echocardiogram testing for all its athletes, teaming with the foundation in 2006. The sign honoring his friend was in the gym before Bray got there.

"I see it every day - it makes me smile," Bray said.

"Pop-Pop" turns 27 in July and has another year of eligibility left. He plans to use it. It took him this long to reenter the organized basketball world. He wants to see where it takes him.

"I don't feel that old, except at 11 o'clock when I go to bed and they're still out," Bray said. "I definitely can't hang anymore."