Furness' Ross stars in Southern win
YUSEF ROSS has a cousin who once played basketball for Horace Furness High, and the thought of representing that same school made him feel pretty special once he decided to enroll.
YUSEF ROSS has a cousin who once played basketball for Horace Furness High, and the thought of representing that same school made him feel pretty special once he decided to enroll.
"Then I get here and I find out they don't have basketball anymore," he said, laughing.
What's a guy to do? Go with the flow.
"Now," Ross said, "I'm playing with one of my other cousins. I was looking forward to going against him, but this way's cool, too."
Stick with us. It's wacky . . .
Furness dropped its varsity program after the 2010-11 season and its hoopsters now play for Southern as part of a cooperative sponsorship. Incredibly, only three of this year's players are enrolled at Southern - Wayne Brunson, Ross' cuz, is one of them - while nine can be found at Furness. Two more are students in a credit-recovery program.
"When I found out about the setup, I was like, 'Well, this is kind of weird,' " Ross said. "We have all these Furness guys and we have to go over there every day to practice. We take the 79 bus. Drops us right off at the door. It never works out to be all nine of us going together. Maybe four here. Five there. On days of away games, we get out pretty early so we can get to Southern and ride the team bus together from there."
Thursday, the Rams played at home and Ross, a 5-11, 150-pound senior point guard, contributed 13 points, three steals and six apiece of rebounds/assists to a 51-48 Public B win over Franklin Learning Center.
"The coaches say I'm out there to run the show," Ross said. "It's my job to keep everyone involved. When I do that, it's hard for teams to stop us and we go on runs. I'm not really a shooter. I mean, I take enough shots to keep me satisfied, but I'm mostly a passer."
Ross, a transfer from Upper Darby, lives near 19th and Federal. He does well academically, and owns a qualifying SAT score, but he did miss one game earlier this season for a school violation.
Just a blip, folks. Just a blip.
"I was real disappointed in myself for letting that happen," said Ross, who envisions a career as an athletic trainer. "I understood that I had to deal with the consequences. When I first came back, I was coming off the bench. I had to earn my spot again and this was my second game back as a starter."
Two subs had productive outings for the Rams. Edwin Harris totaled eight points, nine rebounds and two blocks while Jamir Lomax mixed six points with seven boards.
For FLC, the leaders were Nisiar Smith (13 points, 10 rebounds) and Troy Steed (nine apiece). Deion Boyer missed a left-wing trey at the buzzer.
