Findlay standout hopes to leave mark at UNLV

By Rob Miech

Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 | 5:49 p.m.

Findlay College Prep basketball player Carlos Lopez bristled at what he heard and saw among his teammates on the Puerto Rican junior national team.

It had just lost to Argentina in a quarterfinal of the FIBA 18-and-under championship last month in Formosa, Argentina, and coach Cano Marrero let Lopez direct a players-only meeting.

We didn’t respect Puerto Rico, Lopez told his teammates. We didn’t respect ourselves. He included himself. He said it’s not about your name on the jersey. It’s about Puerto Rico.

“We fixed it,” Lopez said. “It’s hard to represent your island. When you put that jersey on, (there are) all those feelings about Puerto Rico and your family.

“We didn’t finish hard. We were selfish. Some of the guys tried to do their own things. We forgot what it’s all about: Puerto Rico. Some of the guys forgot that or didn’t care about it.”

Findlay coach Mike Peck listened to that story Monday after the first day of classes, and paused. Wow, he said. Lopez has indeed become the leader that Peck always envisioned.

“He probably knows better than I do, sometimes, what we’re thinking and expecting,” Peck said. “His role as a leader will be critical, getting seven new teammates on board quickly.”

Lopez, 18, has come a long way from Lajas, Puerto Rico, where he’d rise at 6 a.m., feed chickens, hens and rabbits in the backyard, and then blow off homework after school to play ball with buddies.

His mother, Glydys, divorced his father, Carlos Sr., when he was 10. Junior lives with his mother, a nurse, and grandmother. Without a father figure he drifted.

Then he took a good look at those chickens and hens, at his mother and grandmother, and at his brothers, 10-year-old Isaac and 8-year-old Daniel.

Lopez realized, as the man of the house, he’d better shape up and become the foundation, the future, of his family.

“My mother doesn’t have a husband, and I feel like my brothers need me more than ever,” he said. “I’m trying to do the right thing for them, so they can look up to me and do the right things.

“My grandmother always told me, ‘You’ll make it some day. You’ll make it.’ One day, I just motivated myself to leave Puerto Rico.”

A Puerto Rico-based scouting friend of UNLV assistant coach Lew Hill notified Hill about Lopez. Peck, then a Findlay assistant, was contacted and Lopez’s path to Findlay was forged.

It was July and Peck was scrambling for talent.

“There wasn’t a lot of time to filter or screen,” Peck said. “More or less, we got lucky. He’s a good player and a good person.”

That first year, Lopez struggled with English. He nearly left the prestigious Henderson International School, with which Findlay is affiliated.

He has acclimated to Southern Nevada so much that he gave UNLV coach Lon Kruger an early oral commitment, for the 2009-10 season, in March.

Florida, Gonzaga, Pittsburgh and Texas also were after Lopez, considered a top 150 national prospect in his class by the recruiting site Rivals.com.

“I feel like I made the right decision,” Lopez said. “Not just because of the basketball team, but UNLV is a really good school. I like the program they have established and don’t want to go to another place.”

He traveled to Serbia last summer in his first stint representing Puerto Rico, but the team went 0-8. Worse, the confines were unfriendly. A few times, Lopez said he felt threatened in the hostile environment.

In Formosa, Puerto Rico lost the bronze-medal game to Canada but still qualified for the U19 World Championship next summer in New Zealand.

Off the court, Lopez expected more hostility but was pleasantly surprised by Formosa. It’s a poor city, but its inhabitants were curious about the outsiders and made them feel welcomed.

“It looked poor, but the people are so rich in the way they treat you and respect you,” Lopez said. “For me, it was astonishing. Everyone talked to us and wanted a picture with us.”

After the defeat to Canada, the 10-year-old boy who swept the court after each game approached Lopez and asked him for his headband. I like how you play, he told Lopez. I want to be like you.

“When a little kid says that to you, you feel great,” Lopez said. “He watched me for a couple days and got a good impression of me. It was very impressive.”

Now Lopez calls his own team meetings and relishes being a leader at Findlay. He wants to continue coaching the fifth- and sixth-grade Henderson International boys' team.

“If they give me the opportunity, I will,” Lopez said. “I did enjoy that. When you coach, it’s so different. You see the game from another angle. I remember when I was like them.”

Lopez has been at Findlay -- which was started by former UNLV center and automobile magnate Cliff Findlay -- since its inception.

“He is the reason, the model of why we’re here,” Peck said. “He’s why our program exists, giving good kids like that an opportunity so they have great success stories.”

At 6-foot-5, Lopez stood out among his peers. Back home in the eighth grade, a little kid called Lopez “Yao,” after 7-foot-6 Chinese center Yao Ming. The nickname stuck.

He adored the moniker from the start, and he now owns a trove of Yao posters and jerseys. Lopez has grown to 6-foot-10 and weighs 208 pounds, and he wears size 15 shoes.

“In Puerto Rico, it’s not normal to see a 6-5 kid,” Lopez said. “Now I call myself Yao. Everything is about Yao. I have the jerseys, not because of him but because of me.”

Call him either Yao or Los, which UNLV coach Lon Kruger has nicknamed Lopez -- anything but Carlos. “That’s not cool,” Lopez said.

A physician in Puerto Rico told the future Rebel he’d grow to 7-1 or 7-2, which disturbs him.

“I hope he’s wrong,” Lopez said. “I try to eat everything to gain weight, but it’s hard because I’m still growing. I don’t know when I’ll stop. I hope this year. That’s it. I’m good like this.”

Lopez can’t believe his good fortune. He sits on a covered metal bench in a quad at Henderson International and waves to former teammate Brice Massamba, who walks toward Peck’s office.

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m scared to wake up,” Lopez said, “like it’s a dream.”