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thedrifter
11-01-05, 07:37 AM
Ready to serve
At 27, ex-marine from Orlando gets cooking in college basketball.
Alan Schmadtke | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 1, 2005

As a senior at Oak Ridge High about a decade ago, Stanley Billings decided what to do with his life: He would become a cook.

He didn't care particularly for school -- didn't care too much about anything, really -- but something about home-economics classes appealed to him. Chemistry for the masses, he thought, and it was nice to mix things that ended up tasting good. Creating something from nothing had its appeal, too.

So upon graduating from Oak Ridge in 1996, Billings settled on collecting culinary basics the old-fashioned way -- in the Marines.

Somewhere along the way, Wolfgang Puck became Walter Mitty. For as he mastered mass-quantity meals in the military, Billings grew to 6 feet 11 and along the way found a new career path: basketball.

Now, Billings ponders his future again. As a center at Independence (Kan.) Community College, he's being recruited by numerous Division I schools: Florida State, USC, Auburn, St. John's, Xavier, Wyoming, Nevada, Kansas State, Minnesota, Tulsa and hometown UCF.

"It's kind of overwhelming, but I'm trying to take it in stride," Billings said by phone from Kansas. "I didn't have these opportunities in high school, so this is all new to me."

It's new to everyone because it's as if someone made it all up. Consider:

Billings is 27 years old and a sophomore in college.

He never played basketball in high school, never played organized ball at all before joining the Marines.

He literally grew up in the military, growing more than 5 inches in height, which probably made him one of the world's tallest cooks.

He picked up a basketball out of boredom and because the sport was popular in his unit.

And now, with a few years of military-basketball experience and two seasons in junior college, he sees himself playing in the NCAA Tournament while pushing 30.

"You can see a lot of different backgrounds in junior-college basketball," Independence Coach Steve Lilly said, "but you don't see a lot of ex-Marines or guys this old. [Once] we had a player we found cutting hair in Kansas City, and he was 25. That's as close as I've ever seen."

The seeing is just getting started. JUCOjunction.com recently picked Billings as a fourth-team junior-college All-American, and one recruiting service sees him as one of the top 10 JC recruits.

The NCAA's early signing period starts Nov. 10, but it's unlikely Billings will make a decision by then. He won't schedule any official visits until January, and he said he won't pick a four-year school until he makes his allotted five visits.

"I'm open-minded in this whole thing," he said. "I want to go to a place where it's family-oriented and where I can contribute right away. I'm trying to get to the NCAAs and win."

Not even on his radar

Neither UCF nor any other school knew who Stanley Billings was when he attended Oak Ridge. Although he was 6-51/2, liked the Orlando Magic and sometimes watched hoops on television, Billings and basketball didn't mix.

Why, exactly, is something of a mystery. Younger brother Troy, who played guard at Oak Ridge after his brother finished high school, remembers then-Oak Ridge coach Ron Smith and other assistants asking Stanley more than once to try out for the team.

"We played together when we were kids. I used to beat him one-on-one," said Troy, now 25 and an exterminator in Orlando. "I knew if he ever started playing, he'd get serious about it because that's the way he is."

So, why didn't he play?

"I just wasn't interested," Stanley Billings said. "I guess looking back, I was pretty lazy. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. Basketball wasn't something I wanted to do."

Yet as high-school graduation approached, Billings took stock of himself and was uneasy about what lay ahead.

"I saw myself going down the wrong road," he said.

Five years before 9-11 and long before most Americans grasped Afghanistan and Iraq, Billings committed to a four-year tour with the Marines. That commitment came with four more years of service or four years as a reserve. (He later reinlisted and is not a reservist.)

His life was changed forever -- in a hurry.

"The hardest thing about it was boot camp," he said. "I had no idea what to expect. I was going in there blind.

"You got used to it after three months. It was clockwork. We did the same stuff every day. When I got into the Corps, same thing. It was very repetitive. Those were things I needed."

After boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., he was off to Camp Devil Dog in Jacksonville, N.C., to cooking school in Fort Lee, Va., and to his first assignment, a year at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Cooking school, I already knew a lot of stuff, so it was like a refresher," he said. "They taught me how to cook for a large quantity of people. That was a big adjustment."

He spent 28 months in Okinawa, Japan, and 30 in Quantico, Va., before assignments in Kuwait and Iraq. He went back and forth between the countries for 21/2 months.

By then, the appeal of cooking had dimmed. It was at Quantico where others first began to notice Billings outside the kitchen. He'd grown 51/2 inches. His skills, though raw, were apparent.

"The big thing with Stanley was, he'd never been coached," said Capt. James Jones, one of Billings' coaches in the Marines. "He was an untouched tapestry."

The Marines made Billings a man. Jones helped make him a player.

Billings transferred to Camp Lejeune, N.C., where Jones coached the All-Marine team. Jones infused Billings with a belief he could take basketball beyond the base. The coach saw untapped talent in the slender center and devised ways to draw some of it out. He pushed him through one-on-one drills to improve Billings' footwork and skills around the basket.

Sgt. Jelani Nix, a 6-8 teammate, befriended Billings and decided to make him a tougher player.

"He was considered the No. 1 player in the armed forces," Jones said of Nix. "He's a little older than Stanley, and in terms of development, he was a good player for Stanley to play with and practice against. It really helped him."

A year-round basketball program didn't hurt. Neither did Jones' variety of pickup games. Some were against other military teams, some against semi-pro teams and a few against college players such as Raymond Felton (North Carolina) and big men Simeon and Sammie Haley (Missouri).

Billings was Jones' starting center in 2002, when the Marines won only their third Armed Forces Championship. Gradually, the soft-spoken center wondered what else was out there. With basketball as a background, going back to school seemed like a nice option.

"He always expressed an interest in going to school, getting a degree or continuing to play somewhere, maybe overseas," Jones said. "That was kind of the first step.

Getting the job done

Coastal Carolina was supposed to get the immediate benefits. Billings was set. His academics weren't. He needed a few more credits to qualify for Division I. He needed junior college.

Meanwhile, out in Kansas, Lilly hunted for a center. When Division I coaches called to recruit his players, he asked them whether they knew of any potential junior-college players for him.

Billings' name came up. And the timing was perfect: Billings already had filed papers to end his Marine career and was busy searching for a new school. A junior college in Myrtle Beach, S.C., didn't have a scholarship for him.

Lilly won him with a 21/2-week recruitment.

The Pirates were 21-10 last year with Billings, and he averaged 12.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.6 blocks.

"He has all the things coaches like to see. He's a skilled post player, has the ability to step out and score on the perimeter. He's an exceptional passer, rebounder, shot blocker, runs the floor," Lilly said. "But his greatest assets go far beyond that. The leadership he displays, the guidance he gives the team, you can't quantify that.

"Plus, how many players do you see that have the ability to relate to the players and the coaches? My assistants are 27 and 24. Stanley's got more life experience than the coaches and players combined, I think."

Somedays, Billings can't help but laugh. His teammates are seven and eight years younger. Some complain about school. Others think basketball practice is difficult.

He's the team's father figure, but he doesn't play drill sergeant.

"No, but I can get into that mode if I need to," he said. "I understand what they're going through. I've been through a lot of it. I'm human like everybody else; I still make mistakes. I just think things through before I do things now. That's the big difference."

And this: Billings doesn't cook anymore. Teammate Nate Wallace said he probably has a career as a food critic, given his picky taste buds and constant critiques of the school cafeteria.

Billings is thinking about sports management as a major, maybe business. Basketball can get him there.

"Even though Stan played ball and has moved out and is a big-time player now, he was always a Marine. He always did his job," Jones said. "He wasn't on the front lines, but he took care of his people. He's a credit to the Corps."

Alan Schmadtke can be reached at aschmadtke@orlandosentinel.com.


Ellie