For the final time, Andy Rautins surfed through the tunnel of teammates at the Carrier Dome. A five-year salute surrounded him. He waved to the crowd and met his dad, Leo, at midcourt.

Leo’s wife had been crying for three days, but he had stayed strong until now. A former SU legend himself, he grabbed Andy by the head, kissed his cheek and emotions finally won over. The two hugged for five seconds. This was it.
‘It was, it was,’ said Leo afterward, stumbling to find words. ‘It was difficult. It just came too fast.’

Each basketball season has cost Dad between 40,000 and 50,000 miles on the road. An analyst for the Toronto Raptors and head coach of Team Canada, Leo shuttles between Toronto and Syracuse nonstop.

He wouldn’t have it any other way. Mentoring his son along this turbulent career has all been worth it. Andy’s maturation from sharpshooter to all-around playmaker is the reason Syracuse is primed for a run at a national title as it heads into the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden Thursday.

To brand Rautins a 3-point shooter is an insult. He is far more. Take him out of the game and a rocky mix of panic and confusion takes over. Rautins values the little things that go unnoticed — sliding on defense, sending subliminal messages to teammates, making an extra pass. A scroll’s worth of setbacks have molded Andy Rautins into who he is, what this team is.

‘You could make a very strong case that Andy’s the most valuable player in the league,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘I think you could make that case very easily.’
A basketball ‘freak’

With each move, Roosevelt Bouie began to realize Rautins wasn’t a typical 3-year-old kid. This was abnormal. Living at an apartment complex with Leo in Spain — where the two former SU teammates forged European careers — Bouie watched in shock.

Kids at this age barely know what a basketball is. But there was Andy in Bouie’s living room, imitating player after player on a Toys R Us hoop.

‘Go ahead,’ Leo told Bouie. ‘Name a player.’ So Bouie did. He said Julius Erving and Rautins mimicked Dr. J’s famous baseline scoop shot against the Los Angeles Lakers. He said George Gervin and Andy did his version of ‘The Iceman’s’ finger roll.

Bouie turned to Leo in awe.

‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ he said. ‘Leo, your kid’s a freak.’

This love for the game amplified with age. All season, Rautins has repeated that winning — for this team, unlike past ones — is all that matters. Cliché postgame drivel. Players are programmed to say this. It’s mandatory. But winning is what consumes Rautins.

The attitude trickles down. Syracuse isn’t poisoned by prima donnas. Rautins has imported his international mindset. Overseas, he says, nobody cares about individual success. Chemistry is valued. In recent years, a lack of harmony has held Syracuse back.

‘Definitely. There is no question about that,’ Rautins said. ‘There have been two or three off-court issues that have separated the team in some way (in the past). We tried to remain positive throughout that, but it affects the team.’

Some kids run away from home. Rautins ran away from losing. When his team lost at basketball camp in middle school, he ran. Disappeared.

Where to? Nobody knew. Outside, in the hallway, to the bathroom. It remains a mystery. The coach at camp back then, Dave Brown, cracks up recalling those days. Loads of players have shuffled through his camp in Sarnia, Ontario.

None hated losing as much as Rautins.

‘He got so, so upset about losing that he would disappear,’ said Brown, one of Leo’s best friends. ‘He would race out of the gym. It’s instilled in him and his personality. He hates losing.’

Only, Andy took it even further. He ordered Brown’s son, Taylor, to slap him in the back of the head whenever he made a mistake on the court. A five-star smack in the skull. Brown remembers watching from the sideline as his son, five years older than Andy, whaled away. Each time, Andy responded, ‘Thank you, I deserve it.’

Seventh-graders don’t do this. Rautins’ love for basketball was uncommon.

So, yes, when Syracuse lost to Division II punching bag Le Moyne, Rautins took it to heart. He needed to speak up. This season meant too much.

Platform to lead

The day after SU’s numbing preseason loss to its little brother down Euclid Avenue, Rautins took action. Along with fellow senior Arinze Onuaku, he called a players-only meeting. It was a mandatory day off, but Rautins knew the team needed to do something. Fast. So he contacted the team’s video coordinator and set up the film.
Every play was analyzed.

‘Nobody was argumentative in there,’ Rautins said. ‘Everybody was talking and on the same page. We really grew and benefited from that point on.’

For the first time with the Orange, Rautins’ voice rose above the rest. He was always a leader. During international play, Leo remembers his son grabbing the jersey of Canadian teammate Carl English with one hand and Samuel Dalembert with the other to command their attention. He couldn’t do this in Syracuse. There have always been a handful of veterans in front of him. Rautins was rendered to the wing, quietly taking his share of 3-pointers. Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris were the spokesmen. Not him.
After losing to Le Moyne, that changed.

‘Now people see that winning is the most important thing,’ Rautins said. ‘After that loss to Le Moyne, somebody needed to step up and be the vocal leader.’

One week later, Rautins backed up his talk. After turning his ankle in gasping fashion in Syracuse’s opener, he faced a decision. Play two days later against Robert Morris or rest up for the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden. Dad told him to rest. Too much was at jeopardy.

‘You’re crazy,’ Leo recalls telling his son. ‘This could haunt you the rest of the year.’
Through warm-ups, the pain was still piercing. The verdict, still out. Rautins should have saved himself for MSG. But he knew his teammates were watching. Play through this and a tone was set. Rautins could spread his perennial appreciation for the game. Two years ago, he missed the entire season with a torn ACL. It was torture. When Onuaku shattered the backboard at Midnight Madness, Rautins sent a bitter text message to his dad. He needed to be out there. Leo told him to write down these feelings. That way, whenever he needed a jolt of motivation, he’d remember how bad things once were.

So for son — if not Dad — this Robert Morris game was one of those moments. He needed to play and set an example.

‘If they saw me out there playing injured,’ he said, ‘I thought they’d really take to that.’
Rautins swallowed ‘three or four painkillers’ and went to work. On raw adrenaline, he nailed seven 3-pointers and Syracuse embarrassed Robert Morris, 100-60. After the game, dotted across the locker room, teammates peered in Rautins’ direction. The word ‘warrior’ was repeated again and again. If their leader was willing to gut out a borderline meaningless non-conference game, they better suck it up.

‘People don’t even understand the stuff that Andy has gone through,’ guard Scoop Jardine said last week. ‘He has been through a lot.’

His other side

If he is drafted by a NBA team in June, Rautins will face an entirely new set of obstacles. Switching from zone to man defense, for one. But really, the toughest part will be those gushy, Disney-sappy pregame hugs with opposing players.

Before the game, Rautins barely looks at the other team. And during the game, he does everything to get underneath its skin. That’s the other side. Leo knows his son can be a parasite. Or, um, another p-word.

‘He can be a pr**k,’ Leo said. ‘There is no great player that’s not a pr**k. If you think Jordan, Bird and Magic aren’t, you’re wrong. They are absolute pr***s.’

St. Bonaventure found out. It cost the Atlantic 10 underdog an upset. In a tight game, Bonnies star Andrew Nicholson smacked Rautins with an elbow on his way to the post. In retaliation, Rautins nailed a pair of 3-pointers. St. Bonaventure called a timeout. Rautins was jacked. As Nicholson shuffled to the bench, Rautins screamed at him.

‘Hit me again! Hit me again!’

So Nicholson did. With one closed-fist uppercut to the family jewels, Nicholson lifted Rautins off the ground. He was ejected. SU cruised.

‘That’s man code,’ Rautins said. ‘You don’t do that kind of stuff. An elbow to the face would have been more appreciated.’

Leo got a kick out of punchgate. Laughing afterward, he gave Nicholson props. After all, he’s recruiting Nicholson for Team Canada. And he knows that some form of retaliation was probably warranted. He has seen this act before. For Team Canada, Rautins’ mouth once led to a bench-clearing brawl.

Canadian guard Tyler Kepkay, who is now playing in Germany, saw this side of Rautins every day.

‘It’s beneficial for our team when he gets under some guy’s skin,’ Kepkay said. ‘He’s very good at that.’

Playing against men nearly twice his age in uber-YMCA games gave Rautins a swagger. The no-harm, no-foul environment caters to balding, hairy-backed veterans. In 2005, Rautins tried taking a charge against a Venezuelan national player and was flattened. To this day, his backbone is still out of whack. Reaching around his back, he points to his left pelvic bone.

Every summer is a new initiation. Every summer helped build Rautins into the complete player he is today.

***
No wonder Andy Rautins didn’t flinch when fans chanted, ‘Where’s your green card!?’ in Providence and held a protest’s worth of demeaning signs in Georgetown. It’s all peanuts.
 

With each hurdle, Rautins has had an answer. After tearing his ACL, he dumped his McDonald’s-heavy diet for healthy food and became obsessed with weightlifting. After losing to Le Moyne, he spoke up. After twisting his ankle, he played. After getting socked in the groin, he answered. And after downpours of student insults, he catches fire. Rautins burnt the Friars for 28 and the Hoyas for 26 in those games. It doesn’t fuel him as much as it doesn’t faze him.

This game means too much for Rautins to care about anything else. At practice before Syracuse’s showdown against Villanova, Bouie visited Rautins. The senior gave him a hug and, like he was way back in Spain, Bouie was in shock again. The skin-and-bones kid he used to call ‘Skelotaur’ flexed his muscles.

‘Those are my wings,’ he told Bouie. ‘Want a ride?’

For now, Syracuse will ride Rautins as far as he’ll take them.

thdunne@syr.edu
 

Published on March 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm