Towering over his shipmates, sailor pins big hopes on hoops

NORFOLK

Seaman Sam Tolbert needed to get to another, quieter compartment in his ship.

There was one obvious way: through the bulkhead, a manhole-size cutout about 3 feet off the deck. Tolbert tucked his head, coiled up his 6-foot-7-inch frame and aimed for the hole. Swish.

A train of visitors bumped and rattled through behind him.

He explained his deft moves: “I’m used to it.”

The Navy is not perfectly designed for the big and tall sailor. But for Tolbert, it is a path to further his basketball education.

At 21, he is a two-time member of the all-Navy basketball team. He’s a force at military gyms and aboard the amphibious ship Bataan.

He draws attention in the chow lines and on the court. He stands 1 inch under the service’s maximum height, yet stretches 1 inch longer than its standard-issue mattress.

When Tolbert was in high school in tiny Warwick, Ga., he was skilled enough to draw interest from several colleges to play forward and center.

He lacked the grades to qualify for a Division I basketball school and enrolled at a junior college. He expected a two-year hitch before transferring to the big time.

But college wasn’t a good fit, so about two years ago, he started thinking about other places to play. His younger brother Ezra had joined the Air Force. An older brother, John, was considering the Marines. Sam decided he preferred the Navy.

“I thought about David Robinson,” he said. “I have big goals.”

Robinson, a Naval Academy graduate, went on to become an MVP and 10-time NBA All-Star.

Tolbert’s recruiter urged him to try out for the all-Navy team. He made it last year and again this year.

Between February and April, the team played exhibition games and visited high schools to recruit for the service. He guarded his brother John, who’s 2 inches taller, in a Navy-Marine Corps showdown. The two Tolberts got into early foul trouble, just like the games they played against each other growing up.

For Tolbert, the exhibitions meant full-size beds and full-time concentration on basketball. “Reality hit when I went back to the ship,” he said.

Aboard the Bataan, Tolbert has more mundane goals assigned daily by the leading petty officers in the deck division. He chips. He scrapes. He paints. He stands watch. The only dribbles in the forecastle are from leaky pipes. Dunking happens to the two 20-ton anchors.

When he first reported to the ship in 2006, he bumped his head half a dozen times a day for a few months. Passageways were treacherous. The six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf with 2,000 Marines was a long separation from the hardwood.

On slow days, when the hangar deck cleared, a pair of portable goals was set up. The Marines and sailors squared off against each other. Tolbert starred for the home team.

It delivered a dose of respect well beyond his pay grade. What skipper ever drew woofs and applause from sailors and Marines for a performance in the hangar bay?

But it also makes him a friendly target.

Seaman Shawn McCombs, a chatty 25-year-old from Brooklyn and one of Tolbert’s closest shipmates, trash-talked about a recent one-on-one game where he beat Tolbert. He predicted a blowout in a rematch.

Tolbert looked down on his 6-foot-2-inch tall friend and smiled.

“You know,” Tolbert said quietly, shaking his head, “I’m going to destroy you.”

Almost every day after work, Tolbert heads for the gym at Norfolk Naval Station. He lifts weights and hits the court for a few hours of pickup.

Late Thursday night, a sparse crowd gathered. Tolbert waited on the sidelines, chatting with a reporter as players chose up sides.

Tolbert said he would like to apply to attend Virginia State University on a Navy scholarship, where he could play and finish his education.

A burly sailor on the court interrupted. “You come here to play or you come here to sign autographs?” he shouted.

Tolbert jogged on to the court. Play.

Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2322, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com