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Coach Is No. l With the Neighbors
Wes Lincoln watches Connor Anderson go up for the shot at Lincoln's home next door to GMU Coach Jim Larranaga.
(By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Many boys on Wheatland Farms Drive have attended the Jim Larranaga Basketball Camp at George Mason. And their chauffeur to the weeklong camp was Larranaga himself. Boys who went said the coach would amuse them during the drive with pop quizzes, like one in which he listed a country's physical and cultural features until they could identify it.
"He's very nice," said Bobby Lam, 9, a fourth-grader who attended the camp last summer and this year is the leading scorer on his team. "He told us what our grades need to be if we want to go to George Mason."
George Mason players are no strangers to the neighborhood. Liz Larranaga often invites them over for home-cooked meals. She also has tutored some of the players, the neighbors said.
On occasion, the team has even joined children in brief pickup games in the Lincolns' driveway, with its 7-foot-high basketball hoop adjoining the Larranagas' drive.
In this busiest of weeks, the Larranagas could not be reached to talk about what they think of their neighbors' enthusiastic gestures. Maybe when the basketball season is over, and the balloons come down on Wheatland Farms Drive, Larranaga will have time to give more autographs and basketball tips to the neighborhood children -- and to their fathers.
"Everyone is so excited for them," said Jeff Sanok as he wired a timer to the floodlights on the Larranagas' lawn. "Jim and Liz are wonderful, down-to-earth people."
He paused, considering what a hot property Larranaga has become, and added:
"They're the kind of neighbors you don't want to lose."
