These Days, Muresan Gets Assists While Fishing

Former Washington Bullets center Gheorghe Muresan, middle, stands next to fishing partners Billy Brener, left, and Pete Dahlberg. Below, Muresan fishes with Brener. "He's our human tuna tower," said Brener of Muresan, who is 7-feet-7. (By Angus Phillips For The Washington Post)

With the Washington Wizards' season set to start on Wednesday in Cleveland and still no dominating center on the roster, fans may be pondering the whereabouts of a certain retired 7-foot-7 Romanian American. Where's Big Gheorghe Muresan when you need him?

Lest we raise any false hope, the sweet-tempered giant is not considering an NBA comeback at 35, though he'd do it if he could. The heart is willing but the legs aren't. "What I miss most is the feeling of going to the gym in great shape to play against the best guys in the world," he said on Thursday.

Muresan is the first to admit he's lost a step on the basketball court, but he hasn't lost the keen eye that makes him an asset on a fishing boat, particularly in the fall when flocks of birds are working over schools of feeding fish on the Chesapeake.

"He's our human tuna tower," says his old pal Billy Brener of Great Falls. From his perch on high, with the keen eyesight of a bird of prey, Muresan can spot clouds of working birds with the naked eye long before lesser mortals can find them with binoculars.

"To the left, 10 o'clock!" says Muresan, gesticulating urgently. And far in the distance over the whitecaps at the mouth of the Potomac River on a wild and windy day, if you strain your eyes you eventually find the clot of jittery black dots that signifies diving birds and rockfish on the feed.

So off you go, bouncing along through the angry three-foot chop on a 21-footer, until the birds are close at hand and the water below roils with the slashing strikes of feeding rock and blues. "I'm marking fish on the meter," says the skipper, Walleye Pete Dahlberg. "Get your lures down."

Bang. Fish on!

Ah, autumn. It's a magical time of year for the bay angler as fish feed up for the winter, and it's that much more magical with a would-be Wizard along.

Muresan loves to fish. He hooked up with Brener, who runs an office-building maintenance company in Arlington, back in the days when the Wizards were the Bullets and Muresan was holding court two or three nights a week against the likes of Shaquille O'Neal.

They were a good match. At 5 feet 3 1/2 , Brener and his wife, Linda, who's four inches shorter than he, needed help in the height department. Muresan became a regular on their 31-footer, Char Lady, when he could get time off from training and travel.

These days his time is largely his own. Muresan works in the summer running camps, clinics and leagues for kids around the area through his company, Giant Basketball Academy. In the winter he does public relations for the Wizards at home games. He says of his current obligations: "It's the best job I've ever had. I have plenty of time now to spend with my own kids," budding soccer players George, 8, and Victor, 6, at home in Potomac.

And plenty of time to fish.