Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- When her son came home to Virginia for a visit over the summer break, Desiree Finney-Jones noticed almost instantly something was different about her youngest boy.

He was talking. A lot. Not just idle chit-chat, either.

Dorian Finney-Smith, back in his hometown of Portsmouth after his second season with the Florida basketball team, engaged in deep, meaningful, enlightened and candid conversations with his mother, the likes of which she had never heard from him.

"I just saw a whole lot of maturity in my baby," Finney-Jones said earlier this week. "He was so outspoken, like a different person. He'd been away so much, but now he was back and we were talking to each other so much that it just sort of hit me -- my baby boy was a grown man."

There are lots of ways to grow, even for a 22-year-old who already stands 6-foot-8. For Finney-Smith (pictured right), known affectionately to family and friends as "Doe-Doe," this growth spurt, its process, began in 2012 when he left Virginia Tech, and the security blanket of his home state, and transferred to UF after his freshman season. It was fostered by the tedious existence that accompanies a transfer year and doing nothing but practicing and refining skills with no games to look forward to. It was fortified by the discipline of a new head coach, whose heavy-handed approach coaxed Finney-Smith into sacrifice of himself for the betterment of a team that went on and soared to stunning heights. And, it came with the building of trust within his basketball family and a bond so powerful he felt he could empty his soul of even his darkest feelings.

Like the night Finney-Smith held his bloody, dying brother in his arms.

"I never wanted to talk about it," Finney-Smith said of the 2008 murder of older brother Ra-Shawn. "Coach D, though, he's all about getting you right mentally. I finally opened up about it and ... it was like this weight had been lifted. Like a release."

He smiled.

"Once I talked about it, I just started talking more and more about all kinds of stuff. It just felt easier, you know?

Now, Finney-Smith smiles a lot. The best player on the Gators' basketball team, which opens the 2014-15 season Friday night against William & Mary at the O'Connell Center, likes where he is in life, loves his teammates and, by the look on his face, has discovered an altogether different love for himself.

"What I've learned about Doe-Doe is that he's a much, much more complex person than I ever thought," UF coach Billy Donovan said. "He comes from an environment that is very tough and to me he seemed very quiet and shy. I think what happened to him here is that he found a level of peace with what happened with his brother."

A lot of credit goes to his UF brothers.

"None of us really knew the depth of his pain and his loss, but telling us brought us all closer," junior forward DeVon Walker said. "Seeing Doe-Doe now, he's just much more free, if that makes sense. He's happier. He feels more comfortable around everybody and knows he's not alone anymore."

Not that he ever was. Not with Desiree Finney in charge of their tight-knit family.

Doe-Doe just had some growing up to do and it took a nudge from "Coach D" and his Florida family to push him over the top.

"I told Billy, 'You better take care of my baby,' " Desiree recalled of the day she brought her son to UF. "He looked at me and said, 'Miss Dez, I got him. Doe-Doe is going to be just fine.' "

A comforting feeling fell over her.

"No one outside the family ever called him Doe-Doe," Desiree said. "He was talking about my baby like he was already part of our family."

That family went on to grow.

Like Doe-Doe did.
 

FROM A HOTBED OF STARS

Portsmouth sits across the Elizabeth River in the southeast corner of Virginia. The area in and around the naval base city of Norfolk is known as Hampton Road and is a virtual who's-who of superstar athletes, past and present. A partial list might include Allen Iverson, Michael Vick, DeAngelo Hall, Alonzo Mourning, Justin and B.J. Upton, Bruce Smith, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Tomlin and Percy Harvin. Again, that's a partial one.

Sports is a way of life.

A way out, too.

Desiree Finney, at 5-11, was quite the athlete herself at Woodrow Wilson High, helping the girls' basketball team reach a regional final and scoring 26 points in defeat. Her future, though, detoured into life as a single mother.

All told, she had six kids.

They could all play, too.

Oldest son Ben Finney got a Division I basketball scholarship to Old Dominion. Oldest daughter Sha-Kilya played hoops at Maryland-Eastern Shore. Of her twins, Ra-Shawn and Da-Shawn, the former had football offers to a handful of Division II schools, while the latter was two-year starter on his prep team. Next came Dorian, a top-20 national prospect and two-time state player of the year who won back-to-back state championships at Portsmouth Norcom and then became one of the biggest signings in Virginia Tech history. Her youngest, daughter Monnazjea, went to Virginia Commonwealth, where she is currently a starting forward in her sophomore season.

Just six kids, all of them athletes, less than eight years apart meant being a lot of places at once. But, anyone who attended high school games and AAU events around Hampton Roads not only knew of Desiree Finney (in middle, surrounded by her kids, left) would be there, they knew they'd hear her.

While balancing jobs cleaning businesses and doctors' offices, Desiree made being at her children's games a priority. Not just being there, but immersing herself into the game from the stands.

"I cannot help it," she said. "I talk during games."

Those around her would describe it as something other than "talk."

"I saw Doe-Doe play AAU, so yes, I heard her," Donovan said. "Everybody did."

Last year was Dorian's first at UF, but he knew exactly when he'd hear his mom's catcalls from the stands.

"She always waits until the crowd gets quiet," he said. "And, she's not one of those moms who doesn't know what she's watching. She knows what she's talking about."

Then it comes.

"Box out!"

"Why didn't you take that shot? You were wide open!"

"Stop missin' free throws!"

Desiree Finney-Jones cheers at one of her children's (many) games. Photo by Bill Tiernan of the Virginia-Pilot.

After watching UF's underwhelming 79-70 exhibition defeat of Division II Barry, Desiree offered an assessment of the performance.

"Bad D!" she said. "They need to talk more on defense. And our press? We hardly ever trap unless Doe-Doe is at the top, so we're going to have to trap more and cut the baseline off."

She paused for effect.

"I pay attention."

That was one of the things that struck Donovan when he was recruiting Finney-Smith during a stellar prep career that ended with a 19-point, 17-rebound, three-block performance in the state title game. Yes, his mother absolutely did pay attention, but her involvement extended well beyond the court.

"To me, she's just unbelievable. An incredible woman and mother," Donovan said. "She loved those kids while putting expectation and discipline on them. She doesn't joke around. She's serious and she understands the big picture."

It was because of their previous relationship that Desiree signed off Doe-Doe's transfer from the Hokies. Though UF recruited him hard, she originally steered her son to Virginia Tech to keep him close to home. But, when Hokies' coach Seth Greenberg was fired after Finney-Smith's freshman year, Doe-Doe wanted to leave. His coach was gone and he was fed up with losing after going 16-17 and winning just four Atlantic Coast Conference games.

"I hated to lose. I'd never lost before. And at Tech, losing just got normal," he said. "Everybody just kind of accepted it."

So, Finney-Smith transferred to UF with his mother's blessing, along with the aforementioned promise from the coach that he would watch after her son. Donovan watched, all right. After his mandatory sit-out season per NCAA rules, Finney-Smith was suspended to start his sophomore season for violating team rules.

Desiree threatened to come to Gainesville and raise hell. The threat, though, wasn't aimed at the coach. For Doe-Doe, that was an oh-no moment and he wanted no part of it.

"Me? I side with the coach," she said.

"I've always admired her for the fact that anytime things may not be going well for him it's never about anyone else; it's about what her son is doing or not doing," Donovan said. "Excuses aren't allowed. It's not that so-and-so isn't passing him the ball or we're not running plays for him or complaining about him coming off the bench. It's about what he's doing with the opportunity he's given."

Last year, Finney-Smith was given a significant role, yet one he'd never dealt with before. He came off the bench. He made just two starts in 37 games, but he averaged 8.7 points, grabbed a team-best 6.7 rebounds per game and was honored as the SEC's Sixth Man of the Year.

"I embraced my role and we went to the Final Four," he said. "I'd do it all over again if we could get back there."

Making it easy to accept was the alliance that formed inside of the Florida locker room. Finney-Smith will never forgot how his teammates instructed him to keep on shooting despite a miserable 1-for-26 drought from the 3-point line that spanned eight games, including 22 straight clanks. When he finally broke out of it, Finney-Smith hit a dagger in the final seconds to hold off Vanderbilt on the road.

That UF team won 30 straight games, going a perfect 21-0 against SEC teams, and cut down a series of nets in March. It had a true kinship that developed not just from their time together on the floor, but some special times together in group discussion meetings that encouraged teammates -- as well as coaches and support staff -- to share their deepest feelings and tell life's stories about a variety of topics with the goal of fostering closeness and connectivity.

What Finney-Smith offered up one day changed his life.

It was the day, as Billy D promised, when Doe-Doe would become just fine.

"WAS THERE SOMETHING I COULD HAVE DONE?"

On Sept. 14, 2008, Ra-Shawn Finney (left), a senior and star wide receiver/defensive back and captain of the Norcom High's football team, went to a party across town in Chesapeake's Camelot neighborhood with his younger brother Dorian, then 16 and a blossoming basketball standout at Norcom.

Around town, everyone knew Ra-Shawn as "Peanut." He was well-liked, respected and looked up to as a member of the school's ROTC program.

According to police records, the party expanded into the streets, where witnesses said they saw Ra-Shawn fire a gun several times into the air. Adults at the party approached him and asked him to leave, with Ra-Shawn tucking the gun away and apologizing to one of the adults as they walked him to his car.

That was when, witnesses say, a man with a revolver approached Ra-Shawn and a fight ensued. Ra-Shawn was shot seven times and collapsed in the street.

And Dorian saw it all from a few feet away.

All he could do was squeeze his brother with all of his might until the ambulance arrived.

Ra-Shawn died 13 days later.

In June of 2009, Jarrell Eldridge pled to second-degree murder charges. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. The plea deal spared Dorian, on the state's witness list, from testifying at the trial. Desiree Finney sat in the courtroom for every hearing. She told her children to stay home.

"By the grace of God, we made it through it," Desiree said.

It took more than five years for Dorian to really and truly confront it.

"Was it my fault? Was there something I could have done to stop it?" he asked himself over and over.

The Gators that Finney-Smith knew best -- Jake Kurtz, Kasey Hill, Eli Carter, among them -- they were aware he had a brother killed by gunfire. But, even they were struck by the scene their teammate re-lived during the group session last season.

"I was like, whoa," said Kurtz, the walk-on forward who is Finney-Smith's best friend on the squad. "That was so emotional for everybody in there just to know that someone you could care for so much had gone through something like that."

Finney-Smith's willingness to share the moment and make himself completely vulnerable also was a beacon to the rest of the team.

"It's a testament to him that he could carry on the way he did for so long with all that pain in his heart and in his mind," Walker said. "But, in doing so, he helped us open too. He was like a pioneer for the group. I mean, if he could share something like that, then we certainly had things to share."

By reliving his sorrow, Finney-Smith found closure.

And his smile.

"What happened was out of my control," he said. "Talking about it got me right."

Finney-Smith mugs for the camera at UF media day last month.

A NEW SEASON

Finney-Smith doesn't do anything really great on the basketball court, but he does everything really well. His fourth-year junior season could be a big one. On Thursday, the SEC's coaches voted him (along with UF junior guard Michael Frazier) to their preseason all-conference first team.

"I think he's going to have an amazing year," Walker said.

The expectations are for "Doe-Doe" to lead this team as it rebuilds last season's special, senior-laden squad.

His expectations differ.

Finney-Smith sees a much bigger picture. Himself with a 4-year-old daughter, Sinai (pictured below), there is a focus on priority. Finney-Smith is on schedule to graduate in May with a degree in Family, Youth and Community Science and has a sure-fire future in professional basketball; maybe the NBA, certainly overseas.

Yet, he refuses to look at the season for how it might impact him.

"I look at it more as, 'how can I help?'" Finney-Smith said. "I try to get out of myself. I don't worry about how I'm going to do and that takes the pressure off me. I'll have a role somewhere and I'll play that role. The goal is maintain the winning culture here."

Meanwhile, back in Virginia, distance means nothing to Desiree if her kids are playing. She's headed Friday to Richmond to watch her daughter's season opener at VCU. From there, she'll roll down to Florida and be in the O'Dome when the Gators play host to in-state foe Miami on Monday night.

If you're there, you'll know which one she is. And, she'll have no trouble locating her "baby," even though he's grown up now.

But, just in case, she'll be the one yelling; he'll be the one smiling.

"I'm a different person now," Finney-Smith said. "And I like who I am."