University of Richmond Athletics
Former Spider Cueto still has a lot on the ball
07/30/2001 | Men's Basketball
Jul 30, 2001
by Bob Lipper - Times-Dispatch Columnist
Reprinted courtesy Richmond Times-Dispatch
BELMAR, N.J. Awhiff of salt air from the ocean, a hint of sauteed chicken livers from Pat's Diner and three years removed from Robins Center joy, Carlos Cueto strolls into the St. Rose High gym. It is four nights ago, and he has just arrived from Jersey City, an hour's drive away. He is dressed in T-shirt and gray sweatpants. He carries a bulging plastic garbage sack. Inside the sack are a dozen uniforms. The uniforms identify the wearers as members of the Allenhurst Barbers team.
"I got to do everything around here," Cueto says with a grin. And he stows the uniforms under a chair astride the baseline, retraces his steps around the gym floor and descends the stairs to the school cafeteria for a pre-game meal of two hot dogs and a bottle of iced tea.
It's coach Cueto nowadays. You maybe remember him as the chatterbox playmaker who helped christen the John Beilein era at Richmond with a stunning 1998 magic carpet ride. Now he calls the shots for a barbershop quintet that's heading toward the playoffs in the Jersey Shore Basketball League, and last winter he steered the JV squad at St. Anthony's High - the Jersey City powerhouse where he played for two state-championship entries - to a 21-2 season.
This is not even vaguely the life Carlos Cueto envisioned when he was majoring in political science at UR. He spent his first year after graduation handling mutual funds in a brokerage house. He found he was as out of place as a 6-0 guard jousting with power forwards for rebounds.
"I realized the business world is not for me," he said. "You work from 8 to 6, handling other people's money and everything. There's a lot of pressure. Everything has to be done yesterday. It wasn't for me. I like to be around kids."
Basketball still has a grip on the four seniors who formed the core of those'98 Spiders. Scoring leader Jarod Stevenson played last season in Israel, center Eric Poole in Germany. Guard Daryl Oliver just took a job as assistant coach for the Western Kentucky women's team. And Carlos Cueto - the history buff, the son of Cuban immigrants - teaches social studies to a mostly Hispanic audience at Dr. Conti Elementary in Jersey City and then hustles over to St. Anthony's to run practice.
"I don't think he ever talked about it, but I sensed he would be a good coach," Beilein said the other day. "I think he sees the game from the perspective of a coach. The more he played, the more he realized what it takes to win."
For sure, Cueto saw the game from both sides at UR. He went from starter to sub, from loser to winner. If you're smart - and he is - you soak up vital lessons from transformations like that.
Consider: His senior year, Cueto lost his position to Marseilles Brown, a sophomore, and took a seat on the bench. But he never allowed himself to get turned off, never pouted. And he became a vital cog for a team that ended three years of losing with a 23-8 campaign that included a Colonial Athletic Association title and a first-round NCAA upset of South Carolina. Perseverance pays.
"I try to instill that in some of the young kids," he said. "They watch on TV and see the Iversons and all the flashy stuff. They see who starts the game, who scores all the points. But I tell'em my senior year I didn't start the game, but I was on the floor the last five minutes the majority of the time, especially at the end of the season."
You keep plugging, in other words - which Cueto still does. He's halfway to a masters in administration, listens when his girlfriend tells him he's being too tough on his players, envisions a future as high school coach and AD ("College coaching is a shaky business - it's not a stable job"), keeps looking forward.
Unless he's looking back to 1998, of course.
"I still pop in the highlight tape every now and then," he said, smiling. "I'll never forget that year. It was definitely the most incredible year of my life so far."
The operative phrase there is "so far." Kid's got a solid foundation. Kid's life is a highlight tape in progress.
