Ballard Goes `Hollywood' -- Beavers' Zardis Takes Star Turn In Basketball

His teammates may have gotten it right when they coined the nickname "Hollywood" that has since stuck with the skinny kid who refused to get wet and dirty like everyone else.

Even then, during a rainy football practice two years ago, Alex Zardis stood apart from the rest. He didn't want to soil his pretty white pants, which resulted in some good-hearted ribbing from friends.

"Look at Zardis," they said. "He's acting like he's Hollywood."

Ever since, Zardis has been living as if in Tinseltown. Whether it's playing the part of a leading man, supporting character or extra, he comes across as cool as Chili Palmer in "Get Shorty."

His latest role is that of an understudy turned major star.

As a guard for the Ballard High School boys basketball team, Zardis was thrust into the starring role when team leader Michael Johnson sprained an ankle Dec. 27.

Without Johnson's 30-point per game average, Ballard relied on Zardis, who delivered an Oscar-winning performance, averaging 26.5 points as the Beavers won five of six games, including the Bellevue Holiday Tournament championship.

The Ballard student section at Bellevue Community College chanted "Go Hollywood" as Zardis accepted the tournament's Most Valuable Player award. He scored a season-high 32 points in the title game victory, 74-68, over Metro rival Nathan Hale.

"He has filled a void for us," Beaver Coach Al Harada said at the title game. "I always knew he could do it. He showed so much potential. . . . He's responded well, like he's been ready for it."

As if he was made for Hollywood?

"It's just a name," Zardis insisted. "Some of the kids started calling me that when I was a sophomore and it just stuck. It's not like I act like that or anything."

No, he does not drive a pink Cadillac up and down Northwest 65th Street in Ballard, but some attributes justify his moniker.

He is something of a throwback to the black-and-white days of the 1940s, Hollywood's boom era.

Zardis is a three-sport athlete, which is rare among today's prep athletes who often specialize in a single sport.

The 17-year-old senior was a two-year starter at quarterback on a Ballard football team that lacked a quality supporting cast and suffered back-to-back disappointing seasons.

He was one of several players who helped the Beaver baseball team contend for the Metro League title the past two years.

And he is just beginning to define his role in basketball.

"I think I'm one of a lot of guys who do it," Zardis said of his three-sport versatility. "We had Alan Patrick a few years ago and Jon Minter at Blanchet does it. Some people might say it's bad, because you're shortchanging yourself, but I think if you can do it, do it."

He admits that of the three sports, he is most likely to play baseball in college.

Football hasn't been very kind to the 6-foot-3, 180-pound senior. He tore ligaments in his shoulder his junior season and was knocked out of a game this past season with a concussion.

"Sometimes my dad and I get in arguments. He wants me to choose baseball, but it's pretty much between basketball and baseball," he said. "Right now, it looks like baseball, but who knows what could happen in basketball."

Zardis is averaging 25.3 points through 11 games, an increase of nearly 15 points as a junior.

Like many who venture to Hollywood, Zardis is a dreamer whose has suffered disappointment.

Last summer, he was cut by an all-star basketball team. While many of his friends that made the squad traveled to Las Vegas, he went back to a Ballard gymnasium.

"It's kind of funny. I tried out and I never got called back," he said. "It made me work that much harder. I knew I could play with everyone on the floor, I just needed to get better."

Zardis attributes much of progress to early Sunday-morning workouts with Johnson and his father, Mike Johnson Sr.

They meet at the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club at 6:30 a.m.

In these sessions, there are no cameras to take his picture and no audience to scream his name.

"I kind of like it that way. It's just the three of us and Mike's dad pushes us real hard," Zardis said. "When he first said 6:30 in the morning, I thought `Man, that's early,' but it's really not that early if you want to get better . . . and I wanted to get better."