Cavs' Nance Loves Wife, Daughter, Cars

RICHFIELD, Ohio - Imagine Larry Nance down on all fours crawling around his living room and riding royally on his back is Casey, Nance's 18-month-old daughter.

Then picture Nance planted in front of the television set, his daughter in his lap and the two of them singing along with the tunes from "Sesame Street."

Finally, envision the Cleveland Cavaliers' 6-foot-10 forward walking through a shopping mall with his daughter on his shoulders, her head feeling as if it were in the clouds.

If you want to get to the heart of Lawrence Donell Nance, don't ask him about the Cavs' 1991-92 season. Instead, talk to Nance about his daughter, his race car and his life away from the glaring lights of the Coliseum.

Listen to Nance talk about his affinity for automobiles:

"I love getting under the hood and taking the engine apart, tinkering with it until I get it to sound just right."

Or Nance on his daughter:

"When I come home, there are times when I'll wake up Casey just so I can play with her. Other times, I'll just let her sleep and I'll stand in the room and watch her, just to see if she's breathing, to think how great it is that she is mine."

And Nance is no man-child with a passing infatuation with an infant.

"When we first started dating, Larry was looking into the possibility of adopting and becoming a single father," said Jaynee Nance. "I was just the opposite. I never saw myself as a mother and a housewife. I was going to be a career woman."

Jaynee Nance was on that road when she met Nance in Phoenix.

"I was working two jobs," she said. "My own business was out of my home - I took care of indoor plants in stores and offices. I also did sales at a Tall Girls Shop in Phoenix. One day, Larry came in and wanted to buy something for his mother for her birthday."

This was in 1983 and Nance was a star with the Phoenix Suns.

"I wasn't much of a basketball fan," said Jaynee Nance, "but I had heard of Larry, and after I got to know him, I started seeing his picture on billboards and milk cartons. It was then that I realized he was a pretty good player."

In the 6-2 Jaynee, Nance seemed to have found a perfect match - at least on the height chart.

"We had some problems early, not between us but with our families," Jaynee said. "I'm white. My father is from Mississippi. Larry is black and from a very close-knit family in South Carolina. To us, race was never an issue. But both our families were taken aback a bit that we would date someone from another race. It was hard for some of our relatives to accept that, but time has taken care of it."

The critical stage of Nance's career and the relationship between Larry and Jaynee came when Phoenix traded Nance to the Cavs on Feb. 25, 1988, in the Kevin Johnson deal.

"That was when the drug scandal had hit the Suns and guys were getting traded every day," said Jaynee Nance. "One day, my mother called and wanted to know if Larry was doing drugs. Like a lot of people, she thought everyone on the team was involved, only some of the guys just hadn't been caught.

"I said, `Mom, you know Larry better than that.' She did, too. But all the publicity put a cloud over everyone on the team. Larry and Mike Sanders (also traded to the Cavs) were the two guys on the team I knew were squeaky clean, but people still whispered about them.

"That hurt Larry a lot. He never said anything, but he has always been a straight, wonderful guy. He never believes anyone would hurt anyone else or do something wrong intentionally because Larry can't imagine himself doing it."

After the trade, Jaynee faced a decision: Should she quit her interior- plant business and move to Northeast Ohio with Nance?

"I knew nothing about Cleveland, and Larry and I never thought we'd like it after living in the warm weather in Phoenix," said Jaynee Nance. "But I also knew I had to be with him, so I went.

"The worst thing was after he joined the Cavs, they started losing (10 of 12). He was convinced it was his fault, and that the other guys were blaming him. He had stomach aches and had trouble sleeping."

But the Cavs finished the 1987-88 season winning 11 of 13 to make the playoffs. The next year, the Cavs set a franchise record with 57 victories, Nance made the All-Star team and he and Jaynee were married.

"We love it here," she said. "In Phoenix, the games were social events. Here, Larry is more appreciated as a basketball player. We are so comfortable and we just settled in. Larry is talking about staying here after he retires. We are in the process of buying a place on a lake in Bath. We stay here year-around."

Nance was born in Anderson, S.C., a jump shot away from Clemson University.

His father drove trucks and buses, and he was known as the man to see when your engine was making a strange noise that stumped the boys at the corner filling station.

"My dad always worked on cars, and he'd take me out there with him," Nance said "At first, I didn't like it. I hated being under the car, but he said it would be good for me. It turned out that I was falling in love with cars, but I didn't know it."

Nance's mother was a cook, and everyone in the family was expected to work.

"My family is very tight," he said. "I have a lot of cousins and relatives in Anderson. When I played with kids, they usually were my cousins or my three brothers. We had a basketball hoop up in the yard and we mostly stayed close to the house."

Nance was not a kid who slept with his basketball. For three years, he took piano lessons.

"I never should have quit my lessons," he said. "I played for the church choir. I really enjoy it. But kids would get on me about being a sissy because of the piano and I let them talk me out of it. That was dumb."

By the time he was a senior at McDuffie High in Anderson, Nance was 6-5 and not high on anyone's recruiting list.

"A few small schools had an interest, but I was set to go to Anderson Junior College because it was close to home," Nance said. "During the summer, Clemson came to me. They had an extra scholarship and they decided to give it to a local kid."

This goodwill gesture turned out to be a stroke of genius as Nance sprouted 4 inches during his freshman year.

"I was growing so fast that I had back problems and there were times when I couldn't play."

But as a sophomore, the 6-9 Nance matured into a solid Atlantic Coast Conference player. Rather than a highly skilled offensive player, Nance was known for his rebounding, his defense and his dunks.

Phoenix used the No. 20 pick in 1981 on Nance, projecting him as a useful role player. He was just that as a rookie, averaging 6.6 points. By his second season, Nance was a 17-point scorer and led the Suns in blocked shots. In 1984, he was the NBA's first Slam Dunk champion, beating Julius Erving.

When he was traded to the Cavaliers, Nance was averaging 21 points and 10 rebounds.

"I thought I'd spend the rest of my career with the Suns," said Nance. "After six years, I never expected to be traded, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."

At 32, Nance's hair is thinning but his game is expanding.

"Coach Lenny (Wilkens) is the first coach I ever had who encouraged me to shoot outside," said Nance. "I worked a lot with Coach (Dick) Helm. The thing is that they gave me confidence in my jump shot. They yelled at me for not shooting."

The result is that Nance no longer is a player who lives solely by his legs and raw athletic ability. Now, he brings the total package on to the court: passing, outside shooting and savvy team defense.

He also is stronger than ever.

When he joined the Cavaliers, Nance weighed 218, making him seem nearly as thin as a railroad spike.

"I admit I didn't like to lift weights, but I got interested in it here," said Nance. "I'm up to 235. I'm a lot stronger. Now, if I don't lift for a few days, it bothers me. I miss it."

On the court, Nance never alibis for a poor performance, even at the end of the 1988-89 season when he was playing with an Achilles' tendon that was so frayed it was like a rope about to break, hanging by its last thread.

Surgery in the summer of 1989 corrected the problem and caused him to miss 17 games. But there were questions about Nance - would he be able to jump as high, block as many shots, resume a career as the All-Star he was before the operation?

"I knew Larry's foot was bothering him because he'd come home and we had to ice it by the hour," said Jaynee Nance. "But he never doubted himself about coming back after the operation. The only thing that worried him was the doctor's needle. He's terrified of needles."

Nance quietly made a statement about himself and his basketball future last season, averaging 19.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and leading all NBA forwards in blocked shots. He also played more minutes than ever before.

"Other than Karl Malone, Larry Nance had the best year of any power forward," Rick Barry wrote in his NBA Scouting Report. An NBA statistical service known as the Tendex System seconded Barry's opinion.

In the summer, the Cavs rewarded Nance with a contract extension; he's signed for three more years.

"I love playing basketball now more than ever before," Nance said. "I treasure my relationship with Coach Lenny and the players. Each day is precious to me. I guess now that I've played 10 years, I find I want to play as long as I can."

Nance spends his summers working on a Camaro that he enters at Norwalk Raceway and other tracks.

"My contract doesn't allow me to drive it," Nance said. "But I work on the car all the time. When I retire, I plan to go into racing full time and maybe own an auto parts store. I know I'll do something with cars."

Jaynee Nance said, "Larry likes hanging around the track, talking to the guys working on cars. He says they're the greatest people in the world.

"By nature, Larry is very social and he's happy in that environment. He likes getting dirty and tearing down engines."

A guy who loves children as much as Nance invariably likes dogs. He has a Yorkshire terrier and a basset hound. The family also has 125-gallon and a 50-gallon tanks for freshwater fish and what sounds like a blissful home life.

"I have the best wife and best daughter in the world," Nance said. "Now, I just have to talk Jaynee into having another baby."

That probably won't be hard.

"What you see with Larry is what you get," said Jaynee Nance. "He's never in a bad mood. He is totally positive and has an honest heart. A lot of people talk about having kids, but they don't want to be parents. They like the idea, but Larry loves being a father.

"I've known Larry for eight years and I'm not embarrassed to admit that he's my hero. I'm very content being his wife and a mother. A few years ago, I never thought I'd say that, but now I couldn't imagine being anything else."