College Career
Eaton was born in Westminster, California and grew up in Southern California. Despite his height, as a youth he was more interested in playing water polo than basketball. After graduating from Westminster High School, Eaton attended the Arizona Automotive Institute in Phoenix and graduated as a service technician. He worked as an auto mechanic for about three years, and was eventually discovered by Tom Lubin while repairing cars in Anaheim in April 1977. Lubin, a chemistry professor, was an assistant basketball coach at Cypress Junior College, and his encouragement led Eaton to enroll at Cypress and try out for the basketball team. Eaton developed into a solid junior college player. He averaged 14.3 points per game in two seasons at Cypress, and led the school to the California State Title as a sophomore.
After his freshman year at Cypress, he was drafted by the Phoenix Suns in the 1979 NBA Draft with the 107th pick in the 5th round. He was eligible to be drafted because he was already four years out of high school in 1979. However, he opted to return to college basketball.
Eaton transferred to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1980, but did not see much action in his two seasons with the Bruins. In his senior season, he played just 42 total minutes, averaging 1.3 points and 2.0 rebounds in 11 games. Eaton was initially disappointed with his inability to play effectively as a Division 1 collegiate player. Wilt Chamberlain, who frequently attended UCLA practices after his retirement from the NBA, saw Eaton's frustration and, on one occasion, personally took him under a basket to explain that Eaton needed to focus on protecting the basket, getting rebounds, and passing the ball to quicker guards, rather than trying to compete with smaller, quicker players in scoring. Eaton has cited Chamberlain's advice as the turning point in his basketball career.
Read more about this topic: Mark Eaton (basketball)
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