Eric Atkins: Raised On Columbia Courts, This Fighting Irish Freshman Now Ready For March Madness Basketball

Eric Atkins spent his seventh- and eighth-grade years studying via a home-school program that was monitored by his family at their house in the Columbia neighborhood of Hickory Ridge.

The minutes that would've otherwise been spent traveling back and forth to a traditional school each day instead went toward having more time with his father, William, a former college basketball player.

And the two spent countless hours on the court in their backyard.

His father knew the janitor at Wilde Lake High, and on many evenings they would head to the school and play basketball there, too.

"A lot of the older guys would come in and play in the evenings," Eric Atkins said.

"But I spent more time on schoolwork than people think," he said with a laugh.

That time spent together with his father has manifested itself in positive ways in Atkins' life over the past five years, both on a personal level and with basketball. 

That time took on more meaning when William Atkins passed away at the age of 45 in 2007, while Eric was at the end of his freshman year at Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore.

And the lessons he learned on the court from his father paid off for the younger Atkins, who became a varsity standout at Mount St. Joe's. Now he is a key freshman point guard for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, a team that will be playing this week in its Big East conference tournament and then aiming afterward for an NCAA championship.

Atkins had a team-high 12 points in a win against Wisconsin in November and had a team-high 15 points in a loss to Marquette in January. He played in the first 30 games, starting six times, and has averaged 25.9 minutes, 6 points and 3.4 assists per contest.

The Fighting Irish are ranked second in the Big East and have a 25-5 record on the year. They are slated to play March 10 at 7 p.m. in the Big East tourney at Madison Square Garden in New York, and they will find out March 13 who their first-round opponent will be in the NCAA field – they are all but assured of a spot in March Madness, even if they do not win the Big East tournament.

"I am very excited to think about it. That is every kid's dream growing up," he said.

Atkins said he remembers watching a tournament game when he was younger, a game in which Duke University missed a free throw late in the game and lost. "I cried after that," said Atkins.

That is when he connected to the lure of the NCAA tourney.

So was he a Duke fan in Terrapin territory? "I was more of a rebel. If everyone around me liked one team, I would like the other," Atkins said. He never really considered playing at the University of Maryland.

The Big East tournament will take on added significance for Atkins, since his mother, Dominique Atkins, is from Queens and has relatives in the New York area.  

"He grew up being a fan of UConn," said Dominique, referring to another Big East team, the University of Connecticut. Her family moved to Columbia from Connecticut in 2000.

She has attended several of her son's games this year, both at home games in South Bend, Ind., and elsewhere when Notre Dame has gone on the road.

"It has been what I expected, and a little bit more," Eric Atkins said, referring to college hoops. "No one knew we were going to be this good – other than our team. To surprise everyone is a good feeling.

"I just want to keep building on what I have done. I had the possibility of starting, and I did start a few games. That was a great feeling. Just coming in and playing right away is great."

Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey, who coached at DeMatha Catholic High in Hyattsville, began recruiting him when he was in high school, Atkins said.

"The first time they saw me was my junior year. They began coming to my games," Atkins said. Brey saw Atkins have a great game for Mount St. Joe's and offered him a scholarship shortly after that.

Most blue-chip Division I recruits can make five official visits to colleges. Atkins made just one: Notre Dame.

He knew all along that he would join the Irish if the opportunity came along, mainly because his father was a big fan of Notre Dame and the movie "Rudy," a story about a walk-on football player who gets his moment in the spotlight with the team. 

"He didn't have any connections to Notre Dame," Eric Atkins said of his father, who played hoops as a small forward at American International College in Springfield, Mass. "I just knew he always watched the movie. He loved the story. He loved the tradition."

But Atkins' mother said she recently learned her late husband did indeed have a Notre Dame connection: When he was a young boy, he attended a basketball camp in Connecticut that was run by Digger Phelps, a former head coach for the Fighting Irish.

Now the 6-foot-2 Eric Atkins is part of that tradition.

Brey, the Big East coach of the year, told the Chicago Tribune last month that the only real problem he had with Atkins on the court is his body language after a rare mistake.

"But I think that's why he's good," Brey told the newspaper. "His bar is really high."

"I would say my strength on the court is getting other players better around me and finding other people for good shots," said Atkins, sounding very much like a pass-first, shoot-later point guard.

Atkins is living on campus with a non-athlete, a regular practice for freshmen with the Notre Dame basketball program. He plans to live during the next school year with teammate Jerian Grant, another freshman on the team.

Grant played at DeMatha Catholic and is the son of Harvey Grant, who played in the NBA with the Washington Bullets (now the Washington Wizards).

Atkins has not declared a major. He is taking 15 credits hours this semester, with classes in philosophy, anthropology, psychology and a jazz theory class. 

He does not have a music background. "I like jazz. I thought it would interest me," he said. 

Atkins will try to play sweet music on the basketball court as Notre Dame gears up for the two tourneys. Starting Thursday in New York he will try to hit the high notes, as the Irish hope to do a lot of dancing in March Madness.