THE EVERYMAN

On a cool February afternoon, Dave Neal parked his silver Chrysler behind Comcast Center and walked into the arena with two teammates. Not yet dressed for practice, Neal was wearing a long black warm-up jacket, zipped low enough to reveal his undergarment - a blue T-shirt with the Superman emblem in the center.

The shirt was an ironic presentation in a way, given that Neal is no Superman. He's the Everyman, one who just so happens to be living out a childhood dream by playing Division I basketball.

In fact, Neal has had to make do without the same super-powers that his opponents possess. He must defend the hoop from rival forces that range from super-stretchy 7-footers to athletic freaks that can leap to the basket in a single bound.

Yet Neal, a stocky and admittedly unathletic forward who calls himself "6-[foot]-7 on a good day," has served the Terps quite well as the men's basketball team's center and lone senior.

"I would love to have athleticism - just a tiny bit. And if I did, I think it would make me a whole different player," he said. "But God didn't bless me with athleticism; he blessed me with the intelligence and the fundamentals of the game."

Following a disappointing start to his college career, Neal has found ways to circumvent his shortcomings. As a senior, he is a vital element and an embodiment of an underdog Terp team doggedly fighting for a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

n GROWTH OF A JOCK

Referring to Neal as "undersized" and "unathletic" is certainly done with a great deal of relativity. Talent aside, there are few students on the campus who are conditioned enough to run up and down the court for 23 minutes per game at the Division I level like Neal does. There are even fewer students who don't have to tilt their head back and glance upward to make eye contact with the big man.

So when Neal's peers were these underlings rather than ACC centers, he was the prototypical jock.

As a youth, he used his giant hands to become a brick wall of a goalkeeper in soccer. He capitalized on his strong build by winning medals in swimming, the butterfly being his strongest stroke.

And when he was about 12 years old, Neal grew a half foot in one year to make him a towering 6-foot-3 pre-teen. He signed up for baseball, and in his first season on the diamond, he broke McLean (Va.) Little League's home run record with 17 dingers.

"He was so big that if he just made contact he would hit home runs," his mother, Kathy Neal, said.

Neal's father, a mortgage banker who is also named Dave Neal, played Division II basketball at Kentucky Wesleyan, where he faced the likes of NBA legends Walt Frazier at Southern Illinois and Earl Monroe at Winston Salem State. The elder Neal taught his son about shooting hoops as early as kindergarten, and when it was time to focus on one sport in high school, the younger Neal chose basketball.

"All of my friends all said, 'Why are you wasting your time? Get him into football. The kid can never make it [in basketball]. He doesn't jump very high,'" the elder Dave Neal said. "I said, 'I think it could work.'"

After a modest junior season at Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, Va., the younger Neal received offers from Loyola (Md.), Holy Cross and Manhattan. But those weren't good enough. Neal wanted to wait until his senior season and prove to the more prestigious schools that he could play.

As a senior, he averaged 20.2 points and 13.3 rebounds per game and was the MVP of the Virginia state tournament. With current North Carolina forward Marcus Ginyard, Neal led Bishop O'Connell to a 31-3 record.

With estranged guard John Gilchrist leaving the Terps early to enter the NBA Draft, coach Gary Williams had an extra scholarship to assign.

After school one day, while Neal was getting into his car to head home, he received a call from a phone number he was unfamiliar with. It was Williams, offering that scholarship.

Neal accepted, hung up the phone, screamed and ran around the parking lot like a madman. Think of that celebration after his 3-pointer against N.C. State Sunday - but on steroids.

It was a "dream moment," said Neal, who claimed to have wanted to attend this university since he was a child.

"It was kind of a tear-jerking experience," his father said. "Dave has internal expectations, but he probably doesn't share them because sometimes they're a little high-standard."

This expectation was right on the mark.

n KRYPTONITE SHOULDER

There was at least one sport that Neal was no good at.

He always wanted to play football as a kid, but his mother wouldn't allow it. Because of his size, Neal would have to play against much older kids.

As a freshman in high school, Neal finally put on the pads, and immediately joined the varsity football squad.

"That might not have been [the] smartest decision," Neal said. "I didn't know the game well."

And while trying to make a one-armed tackle, his left shoulder popped out of its socket. Later that year, while playing basketball, he swiped at a ball and it dislocated the same shoulder. Neal had two surgeries, but the problems still persisted. With the chronic shoulder problems, Neal worked out less and swelled to more than 270 pounds.

"When I'm not doing anything, I tend to put on weight pretty easily," he said. "That's not good for me because it makes me even slower than I am now."

At the end of his sophomore year in college, while playing a pick-up basketball game against some buddies from George Mason, Neal dove on the floor for a loose ball - and his shoulder popped out again.

Throughout his first three years with the Terps, Neal was relatively ineffective, averaging 1.6 points in 62 games. When he entered the game, he was often greeted by the fans to mock cheers. He was the slow and heavy white guy whom people poked fun at. Yet he was the Terps' lone player in his class.

"He's the type of player who could have really used playing on a consistent basis and lifting weights all the time, which he couldn't do because of his shoulder," Williams said.

n SENIOR EMERGENCE

With starting forwards James Gist and Bambale Osby both graduating and no newcomers to fill their void in the frontcourt, Neal knew it was time to step up as a senior. Finally healthy, he got into better shape, dropping to about 250 pounds, which he calls "the perfect weight for me."

Neal took over as a starter in the seventh game of the season and hasn't done anything to relinquish that role. Through 28 games, he's averaging 7.6 points and serving as a senior leader on a young Terps team. Neal isn't a bruiser inside, but he has a soft shooting stroke and the range to pull bigger defenders out of their comfort zones.

Without the size or leaping ability to collect droves of boards, Neal focuses on boxing out his assignment and lets his teammates control most rebounds.

For his work, he no longer receives mock cheers - they're all genuine now. Last week, Neal blindsided Duke guard Nolan Smith with a picture-perfect pick that knocked Smith to a daze on the floor. With an ensuing 5-on-4 man advantage, Neal stood open at the top of the 3-point circle and drilled a long-ball to tie the game.

As play stopped with Smith squirming on the ground in pain, the fans at Comcast Center began yelling "Dave Neal! Dave Neal! Dave Neal!" in synchrony.

"He's a great leader, he's a great person and he has done a lot for us," junior Greivis Vasquez said. "It's unbelievable - I came here [his sophomore year], he didn't play at all. [Last year] he played a little bit. Now he's just our center. It's funny, but he works hard. A lot of people don't give him credit, but he's a smart player."

He's had to be smart, given his physical limitations. And Neal, for the most part, has held his own against some of the nation's best post players.

Before the Terps played North Carolina for a second time, Neal said he'd use his intelligence and positioning to stop leading scorer Tyler Hansbrough. He did just that, limiting Hansbrough to 11 points and drawing a key charge from the reigning player of the year in the second half.

Neal's maturation on the court has run parallel to his maturation as a person.

"When he came here, he was like a kid," Neal's mother said. "He said stupid things and he acted like a freshman."

In his first year on the campus, he got in trouble for an undisclosed incident. As punishment, Neal had to work at The Diner on North Campus for nearly a week, doing dishes and serving pizza to his fellow students.

"It was a little embarrassing - I'm not gonna lie," Neal said. "But it was definitely something that I learned from, definitely something I didn't want to do again. It was a sight to see. Kids laughed at me. My friends would come over and make fun of me."

Three years later, Neal has grown out of worrying about embarrassment. He has his mother come to his house on Harvard Road each Wednesday to share dinner with the roommates. If he's lucky, his mother might even make his favorite dish: tuna noodle casserole.

In January, a Virginia player's elbow connected with Neal's face, creating a giant gash above his left eye. While Neal was in the locker room receiving stitches, his mother - more nervous than him - held her son's hand.

"I'm probably a totally different person now than what I was freshman year," Neal said.

"That's the way it's supposed to work," Williams added. "Everyone in college - you're supposed to go to school at 18 and be a different person when you're 22. Dave's done a great job at that."

Neal does still have a bit of kid in him. At home, he lurks around, stalking his prey, and when his roommates least expect it, he strikes with a wet willie. Kyle Sappington and Danny Edwards, two offensive linemen on the football team who live with Neal, call their roommate "The Wet Bandit."

"Dave is a funny guy," Terps forward Dino Gregory said. "Dave is Dave."

When asked to name some of the amusing jokes Dave provides, Gregory responded, "I can't tell you, [or else] you might have a different opinion about Dave. But he does some funny stuff."

n THE END IS NEAR

In May, Neal will graduate and seek opportunities to play professionally in Europe. So far he's only received interest from a team in Lebanon.

If that doesn't work out, he'll use his degree in criminology and criminal justice to find work.

"Now that I actually have to think about the real world, it's begun to kick in how far I've come along," Neal said. "In high school I thought, 'I don't ever have to get a job; I'm never gonna work.' It seemed so far away. Now I have to sit down, look in the mirror and realistically say, in a couple months, I may be off to work."

But those thoughts are on the back burner for now, as Neal has an NCAA Tournament to help the Terps reach. They have two regular season games remaining, and only one at home.

Which brings us to tonight: Neal's senior night. His friends will be in the stands with custom-made "Wet Bandit" shirts. His parents will be a few rows behind the Terps bench, like they always are. And the Dave Neal era at Comcast Center will come to a close.

A decade from now, the 2008-09 Terps class may be widely forgotten by Terps fans. Because its only member, Neal, is no Superman - he's the Everyman - what he's accomplished in a Terp uniform is all the more impressive.

"It's kind of crazy that my career is winding down here as a Maryland Terrapin," Neal said. "It's gone by extremely fast. When people say time flies when you're having fun, it's extremely true, because I've had a great time here. This will always be remembered as an awesome time for me. I'll be talking about this for the rest of my life."

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