THE GENERAL

At a McDonald's along Rockville Pike, not far from Montrose Christian School, David Adkins quickly decided he was going to like working with Greivis Vasquez.

After picking up Vasquez at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on a late summer afternoon in 2004, Adkins, then a Mustang basketball assistant, and his newest player made a fast-food stop.

Within minutes, Vasquez, who at the time had a limited command of English, formulated a question that has defined his American experience. The skinny guard, fresh off a plane from Venezuela, about to embark on his high school basketball career in a new country, asked: "When do we train?"

Looking back, the scene seems ripped from the beginning of a feel-good Hollywood movie. But nearly six years later, it's clear that work ethic has guided Vasquez, now a 6-foot-6-inch 23-year-old Terrapin men's basketball senior. Through a sometimes tumultuous American education — on and off the court — the star has persevered toward his goal of an NBA career.

Tonight, Vasquez takes to the Comcast Center court for the final time as a Terp against No. 4 Duke, giving fans a final closeup at the first ACC player to amass more than 2,000 points, 700 assists and 600 rebounds in his career. 

From brash youngster to confident leader, Vasquez has left a mark on the national basketball scene like no Terp since the team captured the 2002 National Championship.

"I've made a lot of mistakes, no questions," Vasquez said recently, while sitting on a red couch in Comcast Center's players' lounge. "Those mistakes got me to where I'm at right now. They built character on myself."

After flirting with the idea of leaving school early last spring, Vasquez has put himself into position to be selected by an NBA squad in the June draft with an ACC Player of the Year-caliber senior season. The player who grew up in the Caracas barrios will graduate in May with an American studies degree with a focus on media. He hopes to one day parlay that into a career working for ESPN Deportes.

But when Vasquez arrived at the university in 2006, those goals seemed far off. With the help of what Vasquez called his "inner circle," which includes Adkins, Terp coach Gary Williams, Montrose coach Stu Vetter and Terp assistant Rob Ehsan, he's grown into the role of college basketball star.

Last week, surrounded in the players' lounge by scenes from the Terps' only national championship, Vasquez provided a personal glimpse at the young man those coaches have crafted. 

It was far different than the player whose bold statements have sometimes overshadowed his on-court play. In the past, he's drawn negative attention with his trash talk, such as his claim last March that Conference USA juggernaut Memphis would finish with a losing record against ACC competition. The Terps' season ended with a 19-point loss to the Tigers in the next day's NCAA second-round game.

On this day, the player who once called Duke's famed Cameron Indoor Stadium "my house" talked about his career in calm, measured responses. In one moment, Vasquez shuffled through printed PowerPoint slides from a biology class. In the next, he took off his sweat-stained practice jersey and finished an interview bare-chested. He readily shifted into the role of amateur psychologist when discussing his reputation around the ACC.

"If you do that in Venezuela, if you do that anywhere in South America, that might be fine," Vasquez said of his boisterous personality. "But here, it's different. People question that. People judge you."

Even those close to Vasquez needed time to understand him. Early in Vasquez's Montrose career, Vetter tried to curb what he calls "outward flamboyance." Eventually, the coach who consistently grooms nationally ranked prospects realized Vasquez's  passion fuels his success.

After four years, the Terp faithful — the same fans he famously cursed at during a January 2009 game — have come to appreciate Vasquez's style, both in his play and in his constantly changing hairstyles and quirky behavior.

But in conference road venues, he's met with boos when he touches the ball and during pregame introductions. Then, there are the chants about his appearance and nationality. At Florida State's Donald L. Tucker Center earlier this season, television cameras caught a sign calling for his deportation.

Vasquez occasionally eggs opposing fans on with his trademark shimmy, dubbed by Adkins as "the Caracas shuffle," or another display of what the senior sees as his raw passion for the game.

"He's gotten a lot of attention, and he's handled it pretty well," Williams said. "It's not easy, and he's done a great job of that."

That understanding of his place in the tough ACC landscape represents quite a transformation for a player who Adkins, now a Terp women's basketball assistant, said knew "about six words" of English when he met him in person for the first time at the airport.

Even after taking English as a Second Language classes at Montrose, Vasquez tested into the intensive program of the Maryland English Institute when he arrived at this university.

While other freshmen, including then-roommates Eric Hayes and Landon Milbourne, took first-year classes in huge lecture halls, Vasquez spent 25 hours per week with about 15 international students at the English Institute. Vasquez called his early struggle to get acclimated "the worst feeling ever."

"When students find out they have to take some time to learn English, it can really be a jolt, especially for somebody as focused and goal-oriented as Greivis," said former Maryland English Institute Associate Director Linda Sahin, who Vasquez still refers to as "Mrs. Linda."

"At the very beginning, he wasn't too happy about it," Sahin said. "But I have to say he was absolutely amazing once he grasped how important this was."