Jordan Farmar – A Rising Star

UCLA’s sophomore point guard Jordan Farmar has recently leading the Bruins to the Final Four and a lot of people start coming out of the woodwork exaggerating their ties to them.

Sharon Thomas, Taft's principal said that he finds Jordan Farmar quiet and unassuming. "When I first met him, I looked at his records and I could tell right away that he was a brilliant student."

She only found out about his basketball talents a few weeks later. Thomas even said that she goes to every game she can. Basketball, football, baseball, girls' soccer. And she's seen a lot of good athletes pass through the doors at Taft.

In the past three years, Taft has graduated two wide receivers to USC namely Steve Smith, Jamere Holland, Josh Portis a quarterback to Florida and Jordan Farmar.

"He's one of my favorite people," Thomas said. "I've always been a sports fan. I went to every single one of his games. Jordan just knows how to win."

Farmar's coach at Taft, Derrick Taylor, said that teachers and students have been coming up to him all week asking about Jordan and wanting to talk about UCLA.

"The entire school is watching him and following him," Taylor said.

It was just two years ago that Farmar was leading Taft to its first City Section title. Coming into that season, there was some debate about who the best player in the area that year was: Farmar, Cleveland High of Reseda's Nick Young of USC or Harvard-Westlake of Studio City's Bryce Taylor of Oregon. Among the three Jordan Farmar was choosen as the player of the year.

"He's just a winner," Taylor said. "Even when he plays bad, he always finds a way to win. When he came to Taft, we'd never even been to the semis and he takes us to a championship. Then he goes to UCLA, and they haven't won in a while and now they're playing for a championship.

Larry Drew Jr. chose to come to Taft because of Jordan Farmar. Before he even arrived on campus, teammates and coaches told Drew Jr. he would have to step in for Farmar.

"I'd go to their games all the time. Then that year they won City and I'm like, 'Man, I gotta fill those shoes?' " said Drew Jr.

Larry Drew Jr., is the son of former Lakers' guard Larry Drew, who is used to the spotlight and high expectations. It seems that he have adopted Farmar as a mentor in those matters.

"I'm proud of him," Drew said. "At Taft, he wasn't as athletic as some other guys, but he was smart. He knew what he was doing. He was just such a great leader."

Even some of his rivals in high school seem genuinely happy about Farmar's success.

This still holds true at UCLA. Where Jordan Farmar scored just four points in the Oakland Regional final victory over Memphis, but was an easy choice for the All-Regional team.

He also lead the team and the Pacific-10 Conference in assists of 5.2 per game and is second on the team in scoring of 13.4 points per game.