OLLIE BOUNCES THROUGH PAIN\Basketball star overcomes deaths in family, team.

Byline: Gary Washburn Daily News Staff Writer

"Damon, what would mom want you to do?"

It's a question Damon Ollie asks himself all the time.

The 6-foot-6 swingman at Santa Monica City College is one of the area's best junior college basketball players. The former North Hollywood High School star should be looking forward to the recruiting process for Division I schools.

Instead, he deals with that haunting question after the most turbulent year in his life.

Last March, Ollie's friend and teammate at Santa Monica, Davy Fortson, was shot to death after an altercation with an alleged gang member. Then last month, Ollie's mother, Gail Ancar, died from kidney failure at the age of 43.

Never before had the mild-mannered Ollie experienced a death of a loved one, let alone two in one year. Despite the pain, he's having a MVP year with the Corsairs.

The motivation comes from something else he knows his mother would have said: "Don't cry. Don't show too much emotion. Don't mourn too much and for God sake, don't stop what you're doing now."

"I just haven't stopped," Ollie said. "I've kept playing basketball to keep my mind off things. I try not to be by myself or let myself think about things too much."

The circumstances couldn't have been more painful. Fortson, heavily recruited by Division I schools, was shot in the chest at a Santa Monica hamburger stand after an argument with a man who police say was a gang member.

It was the night of the last regular-season game. A few days later, the team lost in the first round of the Southern California regionals.

"I didn't believe Davy was dead until the funeral, then it hit me," Ollie said. "That first game after he died, his family was there, so I couldn't help but play my best. It was hard."

But he survived. Never one to show emotion, Ollie held everything inside, appearing like the Rock of Gibraltar. He didn't break down, he didn't cry. He kept playing basketball, preparing for his sophomore season.

But his mother was getting increasingly ill. She was a single parent who reared both he and his stepbrother, Dana Jones, who played at North Hollywood and Pepperdine. But a kidney condition was worsening. Every time Ollie came home from school to visit, she was either crying or sleeping. He didn't visit her as much as he had before because the sight was too sad.

But in August, as Ollie prepared for school and Dana prepared for his first season of professional basketball in Japan, Ancar made a life declaration.

"She said, 'I'm tired of being sick,' " Ollie said. "She told us she was going to stop."

Ancar told her two sons she was going to end her three-days-per-week dialysis treatment, avoiding the pain but encouraging the disease. Dana objected, Damon remained quiet.

"I was really against it," Jones said from his apartment in Chiba, Japan. "I could tell she was in pain. I'm glad she was able to make a decision like that than someone else."

Damon kept playing. He was the MVP of the Santa Monica tournament. The Corsairs were off to their best start in years.

Damon paid a visit to his mother on Dec. 14. They talked awhile, she fell asleep, he watched television, then watched her rest.

She died on Dec. 15.

"I knew something was wrong," Ollie said. "On that last visit, she kept crying. My uncle and I told her not to cry so much, but she kept crying."

Coach John McMullen suggested Damon take a few days off. He declined - the championship game of the Cypress tournament was the same week.

On every free throw, at every timeout, at halftime, even during the celebration at the end of their victory, Damon thought about his mother. He was named tournament MVP.

"I didn't listen to anyone," Ollie said. "I was just in a daze. I played my best but the game wasn't important. I just kept thinking of her laying there."

He didn't cry, at least not in front of his friends.

"I grew up with Damon and he's pretty mature for a 20-year-old," Jones said. "When I came back for the funeral, we really didn't talk about things much. He was just quiet like he always is."

That type of bravery was expected from this well-built young man. But he can't hold it in all the time.

"Not a day goes by I don't think about mom and Davy," Ollie said, wiping away tears. "My mom meant so much to me. Sometimes I can't believe that she's gone. If I could take the place of either of them, I would."

Anyone can understand Ollie's pain, but it's even more intensified when you realize that his mom raised her boys alone and kept them out of trouble in a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. (Damon does not have contact with his father.)

"She instilled in us we could do anything we wanted to do," Jones said. "There's a point where you could be difficult as a kid would be, and she kept me in line. And at the age where he could get in trouble, I helped her keep Damon in line."

Ollie, who turned 20 last week, still keeps in contact with his high school coach, Steve Miller, who is amazed by Ollie's strength.

"There's not too many parents who are lucky enough to have Damon and Dana," Miller said. "She kept those boys in line with hard work. Damon just keeps going. He has a special kind of determination."

With his outstanding season to date, Division I offers and calls are pouring in. Montana State leaves a message with his coach, a Hawaii assistant coach stops by to see Ollie practice. As bleak as his recent past has been, the future is gleaming even brighter.

But Ollie doesn't see it that way.

"I've learned to live for now," Ollie said. "I'm excited about going to college, but I've got to make sure I live for today. Nothing is guaranteed."

He doesn't miss practice. He goes to all of his classes. He tries not to spend too much time alone because he'll think of what has happened.

But it seems that someone is telling him to keep going. He looks at an old photo of his mother with Dana, his two most beloved people. He thinks about Dana, Dana thinks about his little brother.

"I wish I could be home because I would probably spend every day with him," said Jones, who has two more months left in his season. "I admire him. Sometimes, it's hard to tell which one of us is the younger one. I know Damon feels like he's all alone. I wish he didn't."

Santa Monica is 20-3 and is one of the favorites to win the Western State Conference Southern Division.

Ollie poured in 28 points last Saturday in a loss at Bakersfield College. He cares. He plays. He recovers.

His perseverance goes back to the days after Davy's death, when Santa Monica assistant coach Marvin Menzies added a rule to the team bylaws titled, "What would Davy want you to do?"

The same revelation pierced Ollie's train of thought after his mother's death.

"She did everything for us, she lived and died for us to be in this position," Ollie said. "She wouldn't want me to drop out of school and just sit there. I can't stop going. She would want me to keep going. Every time I think what she would want me to do, and I always come up with the right thing."

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(color) Damon Ollie has thrived in basketball despite the deaths of his mother and a teammate. Terri Thuente / Daily News