His bio in the University of Texas-El Paso media guide just about says it all:  Can hit a shot from any area on the court.  Jarvis Mullahon, a 6-4, 195 pound guard and full blooded Navajo, averaged 8.6 ppg in '98-99 and led UTEP in shooting from three-point land, where he launched over half his shots.  "My shooting skills just came naturally," reckons Mullahon, who started 13 of the team's 28 games, averaging 28 mpg.  "It wasn't until the end of high school that I really started practicing my shooting."

And while Mullahon insists it's nothing major, he admits that being one of the few Native Americans--ever--to play D1 ball is a li'l different.  "There's a lot of pressure, because what you do really reflects on all Native Americans," explains Mullahon, who play JuCo ball at College of Southern Idaho before taking a whack at the WAC.  "So I just try to do the best I can and be a positive role model."--JEFF CRUZ

This story & photo are from the October '99 issue of SLAM magazine. (page 24)

JARVIS MULLAHON  ... Played in all 28 games, making 13 starts...averaged 28.7 minutes per game, the fourth-highest figure on the squad...averaged 8.5 points and 2.1 rebounds...notched 22 steals...shot 38 percent from three-point distance and 76 percent from the charity stripe...blocked seven shots, the fourth-best total on the team...double figure scorer in 10 games, including career-high 21 at New Mexico State, when he was seven of 10 from the floor and seven of nine from three-point distance...18 points apiece against TCU, Washington State and SMU...finished the season on a high note against the Mustangs in the WAC Tournament, hitting six of his nine three-point shots...that snapped a string of eight straight games he hadn't scored in double digits...had career-best four rebounds in five contests...three assists against San Diego State...two steals in four outings.

I found this story through Navajos.com and it's on finalfour.net.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- When he was growing up on a Navajo Indian reservation, Jarvis Mullahon wanted nothing more than to play Division I basketball.

By age 16, it became an obsession. That's when his older brother was killed by a drunken driver.

At Navajo Pine High School in New Mexico, Mullahon did all he could to get the attention of college recruiters. He averaged 33 points a game and led his 240-student school to the state championship.

Now, after a junior college detour, he's made it. The gangly, 6-foot-4 player from tiny Crystal, N.M., is a guard for Texas-El Paso, one of the few Navajo to play Division I basketball.

Before Mullahon, there was Cliff Johns, who played for Arizona in the early '90s, and Lawrence Yazzie, a guard for Air Force who is half Navajo, half Comanche. Tribal spokeswoman Tina James is unaware of any Navajo ever playing in the NBA.

Mullahon knows the dangers facing promising athletes from the reservation -- homesickness and alcohol abuse among them.

"I stayed away from that and stayed focused," the 22-year-old junior says. "My freshman year, I did get kind of homesick. But after a while I got used to it. I don't want to be one of the few that people said, `Oh, he had all the talent and he just went back home because he got homesick."'

He is driven by the memory of his brother, Shawn, who was 20 when he died. Mullahon took a marker and scribbled his brother's initials on his gym shoes, a reminder for the rest of high school.

"That's when I really wanted to work harder and achieve what I always dreamed of -- playing at the Division I level," he says.

Albert Jim coached Mullahon in high school. He understands the importance of Mullahon's accomplishment.

"Being Navajo myself, he is by far the best basketball player off the Navajo reservation," Jim says. "That says quite a lot. It just speaks volumes of one, his talent, and two, the potential of the young people here.

"It's very rare," Jim adds, "that a Navajo child leaves the reservation and does the things that he's doing."

Mullahon is a celebrity on the reservation, where autograph-seeking children swarm him whenever he's there.

"He's a role model for these young kids," says his mother, Lucille Mullahon.

He is missed by his friends and relatives and neighbors. And they all want to know when he's coming home to Crystal, about 135 miles northwest of Albuquerque.

"He's about as close to a Michael Jordan figure as there is on the reservation," says Jim Thrash, Mullahon's coach at the College of Southern Idaho and a former New Mexico resident.

Mullahon spent two years at the junior college in Twin Falls, Idaho. A 6-foot-4 guard with a strong 3-point shot, Mullahon worked on his defense and expanded his game.

"He went from being basically a one-dimensional player -- a scorer and a shooter -- to being a more complete player and to being able to fit into a team concept," says Thrash, now an assistant coach at Purdue.

Mullahon was approached by Wichita State, Colorado State and Alaska. He picked UTEP because he wanted to be closer to home and play in the Western Athletic Conference.

UTEP coach Don Haskins chose Mullahon for one reason.

"We needed people who could shoot, especially the 3-pointer," Haskins says.

He's also gotten a player with a solid work ethic.

"He plays both ends of the court," Haskins says. "He guards you, works very hard."

Mullahon starts most games, even though his scoring average has slipped to 8.7 points a game.

He's studying business management, and dreams of playing in the NBA or the CBA. That may be out of reach, but to those back home it does not matter.

"Recently, I had a chance to see him play on TV through the Albuquerque channels," says Jim, the high school coach, "and I watched it with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes. It was tremendous."