The following article ran in the 2017 Winter Edition of Bruin Blue Magazine.
By Chris Foster
It is easy to be lured in by UCLA center Thomas Welsh's personality.
There are those mild-manner ways.
"I think he's had in the neighborhood of 400 practices since he came here and not once has he failed to shake my hand and say 'thank you' afterward," Bruins coach Steve Alford said.
There's his nose-to-grind stone work ethic combined with a just-happy-to-be-here nature — wherever "here" happens to be at the moment.
"I don't know if I've ever been around a nicer kid who works really, really hard," said Arizona coach Sean Miller, who coached Welsh with the USA Under-19 team in 2015.
There is that awe-shucks self-awareness.
"When they play the national anthem at Pauley Pavilion, I'll look up at the flag and to the right are the retired numbers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton," Welsh said. "It's humbling to wear the same jersey."
An accurate portrait of a quality young man. What is dangerous, if you're playing against Welsh, is taking it as a sign that Welsh is soft. He may look like a 7-foot Huck Finn, but inside lurks a Tom Sawyer personality that'll have you white-washing fences.
"He has this competitive nature," said Kathy Welsh, his mother. "If he was playing a board game with his brothers, whether it was Candy Land or Monopoly, and he wasn't winning, he'd turn the board over."
All of those qualities — from those congenial ways to that inner drive — have taken Welsh from work-in-progress high school freshman, trying to deal with a sudden growth spurt, to a dominant college center who is a handful for opponents. He has grown, on and off the court.
UCLA lost a ton of talent from last season's team that went 31-5 and reached the NCAA Tournament South Regional semifinals. Guard Lonzo Ball, forward T.J. Leaf and center Ike Anigbogu all left for the NBA after their freshman seasons. This is nothing new. Two seasons prior, forward Kevon Looney jumped to the NBA after one season in Westwood.
Welsh, too, flirted with the idea last summer. But there was still work to be done at UCLA. He was there to greet the next high-end freshman class. He has become the program's rock as a senior.
"With Tom, we have stability and accountability," Alford said. "We know what we're getting out of him. He has been ready to play every day. As a coach, you have a lot of confidence in a guy like that."
Welsh shrugs at that.
"There will always be headliners at UCLA," Welsh said. "I'm just a guy who clocks in every day and works hard. I try to make the team better."
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"I remember when he started getting noticed in high school and coaches started calling, he'd let it go to voice mail because he didn't know what to say to them," Kathy Welsh said.
Welsh, the middle child among three brothers, hardly towered over others as a kid.
"He wanted to play all the sports," Kathy Welsh said. "He was kind of awkward, but determined."
Basketball became more and more the focal point as he grew.
"We started trying to find places for him to play," Kathy Welsh said.
If all else failed, there was always the driveway at home. Jack Welsh, who is older, and Henry Welsh, who is younger, would hash things out as only brothers can — "he was competing upward with one brother and downward with the other brother," Kathy Welsh said.
Jack Welsh, who is 6-2, played baseball at Los Angeles Loyola High and attended Santa Clara University. Henry Welsh, who is 6-10, is a sophomore on Harvard's basketball team.
"I think every single game we had ended with one of us getting extremely mad," Thomas Welsh said. "It was entertaining."
Welsh turned his focus to basketball in the sixth grade, and kept growing.
He was 6-2 at the start of eighth grade. By the time he was a freshman, Welsh stood at 6-9. The growth spurt brought joint pain, so much that Kathy Welsh said her son "couldn't sleep at night."
The days were difficult as well.
Welsh had the size to be an impact player, but had to retrain his mind to operate in a bigger body. He was the third player off the bench for the Loyola freshman team. As a sophomore, he was coming off the bench for the varsity.
"I had to get my bearings," Welsh said. "Being 6-9 and only 175 pounds wasn't great either. I had to learn to be coordinated again."
When he did, things advanced quickly.
Welsh, who was playing for a Los Angeles club team the summer before his junior year at Loyola, impressed college coaches during a tournament in Las Vegas. Interest in him began to mount.
"People kept telling us how good he was," Kathy Welsh said. "He started getting invited to camps and getting noticed."
Welsh leaned toward being an introvert, so his parents wrote out a script for him to read when coaches called, and the calls only increased.
He averaged 12.6 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.8 blocks as a junior and 15.3 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.7 blocks as a senior. Welsh's ascent was complete when he was selected to play in the McDonald's All-Star Game in the spring of 2014.
Welsh had even mastered things off the court.
Said Kathy Welsh: "His senior year, a cable channel showed one of the games, and Thomas was named the player of the game. They started interviewing him afterward, and I was really impressed with how well he spoke."
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There remains a boy-next-door quality about Welsh that is almost comforting to Alford. The closest thing to a negative Alford can point to is milk.
"We can't keep milk stocked up in the training room," Alford said, laughing. "I know it's Thomas. He must have a gallon every morning."
Welsh, though, has lost his wide-eyed innocence and is far from being the tongue-tied lad from high school.
The world has opened up for him at UCLA. He has traveled to Australia, the Bahamas and China. As a member of Team USA, he went to Greece to play in the FIFA Under-19 World Championships, and brought home a gold medal.
"It's been an incredible journey so far," said Welsh, who is majoring in economics.
Welsh, though, has rarely been a headliner. He has always been more blue-collar than blue-chip.Yet, he still makes an impact.
"Everyone sees how well he shoots," Alford said. "What you don't see is how hard he works at it. He went from being consistent from 12 feet as a freshman to 15 feet as a sophomore to 18 feet as a junior. Now he's good from 21-to-23 feet. He has put in the time to get better. He is one of the most efficient big guys I have ever coached."
UCLA has benefited.
Welsh was part of Alford's first recruiting class in 2014. The centerpiece was Looney, who is now with the Golden State Warriors. Welsh was a guy off the bench as a freshman, averaging 3.8 points and 3.8 rebounds.
But he was the guy off the bench who had a blocked shot and steal in the final 33 seconds to help UCLA rally for a victory over Southern Methodist in the NCAA tournament.
A year later, he had 21 points and 11 rebounds in the Bruins' 87-77 upset of No. 1 Kentucky. Welsh out-played center Skal Labissiere — now with the Sacramento Kings — which prompted Wildcats coach John Calipari to say, "That may have been the best game of his life."
Welsh hasn't looked for accolades.
"The opportunity to have these four letters across my chest has been special," Welsh said.
The Bruins are happy that he still wears a jersey with U-C-L-A on it. He averaged 11.2 points and a team-high 8.5 rebounds as a sophomore. His numbers were similar as a junior, when he averaged 10.8 points and a team-high 8.7 rebounds.
Welsh will need to at least duplicate those numbers this season for a Bruins' team that has nearly an entirely new cast.
Ball, Leaf and Anigbogu left for the NBA draft after their freshman seasons. Ball was taken second overall by the Lakers. The Indiana Pacers took Leaf in the first round and Anigbogu in the second round. Guard Aaron Holiday and Welsh also declared for the draft but didn't hire an agent. That allowed both to return to UCLA.
Welsh said he fully intended to return for his senior season but had decided the process would provide a valuable education.
"I got a feel for how it all works," Welsh said. "I got to go work out for teams and learned what was expected. It won't be a new experience when I go through it again this year."
First, though, comes his senior season. And, as always, Welsh's approach is workman-like.
"I want to be the best rebounder on the floor and get us that extra possession," Welsh said. "I want to run the floor and be strong in the post. I can make my shot, that's something I do well. I want to be remembered as a hard worker, a character guy and a leader."