Imagine Opie Taylor after a jumbo-sized growth spurt and you'll have a pretty good picture of Magic rookie Michael Doleac. Not only is Doleac a spitting image, he's so clean-cut you can almost hear the Andy Griffith Show theme song being whistled when he walks into a gym.

Michael Doleac hopes to please the Orlando fans both on the court and off.

When Orlando signed Doleac, a 6-feet-11 Goliath out of the University of Utah, they got much more than a center with a jump shot. They got an ambassador whose dream is to spend his NBA career swapping high-fives with fans and winning NBA championship rings.

"I'm kind of a small-town guy. Hopefully, I won't get sucked into this big-time money thing. I'm going to try to keep my head on straight and be the same guy I was for four years in college." says Doleac, the 12th pick in last summer's NBA Draft.

What he was in college - at least on the basketball court - was the backbone of a team that last season finished the season with a 30-4 record, just one victory shy of capturing the NCAA championship. As a senior, he averaged 16 points and 7 rebounds, was an Associated Press All-America honorable mention and a GTE First Team Academic All-American.

"He was an easy pick for us. He's got terrific size. He's a four-year college player that had been very well coached by [Utah's] Rick Majerus," Magic assistant coach Brendan Suhr says.

What sold Suhr and head coach Chuck Daly is Doleac's outside shooting touch, which might be as pretty as former Daly disciple Bill Laimbeer's.

"Chuck likes big men who can shoot. And he [Doleac] is also a good space-eater inside - he takes up a lot of room," Suhr adds.

With Ike Austin snuggling in as the team's starting center, Doleac is being groomed by the masters, Daly and 17-year NBA veteran Dan Schayes. Unless something horrendous sidelines the rookie's elders at center, he'll share time with Schayes as Austin's backup this season. And that's perfectly fine with Doleac.

"Coming into the draft, I didn't have any expectations. That's how I am with basketball - I just give it my best. I was ecstatic that I was drafted by the Magic. It turned out to be a great situation for me," Doleac says. "Whatever they want me to do, I'll do it. I'll just come out and work as hard as I can every day."

Schayes likes what he's seen from Doleac so far. "I think Mike's going to be a fine young player. He's got some good basic skills. He shoots the ball well. He plays aggressive and physically. He's very eager to learn and he works hard."

Despite the qualities Doleac brings to a basketball court, it's his off-floor personality that most fans will find so refreshing. For instance, while he admits he wants to make enough money during his NBA job to "live comfortably," Doleac plans on squirreling most of his paycheck away "to save for a rainy day." And rather than hanging out at nightclubs and partying with the rich and famous, he wants to spend free time camping and fishing. And get this: Doleac looks forward to mingling with fans, especially kids.

"I want to make a positive impact on kids in the community and do my best so that at the end of my career I can say I was the best player I could be and the nicest guy I could be.

"I'm in a position where I can help kids. When they react positively to you and their eyes light up when they see you, you can give them a high-five or whatever. That's a lot of fun."

As if that isn't enough to separate the gentle giant from some of his peers, Doleac hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon once his playing days are done. He plans to earn his biology degree from Utah during the off-season and someday he wants to go to medical school.

Amazingly, Doleac's basketball career almost wasn't. Unlike most NBA players, he never imagined himself playing professional basketball. At Central Catholic High School in Portland, skiing was the sport he loved. He didn't become serious about basketball until he outgrew his ski boots.

"I always enjoyed basketball, but the thing I liked doing best was skiing with my brother and my family and having a great time. Now I've learned to love the game of basketball."

Doleac says that when Majerus offered him a scholarship to Utah after seeing him in a summer basketball camp, "I didn't even know what a scholarship was. I wasn't even thinking about playing basketball in college."

Nevertheless, he is very aware of his good fortune.

"It's been a wild ride. I got lucky by growing to be 6-11 and I got lucky that things fell into place. I was lucky to play at the University of Utah, which is a great place. . What I want to do now is live life, have a good time and enjoy the fact that I'm able to not worry about anything except playing the game of basketball."

As down-to-earth as Doleac is, at 21 he's also a kind of Renaissance man. His interests vary from fly fishing and golfing to reading and playing chess. However, Doleac says, "Right now I'm a basketball player, and that comes first."

This article appeared in Magic Magazine.