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The Arizona basketball team waited in the Lohse Room upstairs at McKale Center in September, each player filled with nerves and anticipation that come with the season-opening team meeting.

Lucas Spencer sat at the end of the row, a junior walk-on invited by Kevin O'Neill and Miles Simon. He was the one closest to the door when it swung open and Lute Olson walked in.

The coach looked at Spencer, then back at his assistants.

Olson asked, best as Spencer could tell, "Who's he?"

Spencer turned beet red, and learned the first lesson of a walk-on — humility.

"I was embarrassed," he said. "I'm very easily embarrassed."

Spencer, like many UA walk-ons before him, wants to be a coach. He was talented enough to play at a lower-division school, but chose to come to Tucson to gain the experience — and résumé boost — of a major college program. He has yet to play this season.

"He does what you're supposed to do as a walk-on," O'Neill said. "Keep your mouth shut, go to class, support your team, cheer hard, be seen and not heard."

It would be simple to leave it at that — that Spencer is happy to rebound for his teammates when they warm up, content to shoot at McKale Center by himself hours before the game, lucky to wear the uniform. He is all those things, but there's more.

Beneath the Bob Marley-loving, easygoing demeanor of the Yuma Catholic High School graduate is a super-serious 20-year-old who worries and stresses. A kid who dreams of playing but knows the dichotomy of a walk-on — by not playing now, he is ensuring basketball will be a part of the rest of his life.

• • •

Spencer never fails to send thank-you notes. The bills and papers on his desk must be placed just so before he turns away. His clothes are usually organized in his closet by color. His dozens of pairs of shoes — from Vans to Nikes — are ordinarily stacked neatly. "I have a shoe fetish," he said.

His parents moved from Wyoming to Yuma when Spencer was 1. They were broke, with two things to their name — a truck and a pool table. Through hard work, Scott and Karen Spencer became a prominent real estate developer and real estate agent, respectively.

Scott Spencer is the kind of guy who mops his garage floor. When his father would call to say he was coming home, the Spencers — Lucas and two sisters — would scramble to clean up. Lucas would sweep the rocks in the backyard — without being asked — because his father liked it that way.

"We call him Howard Hughes," Karen Spencer said of her son. "He cannot handle filth."

Spencer likes things in their place, which makes not playing at all this season difficult.

He does not travel on the UA's Pac-10 road trips. When Spencer watches UA games at the university-area house he shares with Chase Budinger and UA manager Billy Kelly, he sometimes turns the station if it is too close.

He can't watch, can't stand not having an impact on the outcome.

The 6-foot-5-inch, 187-pounder struggles with not playing. It was never worse than during the UA's first big home game against Virginia. His parents were in the crowd. For the first time, they weren't going to see their son play at all.

"They're gonna be seeing a lot more of this," Spencer remembers thinking. "But I might as well get used to it."

• • •

Some UA players don't know where to go on a specific play. Spencer knows where everyone goes.

He has a three-ring binder filled with every play he's learned at the college level.

Two years ago, Grayson County College in Denison, Texas, didn't have a playbook. Spencer, redshirting as a freshman, went home and drew every play by memory — with every move by every offensive player in it. He did the same last season at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif., and again this year. The book holds about 100 plays.

Spencer wants to be a coach, preferably at the college level, and run O'Neill's defense and Olson's offense. When he allows himself to think too much, to examine why he works so hard but never plays, he reminds himself of the experience he's gaining.

"If I think long term, instead of short term, it will all work out," he said.

That doesn't make not playing any easier.

O'Neill granted Spencer about two weeks off in mid-December. He had struggled in an astronomy class; a failing grade would have dropped him below 12 units, making the interdisciplinary studies major ineligible. He went home, realizing he might have blown his chance.

But when his grades came, he passed. He relaxed, if only a bit.

Spencer is wired for worry.

As part of a New Year's resolution, he started taking yoga to try to relax. Every morning, he swears, he wakes up nervous. He wonders what he's going to do with his life. He worries about friends and family, money and girls.

"You can't imagine," he said.

His long-term coaching plans ease his mind a little.

"It's kinda like working for free, working for charity," he said. "But it will pay off in the end."

• • •

Spencer is friendly and unerringly polite, albeit shy at first. He doesn't mind doing things on his own, be it a movie or dinner.

The summer before his senior year in high school, he moved to Tucson by himself, living at the home of a family friend. He trained with Simon — at the time a personal trainer, not yet a coach. They worked out at the Jewish Community Center and played basketball at night. Simon still owes Spencer two frozen yogurts from pickup games he won.

As a freshman, Spencer began thinking of striking out on his own again. A lifelong UA fan, Spencer read an Internet story from his Texas dorm room about Budinger and his personal trainer Trent Suzuki — and started making phone calls.

Spencer moved to San Diego two summers ago, training with Suzuki and living in his parents' Mission Beach vacation home. He stayed in the San Diego area to attend Southwestern College, but didn't play much.

Now, he looks like the "after" photo from personal-trainer infomercials, adding 25 pounds to his frame and six inches to his vertical leap. Not bad for someone who was a skinny 5-foot-7-inch point guard as a high school freshman.

Spencer felt guilty about his parents paying for his trainer. He insisted his mom type up a contract that he and his father signed, stating Spencer will pay back $5,000 as soon as he can.

Suzuki calls Spencer one of the hardest workers he has ever seen. In June, he suggested Spencer might make for a good walk-on at the UA.

But first, Suzuki had to give him a talk.

Spencer is almost too competitive for his own good. As a teen, he punched a metal chair and broke his shooting hand, furious he had been removed from a summer league game. Brooks Neumann, his high school coach, said Spencer's court demeanor used to be "horrible."

When Spencer played Budinger one-and-one at Suzuki's camp, he would lose maybe nine of 10 times.

"He looked like he was gonna cry, he was so mad," Suzuki said. "In his mind, a loss is a loss, doesn't matter if it's to you, me, Chase Budinger, Michael Jordan. He doesn't really digest losing very well."

Suzuki was worried how Spencer would handle not playing.

"He doesn't like to lose in video games," Suzuki said. "What's he gonna do about not having a chance to really get in there?"

• • •

Spencer wants to play, but not because of the attention or the popularity it would bring him.

In a town that worships basketball, even UA benchwarmers are celebrities. David Bagga, another UA walk-on, gets noticed on campus as if he is a star.

Bagga, Spencer jokes, is the most popular person on campus — whenever he reaches the scorer's table, it means the game has gone well.

But Spencer goes unnoticed, just another student, albeit in UA sweats, as he walks to class or picks up food at Sausage Deli.

Spencer's fine with that.

"The perks for me, nothing's tangible," he said. "I don't know what I'd be doing without basketball. Basketball is my perk, I guess."

Suzuki imagines a day when a successful Spencer hangs his UA jersey in his corner office with pride.

Spencer doesn't need to play in a game to validate his tenure at the UA. But it would be nice.

"I guess I can say, 'I hope,' " he said. "In the beginning, I was like, 'I hope he puts me in if we get a comfortable lead.' But that's just not the way it is. I've kinda accepted that. It's made it easier on me to kinda put that out of my head."

His father can't help but wonder what it would be like for his son to enter a game.

"It would be a huge thing for him," he said. "It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. He's worked so hard."