For several
hours last Saturday, Richard Stein's living room harked back over 30 years to
the gym at the Goleta Boys' Club. That's where those Dos Pueblos High kids could
be found playing basketball around the clock.NEWS-PRESS
STAFF WRITER
For several
hours last Saturday, Richard Stein's living room harked back over 30 years to
the gym at the Goleta Boys' Club. That's where those Dos Pueblos High kids could
be found playing basketball around the clock.
Even during the
season, when they had practices and games, they'd go to the Boys' Club at night
to get in some extra playing time together.
"They were
gym rats," said Sal Rodriguez, who opened the doors for them.
"Eventually I had to kick them out so I could go home."
Their passion
for the game paid off in the 1970-71 season, when the Dos Pueblos Chargers went
27-2 and captured the CIF 3-A basketball championship.
"All the
time we played together is what made us a great team," said Stein, the
team's leading scorer. "We played more basketball in a week than I've
played in the last 20 years."
The 30th
anniversary reunion marked the first time the Chargers had gotten together since
their high school days. Stein, a local dentist, hosted nine former teammates at
a dinner party in his Montecito home. They remembered when. . .
. . . They went
across town to play the Santa Barbara Dons, with future NBA player Don Ford, and
they scored a stunning 70-47 victory. "That was the point where we believed
we were a good team," Stein said.
. . . They won
DP's first championship of the old Santa Barbara County League, topping strong
foes from Santa Maria, Righetti and Arroyo Grande.
. . . A
capacity crowd in Westmont's Murchison Gym watched them defeat Fermin Lasuen and
Bob Gross, a future Portland Trail Blazer, 69-57 in the CIF quarterfinals.
. . . They
faced Katella in the semis, a game televised by KNBC, with Ross Porter and Tommy
Hawkins calling the action. After spotting Katella an 8-0 lead, the Chargers
roared back to win 64-50.
. . . They
smothered Bellflower 49-40 in the championship game, the opener of a
doubleheader before 12,000 fans at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.
"It was a
pretty ugly game," Stein said. "Our defense won it for us. I remember
watching the 4-A final between Verbum Dei and Crescenta Valley and feeling like
we were a JV team."
That's not the
way athletes usually remember their glory days, but another distinguishing
feature of the Chargers was their acumen. Only two of them went on to play
basketball at four-year colleges -- center Bruce Coldren at Oregon and guard Tom
Henderson at UC Davis -- but all of them have become productive citizens.
Their elders --
people who were about the same age they are now -- used to wonder if anything
good could come out of the rebellious youth of the early '70s. Don Volpi, the
coach of the Chargers, recalled 10 years after the championship that "our
school was getting flack from the community about being Hippie High."
Volpi, who
graduated from UCSB in 1960 after serving in the Air Force, was an old-school
coach. Mark Looker, a student manager, recalled an incident at a DP practice:
"Volpi sat down next to Stein and put his finger on Stein's sideburns (such
as they were) and said, 'What do you think you're trying to get away with?' as
if he were Charles Manson himself. . . That incident so incensed me that I wrote
an essay about it for my English class saying something to the effect that Volpi
was a fascist and how repressive team sports was."
But the players
grudgingly accepted Volpi's discipline on the basketball court.
"We had
friction with the coach because we wanted to play up-tempo, run and gun,"
Stein said. "But then we lost to Crescenta Valley (70-46) early in the
season, and we realized we couldn't win playing that style. Volpi was a much
better coach than we gave him credit for at the time."
Stein would
have liked to express that appreciation to Volpi's face, but the coach died of a
heart attack during a recreational basketball game on March 3, 1983. He was 49.
Paul Yarbrough, another student manager during the championship year, covered
the story for the News-Press. He is now a newspaper editor in Eugene, Ore.
Another person
sadly missing from the reunion was Danny Melendez, a starting guard who could go
on a tear with his line-drive jump shots. Melendez died in an auto accident on
April 12, 1979.
Stein would
like to hear from forward Scott Roberts. He left the area a couple years ago,
and nobody knows what became of him. Reserve guard Brent McClurg was unable to
attend the reunion. There were 10 former players on hand, enough to play
five-on-five with their memories:
Stein
(6-foot-3) moved to Goleta as a sophomore from Princeton, N.
Coldren (6-7)
scored 25 points in the championship game. The only junior in the starting
lineup, he had a deadly outside shot that later sparked Oregon to an upset of
UCLA. He is athletic director at Lowell (Ore.) High. "Any team that has
ever been successful has always been really close," he said.
Henderson
(6-0), also an AD at San Juan High in Fair Oaks: "We thought the
championship was important at the time, but the big thing is the friendships you
make. Basketball was the vehicle."
Barclay Hope
(6-0), president of a nationwide natural foods distributor: "Everybody knew
their place on the team. We had talent --Stein and Coldren -- and a lot of good
role players. There were some tensions, but overall the chemistry was
good."
Marc Melendez
(6-2), assistant golf pro at the Valley Club and Danny's younger brother:
"There wasn't a selfish person on the team. You don't see that
nowadays."
Greg Hanson
(6-1 1/2), working in local real estate: "I helped push the seniors in
practice and was able to start the next year. I remember seeing Lewis Brown of
Verbum Dei at the Sports Arena, a 6-9, 230-pound center. He was smoking a
cigarette while getting his ankle taped."
Bill Irving
(6-1 1/2), a building contractor in Anacortes, Wash.: "I was glad to hang
on and watch these guys play. My elbow gave Scott Roberts stitches before the
Katella game and got him going (Roberts scored 18 in the semifinal win)."
Steve Terry
(6-2 1/2), a corrections officer living in Placerville: "Everything we did
was with the team in mind."
The presence of
Richard Elliott and Jimmy Smit at the reunion was a testament to the closeness
of the '71 Chargers. They were among the kids playing in the Boys' Club all
summer, but neither suited up for the team. "I went to every practice
because I didn't want to mess up the team chemistry," said Elliott, a
carpenter who has two children at Dos Pueblos. Smit is owner of O'Malley's Bar.
He was the last player to see their coach. "I was a city firemen for six
years," he said. "One night we responded to a code blue at the SBCC
gym. It was Volpi."