Random DP basketball memories by Mark
Looker, manager, Dos Pueblos High School Chargers CIF AAA
champions 1971:

- Scott
Roberts leading the team in scoring against Katella on
the High School game of the week televised on KNBC. Ross
Porter and Tommie Hawkins were the announcers. We were
all in awe of the size of those guys in person. They
looked like linebackers!
- Scott
Roberts being mobbed at school during lunch break by all
of his new-found friends after his TV
performance. We all got a good laugh at how everyone
discovered Scott and his basketball talent.
- The
vastness of the LA Sports Arena. The rims just seemed to
hang out there in outer space and it was hard to get any
type of perspective. DPs first half shooting was
less than sensational. I need to check the old stories
but my memory is that Coldren led the way in scoring.
- The game
at a tourney in Southern California when I thought coach
Volpi asked me to find a jock. I scurried all
over the locker room trying to find a jockstrap. I was so
proud when I finally tracked down the other teams
equipment manager and triumphantly handed the jock to
coach Volpi. He looked at me with his face all scrunched
up like I was from outer space and said,
Whats this? I answered, Why
its the jock you wanted. He stared at me:
Looker, I wanted chalk for the chalk board!!
And Im not making that one up!
- Carrying
the damn ball bag all over the Sports Arena after the
championship game was over and we got to go sit up in the
stands and watch the 4A game. That thing was a pain to
carry. As my Dad commented, We drove 90 miles and
paid $25 to watch my son carry a ball bag! Yeah but
it was fun!
- In the
locker room, Barclay Hope leaning over to pull off his
shoes and Volpi pressing a cold Coke can against his
back. Barclay jumped a mile in the air and turned around
to take care of whoever did that and then saw it was
coach. Volpi just had that silly grin on his face.
- The game
at a tourney in LA where I had to keep the book for some
reason (which I didnt normally do but Yarbrough was
in the hospital after getting his appendix out) and I
mistakenly had Dan Melendez with 4 fouls instead of 3 and
the opposing coach yanked a player off the bench and
practically threw the kid into the game shouting,
Foul him out! Volpi was pissed at me-
at halftime he came up to me in the hallway and grabbed
me by my tie, pulled me to within an inch of his face and
screamed, Dont you ever do that again!!
I recall that I could hardly breath. I said I was sorry.
My mistake was corrected by the official scorer who
correctly had just 3 fouls marked downI was just
the visiting bookbut it didnt matter to
Volpi.
- Coldren
getting pissed at some little Asian player for Cabrillo
who was just giving him a rash trying to unnerve
himwe call it trash talking these days.
I remember he called him Bruccceeee. Well,
Bruce just snapped going down court, swung his arm way
back and hurled the ball at the kids back. Nailed
him pretty good! He got a T and he might have got kicked
out, which obviously was the kids goal.
- Volpi
sitting down next to Stein at practice one day and
putting his fingers on Steins sideburns (such as
they were) and saying, What do you think
youre trying to get away with? as if he were
Charles Manson himself. What would he say today (If he
were alive) about all those hideous tattoos!?! 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.
Boy, little did I know how things would change in 30
years!
- Marc
Melendez with his penchant for saying:
Jokey-jokey. As I recall, putting
e on the end of words was all the rage!
Making up words was a favorite pastime. I recall Mikey
Elliott being the master of spinning new words and
twisting familiar wordsimitation for
intimidation was one of his best!
- Referee
Keith Pilger making some just brutal calls in a home game
and I couldnt control myself and yelled at him:
You are brutal! As we walked back to
the locker room at halftime, Pilger walked over to Volpi,
pointed his finger at me and said, You better keep
your manager quiet. I was terrified for my life and
sat in the stands the second half!
- Being
forced to referee with Yarbrough an inner-squad game in
which Coldren and Roberts were fly swatting balls left
and right (and goal tending) and being terrified to make
a call as all the players screamed at us. That was truly
imitation of the highest degree.
- Greg
Hanson telling me following the final game of our senior
year: "I really want to thank you for all
youve done for the team. I was very
embarrassed and said I really hadnt done anything
and he persisted. No, you were always there and I
appreciate it. It was a tough year to follow
after the championship year because expectations were so
high but guys like Greg bore the pressure with a lot of
style and grace.
- The
competition between Stein and Steve Weist of San Marcos.
We media guys really hyped up that angle. When they were
seniors it was supposed to be the Big Shootout at City
College, if I recall correctly. We put out a special
joint DP-San Marcos edition of the "Charger
Account" for the game featuring profiles on both
players. I need to go to the papers to research the
outcome but I think Stein might have won that scoring
battle. But Weist was a gunner, big time! Not afraid to put
it up. Steve Weist ... there was a classic game the next
season, which Coldren won near the buzzer and then
San Marcos couldn't get a shot off ... Royals led late in
the game but then an offensive foul, a turnover and
several other maladies hit them and Chargers rallied to
win. Yarbrough still has it on audio tape somewhere
with John Nadel calling the play-by-play.
- The
sadness I felt when I learned of the deaths of Danny
Melendez and Coach Volpi. Much too young for either one.
- Finally,
my most lasting memory over the years of DP basketball
was how much fun it all was. It was a unique team and was
the essence of what basketball should be: Every player
had a role and everyone fit in collectively to produce
the end result. It's always been my model of what team
sports can be but I have never come by such a model since
in all those 30 years. Of course, as I now coach my
9 year old son and 8 year old daughter in soccer and
baseball, I realize even more how rare the DP experience
was. I dont want to sound like Phil Jackson and
start talking about the "Zen" approach to
basketball but I think there was a certain harmonic
convergence that came over DP in 1971.