1956-57: A Red Devils Reset
Who would have thought a team that started the season with a 1-8 record and finished 10-10 would be celebrated? Hats off to the Sweetwater Red Devils. An eighth loss in nine games was where coach Wells Gorman’s team stood on January 6, 1957, after a 55-50, Metropolitan League, opening-game loss at Helix. But that […]
Read More1955-56: Islanders Square Account
Coronado paid an old debt. Hoover’s playoff advance was halted at the foul line. Merrill Douglas ended a great run at San Diego High. Lincoln showed that patience had virtue. —John Kovac was a football coach who happened to come along at the right basketball time at Coronado. The dour Kovac without prompting often recalled […]
Read More1952-53: Gehring Leads Way to Hoop
Football, basketball, baseball, and track and field, the majors, remained seasonal sports for the best athletes, who usually participated in at least three. Single-sport concentration and club teams were a half-century away, but a change of another kind took place in high school hoops this season. There were many more games in which the competing […]
Read More1951-52: A Season Seven Times Significant
What made this campaign one to remember: 1) Hoover’s 11-1 ride through the City Prep League and 23-win campaign which stalled after an 11-point lead in the playoffs. 2) Point Loma’s rags-to-almost-riches season that ended with a call from Uncle Sam. 3) Helix, without a gymnasium, or a campus, not playing like a first-year team. […]
Read More2017: George (Bud) Milke, Legendary South Bay Coach
Bud Milke was on the bench as a head coach for 500-plus basketball games in his career, more than half at Mar Vista High and Castle Park, and rolled with the deathless prose of Grantland Rice: “For when the One Great Scorer comes To write against your name, He marks—not that you won or lost—but […]
Read More2017: Powell Leads Raptors to Playoff Win
Norman Powell has earned a spot in the Toronto Raptors’ rotation and is making his bones on basketball’s biggest stage. The 6-foot, 4-inch guard from Lincoln High scored a career-high 25 points in 34 minutes and shot 8 for 11 from the field to lead the Raptors to a 118-93 win over Milwaukee and put […]
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