As a new school year
comes quickly out-of-the-blocks I recall how fortunate I was to have been
influenced by many inspirational people. Of course, that translates into stories
amigo/a. I was far from being a good student in my formative years (BC: before
college); in fact I was a poor student K-12. But, I always loved a good story
(probably why I majored in History as an undergrad). I don’t know if losing a
full GPA point when moving into the Burbank (CA) School District, then gaining
it back when moving to Malibu/Santa Monica SD, and losing it again when
returning to Burbank was a product of Burbank’s superior expectations or simply
that I preferred the open space environs of other locales.
Our kennel in was at Pacific Coast Hwy & Puerco Canyon Rd. overlooking the Pacific. In Burbank it was on North Lima St. just off San Fernando Road, in an industrial area
near Lockheed and a railroad line; far away there were probably large bombers
and missiles with Red Stars on them practicing missions targeting this area.
Like many classmates, I never did understand how getting under a wooden desk
would help.
In retrospect it was a
cool time, and a great place to be a young person. As I worked this past spring
in Petra I remember a
conversation with a Supervisory Park Ranger. He was Bedouin from Umm Sahyoun,
and a retired Army Major with a Masters degree in IT Engineering. We were
talking about the local schools and need for charter or magnet schools with
extra-circular activities like sports, clubs, etc. as stay-in-school incentives
vice working the tourist trade as a child vendor. That got me pondering some
life experiences, and one of my favorites is the under-dog story of the Burbank
High School (BHS) Bulldogs basketball team of 1965.
Burbank schools were not traditional powers in the
primary team sports: baseball, basketball and football. We had a few exceptional
individuals occasionally, but we primarily excelled in Cross Country and
swimming (individual things that took a lot of determination and training to do
well). During my senior year we had a good shoot-the-ball/hoops team led by
Coach Jack Loutensock, but they weren’t expected to do much because of the
talent at the other Foothill League schools.
Note-on-skill-levels at that time in the Foothill
League: during the 3-years I was at BHS,
7 football players went onto the NFL- none from BHS. In basketball, the league
was equally gifted. The Southern California player of the year (Lynn
Shackelford, 6’5”) was from Burbank, but he played for our cross-town rival John Burroughs HS. He was amazing to watch, and went onto being a starter on 3
Collegiate National Championship teams with Coach John Wooden at UCLA. Later he
played in the NBA. Many of BHS’ rival teams in the league had 7’ players; some
like Pasadena had several. I
remember watching them warm up with player-after-player dunking-the-ball. The
’65 Bulldogs were relatively “vertically challenged,” with the tallest player
(Dick Reitherman) at 6’4” and 170 lbs: not exactly a Grecian model of Olympus revisited. But, what these Bulldogs lacked in stature
and girth they made up for with heart, determination, game smarts and grit. BHS
educational standards were probably a pretty big asset too.
Not picked to do much by the pre-season pundits (they went 9-3 in
pre-season), the ‘65 Bulldogs were simply tenacious, beating Burroughs twice for
the 1st time in many years, and finished 10-2 in league play:
Champions of the Foothill League. Jim Greenfield and John Gaball went on to play
for Coach Jerry Tarkanian (“Tark the Shark”). The season provided adversity,
drama and accomplishment over long-odds won by hard work and dedication to their
mission: sounds like an inspirational story to me. I know there are themes of
courage and humor too (one player wrote in my ‘64 year book what a good
chemistry student I was: I was terrible to put it kindly). Looking at the BHS
’65 Varsity Basketball photo I think: “Thank You gentlemen… especially John
Gaball, Jim Greenfield, Jerry Perkins, Glen Ceiley, Dean DeHart, Darryl Hove,
and Dick Reitherman for showing that when motivated you can
make-it-happen…”
FYI, my BHS ’65 yearbook
(Ceralbus) has been in an alternative reality somewhere since ca. my return from
Vietnam
(’70). Thanks to Kirk “Kickin’-back” Harris (I spotted you there in-the-shade:
color football/sports section photo, shortly after page 183) for lending me his
yearbook for some of the photos. I also see again in the Senior Index that I’m
credited with 3-years of participation with the Publicity Committee that I have
zero memory of. Looking at the photo of this “August Assemblage” I must credit
my listing to the antics of Merry Pranksterism by my ol’ amigos Dennis “Buck”
Bandy and Jack Osborn: “Oh, you guys always made me chuckle…” Wouldn’t be
surprised to find them and Reitherman on the editorial board of The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/
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