Those were the teams I cut my teeth on. Harmon made every home game worth attending. My dad talked Pitts into coming out to my little Catholic School in Pleasant Hill to put on a clinic for the school.
Those were the teams I cut my teeth on. Harmon made every home game worth attending. My dad talked Pitts into coming out to my little Catholic School in Pleasant Hill to put on a clinic for the school.
Same here. Those Cal basketball teams often had to punch above their weight class, especially against uclol. I also remember the tremedous hazing Cal gave U$c's Stuart Gray, who chose the Trojans over us, despite the fact that his parents were Golden Bear alums.
And, of course, Mark McNamara was his own unique force of nature. It seemed that once he got the ball in the paint, he was going to score.
To be fair to Kuchen, he was able to do what Mark Fox wishes he could--restore some stability to Cal's basketball program--one that had struggled in the mid-1970s. It wasn't great basketball, but we always competed. And to his credit, Kuchen also recruited Kevin Johnson, Chris Washington, and Dave Butler--players who wound being the backbone of Campanelli's first Cal squad that upset Uclol and went to the NIT, our first postseason appearence since the 1960 NCAA tourney.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Campanelli, who was once the hero before he coached too long and became his own villain, but his early success at Harmon was built upon the foundation that Dick Kuchen left for him.
You're right! I realize now that I kept getting him confused with Wayne Carlander, also a highly touted recruit out of Huntington Beach, who wound up going to U$c.
We couldn't understand it. It's not like USC basketball was that good at that point.
In fact, in the early 1980s, we were playing the Trojans. Harmon still had the old hand-operated scoreboard, in that the names had to be placed by hand, using individual letters to spell out the team name, such as "CAL" and "USC".
Well, that particular game was ugly, as befitted two middle-to-bottom Pac-10 programs, and by the middle of the second half, some jokester had managed to sabotage the scoreboard, and rearragned the names to read "LAC" and "SUC".
Those were the teams I cut my teeth on. Harmon made every home game worth attending. My dad talked Pitts into coming out to my little Catholic School in Pleasant Hill to put on a clinic for the school.
Same here. Those Cal basketball teams often had to punch above their weight class, especially against uclol. I also remember the tremedous hazing Cal gave U$c's Stuart Gray, who chose the Trojans over us, despite the fact that his parents were Golden Bear alums.
And, of course, Mark McNamara was his own unique force of nature. It seemed that once he got the ball in the paint, he was going to score.
To be fair to Kuchen, he was able to do what Mark Fox wishes he could--restore some stability to Cal's basketball program--one that had struggled in the mid-1970s. It wasn't great basketball, but we always competed. And to his credit, Kuchen also recruited Kevin Johnson, Chris Washington, and Dave Butler--players who wound being the backbone of Campanelli's first Cal squad that upset Uclol and went to the NIT, our first postseason appearence since the 1960 NCAA tourney.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Campanelli, who was once the hero before he coached too long and became his own villain, but his early success at Harmon was built upon the foundation that Dick Kuchen left for him.
Stuart Gray went to UCLA
You're right! I realize now that I kept getting him confused with Wayne Carlander, also a highly touted recruit out of Huntington Beach, who wound up going to U$c.
Seriously, the entire Fox debacle, I just can't.
"U$c's Stuart Gray, who chose the Trojans over us, despite the fact that his parents were Golden Bear alums."
Proto-NIL? USC was so far ahead of our time.
We couldn't understand it. It's not like USC basketball was that good at that point.
In fact, in the early 1980s, we were playing the Trojans. Harmon still had the old hand-operated scoreboard, in that the names had to be placed by hand, using individual letters to spell out the team name, such as "CAL" and "USC".
Well, that particular game was ugly, as befitted two middle-to-bottom Pac-10 programs, and by the middle of the second half, some jokester had managed to sabotage the scoreboard, and rearragned the names to read "LAC" and "SUC".
No one complained, because it was exactly right.
I miss those days.
Yes, I do remember when SC basketball really SUCked.