Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

Nathan Thomas of San Ramon arguably the top freshman in the San Francisco metro region shooting two

Jesus Shuttlesworth at CCS

Rather than a CCS basketball tourney, like the one my team played so many years ago, the powers that be have declared the Catholics League the winner of CCS title; they will celebrate such with a pool party starting Friday and continuing until they tucker out. The nitty gritty is that rather than having a 32 team or 16 team tournament — Gunn lost to St. Ignatius in 1981 by two points in front of 5,000 fans at Maples Pavillion, having beaten Riordan the same week and San Carlos, no longer a school, it was a public school beyond the subtle nod to Christianity in its title — they have declared six of the 8 schools co-champions: Mitty, Riordan, SI, Serra, Saint Francis and Valley Christian – -who are not actually Catholics. And Valley, besides not having JC on the Cross, they were actually 3-11 — that’s not even a good baseball batting average — that’s more Milt May than Tim Hardaway if I haven’t faked you out of your shorts, journalistically. Plus Sacred Heart. The one in Atherton. Not the one that is actually in the Catholic league – they are 2-12. So you can be eight games below .500 and be Co-CCS champion if you are in the Catholic League but not 12 games, don’t you see?

And Gunn plays ‘Tino Friday and the winner plays at Paly Saturday. So I am setting the way back machine to Saturday at Paly regardless if its my Titans or Cupertino. I am medium warm on Paly — I like Jeff LaMere and recognize about four or five of his lads: Chancellor, Martin, a couple others. 

Gunn I can recognize: Ford, a sophomore, was in at crunch time, I sat next to his father; Rogan Gibbons, the hero at Paly for his “hot rod” or “hot Rog” layup at the buzzer; and he was also tourney MVP in the pre-season somewhere; Cheng #3 a quick point guard. There is a Lee, point guard, maybe he’s #1 – his cousins played for a fine team a few years back the high jumper who went to Princeton. He’s been getting quality time and making some plays. I think there is a #13 — I admit I confuse some of the guards with each other. There’s an Ethan Kitch who has been a high scorer, more like a 2-guard, with an outside shot. He sat with a knee brace against Fremont. And his dad is a coach somewhere too. There’s a big, Sam Mulkey, who sank some clutch free throws against Paly and is tough inside. There’s an Elliot Grant, not to be confused with Grant Elliot of Paly lore — I sat with his mother or near her at a game. There’s a 25 same number as Lockhart, made some plays is very athletic at least north-south if not side to side so much. Didn’t catch his name. I would say this is a memorable team — THEY BEAT PALY FOR GOD’S SAKE – -ONLY THE THIRD TIME IN EIGHTEEN SEASONS — THE FIRST TIME AT PALY SINCE 1998. They sort of remind me of the 1979 team, who were seniors when I was a frosh — those guys post-high-school and post-college went on to found about a trillion dollars worth of companies – but maybe that’s not saying that much since pretty much all of their fathers were Nobel Prize winners or presidential advisors. 

Have I mentined yet in this article that i played for the greatest team in Gunn history, 25-3, although I was end of the bench and only got in a handful of times and scored exactly one basket all season? But I still talk to my coach, Hans Delannoy in fact I saw him last night his Wolves of San Ramon – another subtle prosletyzing bit — it was saint-versus-saint Ramon versus Rosa — girls versus boys and boys won — San Ramon beat Santa Rosa by about 20. They had pulled their starters at start of the 4th quarter but then one of the visitors – his name might be Rollo or Rolls like the car — dunked in traffic, and he was only about my size so it was very impressive. But coach Brian – who played for Hans years ago — put his starters back in. And it sort of backfired the lead shrunk to about 13 but then went up again. SRV is only #3 in a tough league —in the North Coast Section. They are better than Gunn or Paly but not as good maybe as Sacred Heart of Atherton, but more fun to watch. (I saw the first half of SHP v. Menlo but left because they all looked like Monroe Trout of Havard who went on to make $900m on Wall Street and retire at age 40 but looks like he never has any fun at all except when counting his money or posting up someone smaller than he. Well, he doesn’t make that look like much fun either, my point). And I sat near Keith Smith who helped SRV win the state a few years ago, I saw on TV and once in person. And I saw Hans Delannoys name in the SRV Hall of fame, some list as Roy Nelu who also played for Nebraska and in the NFL and his niece or cousin I met last fall at The Old Pro is an assistant coach for girls at Aragon of San Mateo. I met her when Washington was at Stanford, another cousin was a Husky not a Wolfe or a Titan or a Viking. I guess this is all what they call cosplay. I think when I watch high school basketball forty years after my own days — or minutes, really — its because I am still not forgiving myself for missing a layup in the tryouts for the 8th grade team at Terman. I missed the layup about four times – which got me cut. But I made about 10,000 shots in my yard and other places, as recently as earlier this week at Johnson Park. And kudos if you are still reading to The New Yorker for circulating a link to John McPhee on Bill Bradley “A Sense of Where You Are” — Mr. Ford says his father played for Princeton. That is, the grandfather of the Gunn sophomore who played a crunch time.