Beerbower, Castellano hopeful Junior American Basketball will grow in Costa Mesa
Recently, NBA commentator Mark Jackson said his former player Golden State Warriors sensation Stephen Curry is bad for the game of basketball because of his wild outside shots, and he sometimes passes up a drive to the basket for a three-pointer. Jackson probably said that more for shock value because youth coaches like Brian Beerbower find Curry’s game beneficial. Beerbower uses Curry for examples while he teaches kids in his new Junior American Basketball program in Costa Mesa.
“He’s not the tallest guy and he’s not the fastest guy, but he can shoot,” Beerbower says of Curry, which is the message he tells his young ballers. “Everyone can become a better shooter. I usually tell the kids to watch the Curry documentary. For six months, he was just working on rotating the ball (shooting fundamentals) before his dad (former pro Dell Curry) let him shoot the ball. Every team needs a shooter. If you can shoot it consistently there will be a place for you on a team. But also you can’t just be a shooter. You have to do other things.”
Beerbower says he remains excited and passionate about teaching young hoopsters the other things, mainly the fundamentals. This past week, he conducted a basketball clinic at TeWinkle Middle School, also the site of Junior American Basketball, which began last year with the intent to improve the future of basketball at Estancia High.
JAB began a year ago with four teams and improved to 14 teams this year, including three divisions of mainly boys, seventh-and-eighth grade, fifth-and-sixth-grade and third-and-fourth-grade.
The teams play at least 10 games in one season. This current season ends Jan. 31.
Beerbower, 35, who lives in Huntington Beach, has seen youth basketball thrive in Costa Mesa, as he worked for the city parks and recreation when he became affectionately known as, “Mr. Dude.” About 500 kids came out for basketball in Costa Mesa almost 20 years ago.
He’s hopeful JAB will continue to grow.
“I grew up in Huntington Beach,” said Beerbower, who has been coaching youth basketball for 18 years. “I went to Edison High School. While at Edison, that’s when I got the job at Costa Mesa parks and recreation. That’s when I fell in love with Costa Mesa. I worked at Davis Elementary and California Elementary. I worked in Costa Mesa for 12 years. I always had a special place in my heart for Costa Mesa. I always think of it as my home away from home, especially if you ever see me at Wingnuts.”
Beerbower started JAB because his friend Xavier Castellano asked him to. Castellano, an Estancia alumnus, coached the Eagles girls’ basketball team before becoming the boys’ basketball coach last year.
There’s also the Flight School club that feeds into Estancia, but Castellano and Beerbower wanted JAB to attract younger basketball players.
Their idea was to have a T-shirt type league, keep it simple but enforce fundamentals and competitive play. The program has two seasons during the year, sort of mimicking what Friday Night Lights flag football has done successfully in the area, Beerbower said.
They have a website, www.junioramericanbasketball.com, and they intend to post the kids’ statistics for everyone to see.
“I think it gives something else the other leagues don’t offer,” Beerbower said.
Castellano asked Beerbower to help him with starting the youth basketball program because they’re friends, but also because Beerbower was a part of starting the successful Fab Five program in Huntington Beach that has helped Edison boys’ basketball.
Last year, Beerbower saw many of his players from the first group of Fab Five help lead Edison to reach the CIF Southern Section Division 1A championship game.
“They had a great run,” Beerbower said of the Chargers who featured former Fab Five players Brae Ivey, Derek Molina and A.J. Garrity among others. “That was a really fun group of kids to coach. That whole first class was loaded with talent. We won a lot of tournaments with those kids.”
It will be hard to duplicate that type of success in Costa Mesa, especially when so many of the kids go on to play other sports, or attend schools in Huntington Beach or private schools in Orange County, Beerbower said.
He encourages the children to play other sports, to have fun and gain more athleticism.
“The youth in Costa Mesa, the sky is the limit if they all stay in Costa Mesa,” Beerbower said. “If we develop the kids in the game, I could see [Costa Mesa High and Estancia] being among the top teams in their league. It just takes time.”
Beerbower said the JAB program will help the young basketball players prepare for the high school game because many players who come to the high school teams aren’t really ready.
A lot of the kids play in the tough Coastal Athletic League in junior high, but still miss out on developing because there hasn’t been help or an outlet like JAB, Beerbower said.
“It’s hard to build a team with just one or two kids,” he said. “If you can develop the program the sky is the limit for any school. It’s just a matter of keeping them in the sport, keep them healthy and keep them academically eligible.”
