Little School That Could

The welcome sign along U.S. 395 says there are 398 residents of this picturesque place, a map dot nestled next to Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

The principal of the town’s five-classroom middle and high school has his doubts about that.

“Where they all are,” Frank Romero says, “I don’t know.”

When the weather improves, this hamlet is energized by millions who pass through on their way to Yosemite National Park. But with winter comes isolation. Most of the inns and restaurants are closed, as is a service station that during peak season features trapeze performers and meals prepared by a renowned chef.

It certainly doesn’t look like a hotbed for high school sports, but in a very important way, that’s exactly what it is.

The local school, once something of a small-school power, doesn’t win many games anymore. But its students play -- almost all of them.

With 21 students in grades nine through 12, Lee Vining High is the smallest public school with an athletic program in the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section, a region encompassing more than 500 high schools that spans from this place, snuggled close to Nevada and nearly as far north as San Francisco, to the far reaches of the Mojave Desert, to San Clemente, up the coast to Atascadero.

That would be trivial, were sports not woven so tightly into the community fabric. Participation in basketball is a prime example. The rosters have 18 players; 10 of the 11 high school boys, eight of the 10 girls.

In a no-stoplight town lacking a movie theater, much less a mall to cruise, sports is the tie that binds.

“If there were no sports, I don’t know what she’d do,” Patricia Espitia says of daughter Yolanda Ortiz, star guard of the girls’ basketball team. “It’s the reason she keeps her grades up. Playing with her friends is important to her.”

Perks taken for granted by many high school athletes don’t apply here. If not for a recent fund-raiser, the school wouldn’t have regulation basketballs for practice. As for personal agendas, the next Lee Vining student who earns an athletic scholarship to college will be the first in a very long time.

Then there’s the travel.

Lee Vining competes in the Hi-Lo League, a collection of small schools along the 395 corridor and east to Trona, Death Valley and Baker. Over consecutive weekends last month, its yellow school bus logged nearly 500 miles on a two-day trip from home to Ridgecrest to Trona and back, then a week later made another two-day trip of more than 700 miles to Baker, then Shoshone, at the southeast edge of Death Valley, and back.

The circumstances lead to an often-posed question: Why bother?

Ryan Aughinbaugh, a senior, doesn’t hesitate to answer, even though he has gone almost two full seasons -- football and basketball -- playing for teams that haven’t won a varsity game.

“I don’t care so much about winning and losing,” he says. “I play to have fun.”

Making Choices

Why bother?

The question is asked not only about sports, but about the school as a whole. There have been whispers about closing Lee Vining’s doors for more than two decades, since enrollment started to plummet.

When the school was badly damaged in a fire five years ago, up went the volume. But, although devastating, the fire was also the first of two turning points.

“It forced us to say, ‘What kind of community do we want to be?’ ” says Rena McCullough, an instructional aide at the school and coach of the girls’ basketball team. “Do we want to be one of those scary, off-the-charts little towns that people drive through and they’re almost afraid to get out of their cars? Or, do we want to be this really rich and diverse community we know we are?”

Worried that its closing might bring the town one step closer to becoming just another fueling stop, residents answered emphatically. They wanted the school rebuilt.

“What we said was, ‘We want to remain a community, and we want this for our kids,’ ” McCullough says.

Romero’s becoming principal was another boost, and locals had a say in that decision too.

Having left a 6,000-square-foot home overlooking Newport’s Back Bay to come to Lee Vining as a math and science teacher in 2000, Romero was the popular choice to take over as principal two years later.

When the district chose another candidate, there was a revolt. School board approval of such appointments is typically a formality -- but not after a third of the town’s populace drove an hour east to a meeting in Benton, Calif., to demand a change.

“We stood up together and said, ‘We believe we have a great school, but we need a dynamic and passionate leader,’ ” McCullough says. “We wanted the best. We demanded the best. And the school board heard us.”

Romero’s first goal was to install a curriculum tailored to the individual needs of the students, one that would allow them, were they so inclined, to seek work outside the local blue-collar service industries.

Along with English-as-a-second-language courses, Lee Vining offers college advanced-placement classes in statistics (Romero’s specialty, in which he has a doctorate), calculus, chemistry and English.

“A lot of these kids, they didn’t even think about college,” he says. “I wanted to change that.”

Last year, among a graduating class of six, two went to college and another joined the Navy. Progress.

A three-sport star in his day at Azusa High and La Verne University -- “I was a three-point shooter before they had three-point shooting,” Romero says -- the principal encourages sports participation as another way for students to broaden their small-town high school experience.

“Our teams are not very good,” he admits. “In fact, in many cases we stink. But we say, ‘Go out, play hard and have fun.’ We may never have a CIF champion, but our kids love their school and they take a lot of pride in representing it.

“They try.”

School of Hard Knocks

In the fall, Lee Vining competed in eight-man football, a variation of the 11-player game offered by small schools that can’t support a full-sized team.

The Tigers fit the description literally. There was no one on the bench.

“A couple of times we only had seven, if we had an injury,” recalls freshman Francisco “Pancho” Copado.

The coach, Rena McCullough’s husband, Bob, a truck driver for the town’s pumice company, preached one basic goal: “We tried to make it through each game all the way without it being stopped by the 45-point [mercy] rule,” he says.

And they did -- once in nine games.

Now Bob is coaching boys’ basketball and his team is again winless against varsity competition. He’s not altering his approach.

That was apparent when he sent out Bodie Tureson, a 5-foot-3 freshman, to jump center in a recent league game at Big Pine. It was a move befitting his overall strategy.

“We’re not going to win many games, no matter what I do,” the coach says. “It’s more important that they play as hard as they can, have fun, show good sportsmanship and get a chance to experience every part of the game.”

As usual, Lee Vining is overmatched from the outset by a bigger, faster, more athletic opponent. But Bob, his shaved head glimmering under the gymnasium lights, enthusiastically chirps to his boys from the bench. When the Tigers are on defense, he mostly calls, “Help!” -- signaling that an opposing player is again loose and heading toward the basket.

Never is there a discouraging word, though, and the coach loudly rejoices in smaller victories such as a well-set screen or a rare crisp pass.

Midway through the second quarter, Bob sends in Todd Talamontes, who enrolled in school only three days before the game.

Suiting up a transfer student so quickly might raise eyebrows in other situations, but no one at Lee Vining is sweating the risk.

“If someone wants to challenge me, I say go ahead,” Principal Romero says. “Maybe instead of losing by 40 tonight, we’ll only lose by 35.”

Or, as it turns out, by 55.

Wearing lounge-around sneakers and gray ski socks, the new kid commits a turnover and a foul in his first 30 seconds. Although he is a muscular 6-4, it is clear that he has never before played competitive basketball.

Later, though, Talamontes grabs an offensive rebound and puts in a short bank shot, cutting Big Pine’s lead to ... 71-14.

Days later, after another loss, Talamontes is asked to compare basketball at Lee Vining with football at his old school, Mammoth, where he was a starting defensive tackle for a perennially strong team.

“They push you to the limit [at Mammoth],” he says. “Here, it’s chill and have fun. I like it. To me, it’s the same fun, win or lose.”

Toasts of the Town

The pride of Lee Vining has eight players, none taller than 5-5, including two who are in their first season of competitive basketball.

The Lady Tigers, currently in fourth place and in playoff position, are unique in several ways.

Four of the starters are Ortizes and Landas, from Native American families who live in Ferrington Ranch, a cluster of trailers and mobile homes just outside the city limits where there is no electricity or running water. The other is Aleli (pronounced a-le-LEE) Barajas, who last year was living in Guadalajara. She speaks “muy pequeno” -- very little -- English.

One of the reserves is Jherid Marshel, the only white player on the team. She is a sophomore who last year attended a 2,500-student high school in Tampa, Fla.

Individually, the team is not impressive. Warming up, shots ricochet hard off the backboard without hitting the rim and rarely are consecutive passes completed without a bobble.

But collectively Lee Vining is formidable, its defense setting a helter-skelter tempo by playing with ball-hawking, in-your-face aggressiveness.

Coach Rena says her team averages 31 steals a game, which seems improbable -- until you see a game.

That the team plays with such gusto isn’t surprising, considering its fervent approach to seemingly all matters concerning basketball.

Rena uses a program fund-raiser in January as an example.

Needing money for equipment and travel for the teams, school officials organized a dinner-and-bingo night and raffle.

Her eight players sold more than 800 $1 raffle tickets at a time of year, school officials point out, that business is low and unemployment is high. They also got most of the prizes.

“There’s just no explanation for that, other than these kids want to feel good about something, want to belong to something,” Rena says. “They want to play basketball. They want to feel like their efforts, their work, is worthwhile.”

That night, about 150 people -- nearly half the town’s population -- packed the event, which raised $3,000.

Rena becomes teary-eyed, her voice quivering slightly, just thinking about it. She grew up in Vista, Calif., a hotbed for youth sports, a place where there were always more than enough players and money for teams.

“Sometimes my friends from Vista will ask, ‘Don’t you wish you had 30 girls going out, so you had a choice?’ ” the coach says. “And I say, ‘I don’t have ego problems, and my kids come to practice on time. I have kids who work hard to keep their grades up because they know it’s really important that they be able to play. I have kids who have problems among each other and we sit down around a table and we hash it out, like a family.

“ ‘No, I’ll take my kids over any 12 I could pick.’ You play for this team, this school, and your experience isn’t really about basketball.

“It’s about life.”