Ward of the Court : Calabasas’ Steve Ward Started With Just a Shot; Teams Now Judge Him the One to Stop

As an eighth grader, Steve Ward once asked his father how he could improve his jump shot.

“I told him, ‘Go out and work on it,’ ” Len Ward recalled. “I told him to shoot.”

So Ward went out and shot. And shot. And shot some more.

These days, Steve Ward is still shooting. Every day, the Calabasas High junior takes at least 300 jump shots and a minimum of 150 free throws.

“He’s always playing,” Calabasas basketball Coach Bill Bellatty said. “He’s practically grown up in the gym.”

The countless hours Ward has spent on the court are paying off. Ward, a 6-4, 180-pound guard who has started for three seasons, is one of the leading scorers in the Valley, averaging 27.9 points a game.

Ward is shooting 57% from the field, making 168 shots in 295 attempts. His accuracy is more impressive when considering that most of Ward’s shots are from 15 to 20 feet.

“He’s the best shooter I’ve ever had,” Bellatty said. “I’ve only coached at the varsity level for three years, but I’ve known a lot of ball players. He’s an outstanding shooter.”

Said Cleveland High Coach Bob Braswell: “That kid can shoot the ball. Besides Fairfax’s Sean Higgins, he’s the best pure shooter I’ve seen.”

It should come as no surprise that Ward can shoot. One of his relatives, Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks, has been known to score a point or two.

Ward, a very personable 16 year old, isn’t one to gloat over his accomplishments. As his father describes him, he is “quietly confident.”

Said Ward: “As long as I follow through, I think the ball is going to go in every time. When I practice, I shoot from all over the court, just like I would in a game. So I have confidence.”

Ward and 6-6 center Jon Perlstein are the main offensive threats for the Coyotes. Perlstein, who does most of his work near the basket, averages 18.1 points a game. The Ward-Perlstein combination has made Calabasas a strong contender for the Frontier League title.

The Coyotes are 8-6 overall and 0-1 in league following last week’s 22-point loss to Santa Clara.

The Saints held Ward to a season-low 19 points. Santa Clara played a box-and-one defense, where four players play a zone and one player follows the other team’s best shooter.

Ward ended up with 21 shot attempts. He had seven after the first quarter, but only 14 for the rest of the game, when the Saints played box-and-one.

Opponents have used several different strategies to try to stop Ward.

Burbank Coach Russ Keith didn’t use the box-and-one. “Instead, our intentions were to deny him the ball,” Keith said. “But we didn’t do a very good job. He worked very hard to get open.”

Ward finished with 30 against the Bulldogs. “He’s the best I’ve seen this year, as far as shooting,” Keith added.

Cleveland played a regular man-to-man defense. Ward scored 22, but left Braswell impressed.

“They set good screens for him and that’s all he needs,” Braswell said. “I’m very impressed with him because he works hard for his shots.”

Ward said he is working more for his shots this season because defenses are working harder against him.

“They’re coming out on me when I get the ball,” he said. “I’m having to drive a little bit more and create a little bit more.”

It didn’t take long for Ward to find out that he would be a marked man this season.

“We played Beverly Hills in our opener,” Ward said, “and the first time down the floor, the guy told me he was going to be in my pants the whole night.”

Ward responded by hitting his first shot.

Ward is averaging 21 shots a game. In a game against Harvard this season, he shot the ball 35 times, finishing with a school record 39 points, two better than his highest total of last season.

Ward isn’t the type to let many things bother him, but please, he asks, do not call him a gunner.

“I don’t think I’m taking an awesome number of shots,” he said. “I’m probably taking the same amount as last year, but I’m making a whole bunch more. It bothers me when people say I shoot a whole bunch. I think I can pass.”

Ward is averaging nearly 3.5 assists a game, along with six rebounds. He said he is looking to pass more. “Especially when it’s a blowout,” he said. “I can’t lie. It’s on my ind.”

To prove that shooting isn’t the only thing on Ward’s mind, Bellatty offered as an example a tournament game with Santa Clara earlier this season.

The Coyotes trailed by two, but had the ball with 35 seconds left. During a timeout, Bellatty set up a play for Ward to shoot.

“He said, ‘No coach. We’ll run the same play, but I’ll dish it off to Jon inside for a layup,’ ” Bellatty said.

Ward got the ball to Perlstein, who made a layup to tie the game and send it into overtime. Calabasas eventually won, 65-57, the first victory over Santa Clara in the school’s eight-year history.

Ward’s success is appreciated by his teammates, according to Perlstein. “Definitely,” the senior center said. “I know of no animosity on the team. We’re all pretty close and that has helped us as a team.”

It wasn’t always that way.

Ward was a 14-year-old freshman when he made the Calabasas varsity. He not only made the team, but became a starter.

In the season-opener that year against Chaminade, Ward started at point guard. “I was hoping to have a good first game,” he said. “The first thing I saw was their full-court press. It killed me. I kept throwing the ball away. I don’t think I scored that game.

“It was the worst night I ever had.”

Ward averaged just five points as a freshman. “He was tentative,” Bellatty said.

Added Ward: “My job was to get the ball past half court and get it to our big men. We played about 20 games that year, and the first 15 or so were the most miserable times I’ve had in my entire life.”

Ward had trouble accepting the fact that he wasn’t the only player on the court with ability. He also said some of the older players resented a freshman coming in and taking a starting position.

It got to the point where he had trouble sleeping, Ward said. “I was just waiting for the year to end.”

Bellatty thinks it wasn’t so much resentment toward Ward as it was the freshman “being intimidated about playing on the varsity.”

Ward said talks with his father helped him that first year.

“I just told him that he was a freshman and that he had to prove himself,” Len Ward said. “The older players were checking him out, seeing what he had.”

Toward the end of his freshman season, Ward moved to off-guard. “The last five games of the year, I averaged 15 points,” he said.

Ward earned first-team all-league honors as a sophomore after averaging 19.6 points a game. He was tops on the team in scoring and was named the Coyotes’ most valuable player. He also made the second team All-Southern Section in the 2-A Division.

So everything went well for Ward as a sophomore?

“At the beginning of last year,” he said, “I was averaging close to 21 shots a game. Toward the end, I was averaging 16. I don’t think that was because I was afraid to shoot.”

Ward said that, again, some of his teammates resented him and that there were divisions on the team.

“There were guys who had been on the team and were scoring a lot before we got here,” Perlstein said. “When we started scoring, they started getting on him, keeping the ball away from him. I just told him to keep shooting and wait his time.

“Now, it’s his time.”

Ward said that this year’s team is much closer. No problems so far, he said.

Calabasas isn’t the first place where Ward had to prove that he belonged. The first time came when he was a youngster in Philadelphia.

When Mike Ward went to the playgrounds for some pickup basketball, he would take his little brother, Steve, along.

One day, Mike gave 5-year-old Steve the ball. “And I’ve been shooting ever since.”

When Ward was eight, he finally made his way into games with Mike and the gang, most of whom were six years older and much taller.

“I learned to dribble then, and I learned to shoot from the outside ,” Ward said. “Way outside.”

The Ward family moved to Calabasas when Steve was 11. The move didn’t cut into his appetite for basketball.

Ward joined up with the American Roundball Corporation when he was in the sixth grade. From the first time he saw him, Rich Goldberg, ARC president, has liked Ward.

“When I was varsity coach at Calabasas,” Goldberg said, “I’d go home from practice and he’d be on the outside courts at school working on things.”

When Mike Ward, now 22, played for the Calabasas varsity, Steve served as a ball boy.

After next season, Ward will probably end up at a Division I school.

“A couple of years ago,” Goldberg said, “I would have said it was questionable as to whether he could play Division I. Now, he’s improved to the point where he’s bona fide Division I.”

Ward said that he has given thought to several colleges, especially USC and Wake Forest. Thoughts of professional ball have entered his mind, he said.

If Ward makes it to the NBA, he can only hope to have the same success as Wilkins, his fourth cousin, who has become one of the premier forwards in the game.

“When I tell people that Dominique is my cousin, they say, ‘Oh, you can’t jump as high as he can,’ ” Ward said, before adding with a laugh, “Yeah, but I tell them that he can’t shoot from the outside like I can.”

Few in the Valley can.