Coach Puts a Winning Wind in Viking Cagers’ Sails

Not too many years ago, the St. Bernard High School boys basketball team didn’t exactly strike fear in the hearts of opponents. The parochial school of about 1,300 students nestled in Playa del Rey had a penchant for losing.

And losing often.

In the 1975-76 season, the Vikings managed just 3 wins and lost 20 times.

Enter Glenn Marx. After three seasons as head coach he started a new tradition at St. Bernard--winning.

And winning often.

In 1978-79, St. Bernard finished with a 22-6 record, losing to Long Beach Poly in the semifinals of the CIF playoffs. Although that was Marx’s last season, the tradition had been established.

5 League Titles

During the next five years, St. Bernard compiled a 145-24 record (.858 win percentage), won five league titles, was the CIF 3-A champion in 1982 and sent 17 players into college on basketball scholarships.

The list of former St. Bernard players now on the college hardwood reads like a “Who’s Who” in the Pacific-10 Conference:

Corey Gaines (UCLA), Rod Keller (USC), Chris Washington (Cal) and Bobby Thompson (Arizona State) all started on the 1982-83 team that lost in triple overtime to Bosco Tech in the CIF semifinals; Keith Ramee (Stanford) and Kevin Vidato (Washington) from the class of 1982, and Eric Knox (Oregon State) and Leonard Taylor (Cal) from the class of 1984.

Others still making an impact on the basketball court include: Reggie Howard (UC Riverside) and Errol Talley (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), last year’s graduates; Bryan Williams (UC Irvine) 1984; Phil James (El Camino), the fifth starter from the 1983 team, and Ronnie Grandison (University of New Orleans) and Robert Howling (Wyoming) from the class of 1982.

A brief stop at the archives reveals names such as 1981 grad Billy Knox (St. Mary’s College), Michael Gerren (Santa Monica College and the University of Southern Alabama) and Butch Hayes (Cal) from the class of 1980 and Lance Washington (Utah State) 1979.

Turned Around in ’77

Marx and Jim McClune--who has been at St. Bernard for 10 years, the last five as head coach after being an assistant to Marx and then to Donovan Green--attribute the turnaround in the school’s basketball program to Lance Washington’s arrival in 1977.

“Lance Washington was the first big-name player at St. Bernard,” said Marx of the All-CIF point guard. “He was very popular in the community. He was like a folk hero.”

Marx said Washington became the school’s biggest recruiter.

“The program was kind of dismal at that point,” said Washington, who transferred from Loyola. “It was not a basketball power. But because of that, it gave me the opportunity to really shine.”

Washington raised the eyebrows of others in the basketball community.

“The word gets around,” Washington said. “It’s really a small world.”

Others Joined Team

Butch Hayes, who is now playing professional basketball in England, and Michael Gerren, joined Washington in 1977 in laying the foundation for the future. And in 1978, another piece of the puzzle, a 6-4 power forward named Billy Knox, arrived.

But no one expected the Vikings to have the kind of season they did.

Marx said that after Pasadena advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF playoffs, its coach was asked who he thought would win the other quarterfinal game between Marina and St. Bernard. As Marx tells the story, Coach George Terzian said matter-of-factly that Marina would win based on the strength of its “superior tradition.”

The Vikings not only beat Marina, but knocked Pasadena, the CIF champions the previous two seasons, out of the playoffs.

‘Cinderella Team’

“We were the Cinderella team,” Washington said. “We played the cream of the crop and won.

“It just overwhelmed me. We weren’t expecting that kind of success.”

Knox, who plays in a Los Angeles City league with Washington and in a Winter Pro-Am League in hopes of catching the eye of a professional scout, said he, too, was surprised by the rapid turnaround.

“When I walked into the program, the school was finishing with just ungodly records,” Knox said. “But our coach had some Thoroughbreds and he knew how to use them.”

The Marx philosophy was to run, press, run, play man-to-man defense and then run some more.

“We played an up-tempo game,” Knox said. “And there’s a lot of guys in L.A. that fit that mold and that draws them to St. Bernard.

“And talent does draw talent.”

And Washington, Knox, Hayes and Gerren drew talent like a magnet draws nails.

Talented Freshmen

In 1979, Washington was off for Utah State and Marx was bound for Notre Dame High School, but five highly touted freshmen, Corey Gaines, Bobby Thompson, Chris Washington, Rod Keller and Phil James, and a new coach, Donovan Green, more than adequately filled the void.

The Vikings improved to 24-3 in the 1979-80 season, winning their first league title since 1971. They continued their new winning tradition, capturing league championships in each of the next four years.

“One reason I chose St. Bernard was that I knew a lot of the guys already,” said Gaines, a guard at UCLA. “I’ve known Chris (Washington) since we both were real young and I had played with Bobby (Thompson) on the L.A. Blazers (a summer team).”

Washington, who is now averaging about 11 points a game for Cal, said he was playing in a tournament and met Green, who invited him to watch a St. Bernard practice. He said he was mesmerized by what he saw and knew St. Bernard was the place to go.

“I saw Butch Hayes and Billy Knox running their pressure defense and I really liked it,” he said. “And I knew the basketball program was growing; they went to the semifinals the year before.”

And the talent kept rolling in.

Leonard Taylor, the 1985 Pac-10 rookie of the year who now rooms with Washington at Cal, and Bryan Williams arrived in 1980 and Eric Knox, Billy’s younger brother, enrolled in 1981.

Saw Brother Play

“The first high school games I ever went to were to watch my brother play,” said Eric Knox, who is out this season with a knee injury but was a starting guard in Oregon State’s final 26 games last year and earned a spot on the Pac-10 all-freshman team.

“The fan support was just unbelievable. And you could just see the talent was coming in. You knew it was going to be a rags-to-riches story.”

Knox said he looked forward to the practices more than the games. After all, he said, with the abundance of talent, “it was like an all-star game every day.”

McClune said that when Gaines was a senior, he was going up against Knox every day in practice, which helped both players improve.

“Corey knew that if he didn’t jump as high and play his hardest, Eric would outplay him,” McClune said. “If you’re not pushed in practice, where 90% of your basketball is played, you just won’t improve.

Practice a Classroom

“Games are where the improvement is shown, but the improvement takes place in the classroom of the practices.”

Despite a new tradition, all those players reached for comment said the main reason they and their parents chose St. Bernard was for its academic, not athletic, prowess.

“It gave you a fine mix of people and quality teachers,” Lance Washington said. “And all of that makes for a good learning environment, which definitely helped me when I got to college.”

Washington, who was the starting point guard for three seasons at Utah State and as a senior led his team into the NCAA tournament, said he was able to graduate in four years with a degree in public relations and a minor in business thanks to the academic rigors at St. Bernard. He is now a sales representative for a Fortune 500 company.

“It’s well respected for its academics and people know when they send their kids to St. Bernard, they’re going to get a quality education both on and off the court,” said Billy Knox, who was graduated from St. Mary’s in four years with a degree in communications and a minor in sociology.

Rod Keller, a 6-9 center who has started several games this season at USC, said he chose St. Bernard primarily for its long-standing academic reputation.

No Mickey Mouse Classes

“St. Bernard was a college prep school and I wanted to be prepared for college,” Keller said. “None of us took any Mickey Mouse classes.”

Keller finished his high school career with a 3.8 grade-point average and membership in the National Honor Society. At USC, he is maintaining about a 3.2 average while pursuing a business degree.

Keller, however, said the winning ways of the basketball team were a definite plus.

“The basketball program was up and coming,” he said. “I knew the type of player that was there and knew the program was getting better and better each year.”

This season, St. Bernard (16-6) struggled somewhat, but is the No. 4 seed in the CIF 5-A playoffs and talent still abounds.

Kirkland Howling, a senior guard who is averaging more than 16 points a game, has, like Billy Knox, followed his brother Robert to St. Bernard.

“Him playing here definitely influenced me to come here,” said Howling, who said he is being recruited by Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount University and Clemson, among others. “I used to go to all his games when I was younger. And even before I came to St. Bernard, I knew a lot of the guys, like Eric Knox and Bryan Williams.”

But St. Bernard’s newest star is David Whitmore, a 6-3 junior guard, whom McClune said he had never even heard of two years ago.

‘Who’s David Whitmore?’

“I had just come back from summer vacation and somebody said that David Whitmore was coming here,” McClune said. “And I said, ‘Who’s David Whitmore?’

“I don’t get out to scout and so I had no clue who he was. But I guess he’s an example of someone who had heard of the program and decided it was something he wanted to try.”

Whitmore, whose brother attended nearby Westchester High, said he opted for St. Bernard “because I had always heard good things about the basketball program and the academics.”

He said the financial hardships that the tuition and fees of a private school put on his single mother almost induced him to leave St. Bernard last year. But a conversation with Eric Knox changed that.

“Eric said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t leave St. Bernard,’ ” Whitmore said. “He said college coaches will see you and they’ll know your basketball and your grades will be good because it’s St. Bernard.”