Notebook / Ray Ripton : A Coach Who ‘Encouraged Us to Be Good Men’

Players and students of Dick North, the Palisades High School coach and history teacher who was buried last week, probably never thought of him as Mr. Chips. More like Mr. Hardwood.

North, who was 55 and got out of coaching a few years ago because of poor health, was a disciplinarian, an ex-Marine who expected as much from his football and baseball players--and from his students--as he did from himself.

He remained as a teacher at the school until his death Aug. 1, apparently from a recurrence of circulatory problems.

North and Merritt Stanfield became co-head coaches of the first football team at Palisades in 1961, and they led the Dolphins to 17 winning seasons and nine league championships. They were named Westside coaches of the year by The Times in 1972 and 1974.

Their teams may not have been fancy, but they were prepared. While opponents may have known what was coming, the Palisades offense, coached by North, was so well drilled that it usually couldn’t be stopped.

In the 1970s, North had a running back named Ricky Maddox, who was short and stubby and not very fast. But Maddox was tough and North called his number often. Maddox would lower his head and bang into tacklers, dragging them along while he made extra yardage.

North led his life in much the same way.

He didn’t alibi when Banning High and Freeman McNeil, later a star UCLA and New York Jets runner, came from behind to defeat Palisades in the semifinals of the 1975 Los Angeles City playoffs. He lowered his head and thought about getting ready for next year.

In 1982, North’s last baseball team was the first from Palisades to reach a City championship game--and the first to have a no-hitter thrown against them in the playoffs. The pitcher was Bret Saberhagen, then with Cleveland High School, who led the Kansas City Royals to a World Series title and was the Cy Young Award winner last year.

After Saberhagen had no-hit his team, North had no excuses. He simply said, “We did everything wrong, and they did everything right. They’ve got a helluva pitcher.”

North seldom had athletes who were in the “helluva” category, the can’t-miss types like McNeill or Saberhagen. But he usually got the most out of the players he had.

One of his former football players, Ric Kinnan, a pallbearer at North’s funeral, is a good example of the sort of player North liked to turn out.

Kinnan said he was “not a great student of the game” at Palisades, that, instead, he did “a lot of surfing.”

In the 1975 season, Kinnan was a sophomore reserve running back who didn’t see a lot of playing time. “After that year Dick and I talked. He saw me catch a few passes out of the backfield and thought that maybe I could catch the ball. That summer I tried out as a wide receiver in the passing league, and it worked out real well.”

In his junior year, Kinnan said he did all right as a receiver in the team’s first few games but dropped a few passes. He said that after the last pre-league game, North took him aside, looked sternly at him and told him, “There are no two ways about it. You’ve gotta start catching the ball and you have to start this week.”

In the next game, he said, he caught five passes, including two for touchdowns, and led Palisades to victory. He also played quarterback and defensive back in his career, and in his senior year he was a Times All-Westside wide receiver.

Kinnan said he played for a year at Santa Monica College and then received a scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan University, where he became a star pass catcher and an Academic All-American.

He graduated from Loyola Marymount University Law School in 1985, joined a Los Angeles law firm this year and argued his first case recently. He won.

Kinnan said he remembers that North “was all business on the field and never had much time to shoot the breeze. I remember respecting that.” But after he graduated and came back to see North on occasion, Kinnan said his ex-coach “was always interested in what I was doing, in following my career on and off the field.

“I thought he was a great man. He encouraged us to be good football players, but at the same time he really encouraged us to be good men. Because of the discipline and values he instilled in me, to be organized and be the best that you can be, I worked hard to make things right for his team and my team.”

Gentleman was the word most often on the lips of the colleagues who knew North best.

Stanfield, who retired from Palisades after the 1984 season, said, “We all know how tough he was. But I remember him most as one of the finest gentleman I’ve ever known.”

Tom Chatham, the Palisades athletic director for 12 years and now a career counselor at the school, echoed Stanfield’s remarks, “He was a true gentleman . . . and one of the finest coaches I’ve ever worked with.”

Dave Weinstein, current Palisades athletic director, said, “What really has to be stressed is that Dick was a consistent winner, but he was always a gentleman. He was a class act for a young man to follow. He taught kids how to win, but he also knew how to lose.”

Maybe no Mr. Chips. But chips have a way of blowing in the wind; hardwood endures.

The Culver City Babe Ruth All-Stars came up with a one-run win, and the West Los Angeles Senior Little League All-Stars suffered two one-run loses last week. Which means that the Culver City team will be going to a national tournament, and the West Los Angeles club won’t.

Danny Melendez pitched a three-hitter and struck out seven to lead Culver to a 2-1 win over Hawaii in the final of the Babe Ruth Pacific Southwest Regional tournament at Vallejo. The winning run was a fourth-inning homer by third baseman Todd Steverson.

Steverson’s blow carried his team into the Babe Ruth World Series, which opens Saturday - in Newark, Ohio.

But West Los Angeles lost to Las Vegas, 11-10 and 7-6, in a double-header final of the Senior Little League Western Regional at Santa Rosa.

Both local teams, the Culver City squad for boys 13 through 15, and West Los Angeles for those 14 and 15, had gone undefeated to reach their regional playoffs. For West Los Angeles, the highlight of the regionals came when pitcher Jon Aguilar tossed a no-hitter to defeat Richmond, 3-0, in the semifinals.

Culver will be shooting for its third national Babe Ruth championship. Its team of 13 year-olds won a national title in 1981 and its squad of boys 14 and 15 won another in 1983.

Carlos Melendez, Danny’s father, is manager of the Culver club. His coaches are Art Keith and Ben Dudley.

Other Culver stars at the regional included pitcher-outfielder Eric Alexander, who pitched nine scoreless innings in relief in the team’s first three games, and first baseman Fred Smith, who stole home to score the first run in the final against Hawaii. In a 7-6 win over Hayward, Alexander struck out seven of the nine batters he faced.

The rest of the Culver club includes center fielder Lamar Rogers, second baseman Juan Cueva, right fielder Mauricio Estavil, catcher Steve Wachler, shortstop Jose Estavil (Mauricio’s brother) and catcher-pinch hitter Earl Johnson.

Others are infielders Eric Orue, Brian Dennis and Placido Esteves, pitcher David Reed and infielder-outfielder Michael Moore. Dan Kaufman managed the West Los Angeles team, and his coaches were Don Rappaport, Ken Collins and Scott McConnell.

Others beside “No-Hit” Aguilar are Eric Allen, Jason Beckerman, Kevin Boasberg, Danny Brown, Michael Codron and Randy Fink. More are Kevin Fisher, Larry Israel, Barry Levine, Eric Newhouse, David Ravitz, Rodolfo Reynoso and Travis Woods.