San Diego College Review / Rick Hazeltine : Zarecky Learns at USIU While His Team Loses

Gary Zarecky didn’t need to learn how to win when he coached at Sweetwater High School. His teams were 241-110 in 13 seasons, including 8 consecutive 20-win seasons and 10 consecutive trips to CIF San Diego Section playoffs.

These days, however, Zarecky is learning something new. It’s called humility.

Last year, Zarecky became men’s basketball coach at United States International University, which was the worst National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I team in the nation two years ago.

Zarecky coached the Gulls to an 8-20 record his first season. That may not seem like much, but eight victories are more than USIU had in the previous three years combined.

Still the lessons taught coaches in Division I basketball come hard.

“The totality of coaching at this level overwhelmed me,” Zarecky said. “At this level it’s mind boggling the things you have to do. It forces you to be more multidimensional.

“It also made me work harder and I realized where my roots were. I needed to relearn about humility. I discovered it’s a good lesson to get knocked down once in a while.”

Zarecky and the Gulls figure to get knocked down a couple of more times. But they are on their way to being able to stand on their own.

Zarecky raised $85,000 so the university could play its home games at Golden Hall in downtown San Diego. The Gulls have played at whatever high school or community college gym they could find.

He also brought in 11 new players, more than any Division I team in the nation. Returning is senior guard Joe Yezback, the No. 3 scorer in the nation last season with 27 points per game. USIU was the nation’s highest-scoring team with 91 points per game.

Two of Zarecky’s top recruits are Dexter Magee (6-7, 225) from Saddleback College, brother of former UC Irvine All-American Kevin Magee, and Steve Smith (6-3, 190) from Serra High School, an All-CIF guard as a senior.

USIU has an easier schedule than in past years when it would regularly play national powers on the road. And regularly be run out of the arena.

“You get respectability by winning,” Zarecky said. “But first you have to play in your range. And then beat those teams.”

Zarecky said he plans to improve the schedule each year. In 1987-88, for instance, the Gulls will play road games against Iowa State and Oregon State and play host to SMU.

“I had a lot to learn entering Division I ball,” he said. “I learned a lot, but I still have a lot more to learn.”

UC San Diego plays host to three Division III West Regional events, starting Thursday with the first round of the six-team volleyball regional. Top-ranked UCSD (38-6) and No. 2 Menlo College (35-8) received a bye in the first round.

The winner between No. 13 La Verne (19-15) and unranked Methodist College of North Carolina (32-14) will play the Tritons at 8 p.m. Friday. The winner between No. 18 Colorado College (22-9) and No. 17 Cal State San Bernardino (26-11) will play Menlo at 5:30 p.m. Friday. The final is Saturday at 8 p.m.

Occidental College is favored to defend its men’s and women’s regional cross-country titles Saturday when 29 teams compete on UCSD’s Warren Field. The 14-team men’s race starts at 11 a.m. and the 15-team women’s race starts at noon. Both Triton teams will compete.

The No. 12 UCSD men’s soccer team will play host to No. 6 St. John’s of Minnesota (14-0-0) Sunday at 1 p.m. in the final at Warren Field. The Tritons (15-5) advanced to the quarterfinals last year.

The San Diego State men’s soccer team was not selected to play the Division I tournament. SDSU, ranked No. 17, seemed to have secured a berth with a 3-0 victory over No. 3 and previously unbeaten Southern Methodist last Saturday in the Nevada Las Vegas tournament. But the Aztecs (14-3-4), ranked No. 3 in the Far West, lost, 2-1, in double overtime Sunday to unranked University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. The NCAA selected four other teams from the Far West: No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 University of San Francisco, No. 4 California and No. 5 Fresno State. Cal State Fullerton received an automatic berth by winning the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. title. During the regular season, the Aztecs tied UCLA in Westwood, lost to Fresno State in Fresno and defeated Fullerton.

A fourth UCSD team will compete in the NCAA championships. The women’s soccer team advanced to the first Division III national championship with a 1-0 overtime victory over St. Mary’s of Minnesota last Sunday. The No. 5 Tritons (15-4-4) will travel to Cortland, New York to play No. 3 Rochester (11-2-2) Saturday at noon in the championship semifinals. Top-ranked Cortland State (18-3-2) plays No. 13 Plymouth State, New Hampshire (13-4-1) in the other semifinal. The championship match is Sunday.

SDSU soccer player Kyle Whittemore broke his school records for points in a season and consecutive matches scored. Whittemore, a sophomore from Seattle, scored a goal in his last two matches to end the season with 20 goals and 10 assists for 50 points, breaking the record of 45 he set as a freshman in 1984. He also scored in his final seven matches, breaking his record of six, also set in 1984. Whittemore redshirted in 1985 because of a broken ankle.