HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL : Courtless Champions Cope on Blacktop

The blacktop basketball courts at Whitney High School in Cerritos are unforgiving. With their rusty fan backboards, metal nets and bent rims, the outdoor courts are far from the reality of prep basketball competition.

There are no glass backboards. Leather balls are out of the question. And that swoosh a shot makes when it draws nothing but net has been replaced by a clank .

Against this backdrop, the Whitney boys basketball team strives to succeed. This is home to the CIF Southern Section’s defending Small Schools Division champion, at 183rd Street and Shoemaker Avenue.

It’s a peaceful place. Classrooms look out on tree-shrouded sidewalks and the shake roofs of a residential neighborhood. The surroundings look more like a park playground than a high school campus.

But this is not a typical high school. As part of the ABC Unified School District, Whitney, opened in 1975, is a college preparatory campus. It was named the top scholastic public school in the state in 1985.

To attend, a student has to pass an extensive achievement test, and that doesn’t ensure acceptance. About 1,200 students were turned away last year.

To participate in athletics, students are required to maintain a 3.0 (B) grade-point average. Last year’s basketball team maintained a 3.5 average GPA while marching to a 23-6 record and the championship game of the state Division III finals (which it lost to Crossroads of Santa Monica).

“It’s like having five additional coaches on the court,” said Wildcat Coach Bruce Carlisle.

If only Whitney could have its own court.

An agreement between the school district and the city to build a sports complex at the site fell through recently.

When weekly practices began last month, Carlisle secured three hours a day in a gymnasium at closed Excelsior High School in Norwalk. But that court is deteriorating and dimly lighted.

There are other inconveniences that Carlisle and his players deal with daily.

Next to the 10-by-10-foot modular mess Carlisle calls an office is an equally dingy, two-stall restroom that serves as a dressing room. No showers, no towels, just a couple of sinks.

“If you’re a senior you’re really lucky . . . you get the executive dressing room--your car,” Carlisle joked.

The team’s first home game will be Jan. 9, a month before the regular season ends.

“We can’t get the gym when we need it,” Carlisle said.

Still, the basketball team keeps winning. In the last four seasons Whitney has averaged 16 wins. (And Small Schools play fewer games than upper-division teams because of budget restraints.)

The Wildcats have advanced to the playoffs three times. In its first season, Whitney’s John Brown led all section schools in scoring average.

Brown, now a volunteer assistant coach, thinks he knows the secret to Whitney’s success.

“It’s Bruce,” he said. “He never expects more than one’s ability from you. All he asks is that you work hard for him.”

That Carlisle, 33, would even be in a position to discuss basketball strategy seemed unrealistic 11 years ago when he was hired by the district fresh out of Cal State Dominguez Hills as a drama instructor for Cerritos High.

This is a guy who fancies a career as a stand-up comic: “I haven’t seen a practice drill yet that I didn’t steal.”

He hates whistles, loves to play golf and, according to senior forward James Justice, “makes us listen to bad jokes and we can’t do

anything about it.”

The diminutive Carlisle’s cadence is a wisecrack a minute.

But a basketball coach? His only experience came as a smart-mouthed, 5-foot-8 reserve guard at Fountain Valley High School in 1971.

“And I was terrible ,” he admits.

In high school about the only thing he liked to do besides hustle duffers on the golf course was watch UCLA basketball games on television. He became engrossed in the teaching philosophies of Coach John Wooden in the Bruins’ decade of dominance. Since then, Carlisle has devoured everything Wooden has written and has seen every UCLA highlight film of the Wooden years at least a dozen times.

Last year he met Wooden and they spent 30 minutes discussing basketball. Carlisle says it was the thrill of his life.

He admires Wooden for the positive attitude he instilled in his UCLA teams, and he has applied that philosophy at Whitney.

“Wooden never took the credit,” he said. “Get the stupid ego out of the way and let the kids play. Coaches usually screw things up. The players deserve the credit.”

According to Justice, a 6-2 forward, that means “he doesn’t just kick us . . . for doing something wrong.”

Boards, banks and dedication.

Loosely translated, that is Carlisle’s playing strategy--strong rebounding, take only bank shots and have fun succeeding--and it has earned him the nickname of “The Wizard of Whitney.” He’s the only coach the school has had.

“I get the players to accomplish their goals,” he said. “I don’t want to steal their glory. . . .

“At our school it’s the academics that put so much pressure on the kids, not sports. They need to relax and have fun. That’s what I try to do with basketball.”

Senior Matt Bowley, last year’s Small Schools player of the year as a 6-2 swingman, agrees. During a practice at Excelsior recently, Bowley made a point of expressing his feelings about Carlisle to a spectator:

“He’s more than a coach. He’s a friend.”

This could be a momentous season for Whitney. The five starters and three reserves that return know where they stand in life. These are the potential physicists and engineers of the world. At this level, kids generally play basketball for fun, not future considerations.

Said Carlisle: “I have maybe three or four kids that can play college ball at all,” he said. “So for most of them this is their NBA. This is the highest rung they’ll reach.”

They certainly aren’t shying from competition. Included on this year’s schedule is a 2-A tournament in Costa Mesa, where they open against La Quinta, a 3-A team, and a single game with Cantwell, a 5-A team. In fact, all of Whitney’s pre-season games are against upper division teams.

In addition to Bowley and Justice--an all-state tournament first-team selection--returning are Chris Barnes, a 6-5 center who made the all-state first team, and 5-10 guards Clayton Haines and Alex Ahn, who were all-state second-team choices.

Experienced, poised, smart and crafty, the team is expected to fuel itself with the memories of a year ago. “If they don’t win it all this year, than I didn’t do a very good job of coaching,” Carlisle said.

“I saw the potential of this team a couple of years ago, but I really was surprised that we went so far in the playoffs last year. I thought maybe this would be the year. But these kids know what it takes to win and they go out and do it.”

Carlisle is putting his reputation on the line. He was so irate when the deal for a campus gymnasium fell through he announced he would resign his coaching job at the end of the season to concentrate on his role of athletic director.

“I’ve done just about everything I can possibly do here,” he said. “Nobody spends less on its athletes than Whitney High School. I don’t think you could get away with it at a Cerritos (High) or Gahr. It’s amazing we even win at all.”

But if Whitney doesn’t win this year, it will be a surprise.