Lovely’s Simple Goal: Make 1987 a Great Year

“Make 1987 a great year” might be a New Year’s resolution too ambiguous for most diaries, but for Ursula Lovely of Kennedy High School, those five words, scribbled in red, go straight to the point.

Lovely, a star in basketball and track and field, wants what many other high school seniors desire as they face the last months of their prep careers: To have the best season ever. To surpass all prior accomplishments. To secure a college scholarship.

Heady stuff, but Lovely wants more.

“I want to make all-CIF in basketball, win state in high jump, and jump at least 6-1,” Lovely said. “I usually don’t believe in resolutions, but this year I’ll make an exception. I want to erase the frustrations of last year.”

Those frustrations came to a head last spring. She did not get along with Pat Ward, then track and field coach, and was eventually dismissed from the team. She missed the Southern Section 3-A preliminaries, for which she had qualified in the high jump and triple jump.

“We don’t want to get into anything like that again,” Carl Lovely, Ursula’s father, said. “It was such a negative phase that we went through last season. (This year) she has tremendous support from the principal and the faculty. They’ve sent her notes wishing her good luck. Everyone wants her to have a great year.”

If her December performances are any indication, 1987 will be a great year for Lovely.

Lovely, a 5-foot 8-inch forward, has averaged 25 points in six games this season, including a career-high 30 points in Kennedy’s 67-42 victory over Pacifica. She also leads the Fighting Irish in rebounding, averaging 16 a game. In last Tuesday’s game against Long Beach Wilson, Lovely had 20 rebounds along with 24 points.

“Ursula is by far the best player we’ve had at this school,” said Rick Albano, Kennedy coach. “Her jumping ability alone puts her at the top of the (Empire) league.

“She’s a pure shooter, inside and out. She’s very quick too. She explodes off the ball when she goes in for a shot. No one will take her place when she leaves.”

But Lovely’s not leaving yet. There’s work to be done. Especially when you’re trying to eliminate ghosts of seasons past--like last season’s 3-17 record and seventh place in league.

“My goal is to get us to CIF,” she said. “But I want us to get further than just the playoffs. Last year was tough because we had a new coach and a new system. It was hard for some of us to adjust to. But now he (Albano) is back, I think it’ll be a lot better.”

Albano, who returned to Kennedy after a year’s break, shares Lovely’s thinking, but it is coaching with Lovely that makes Albano so confident.

“The best thing about this year is Ursula’s like a second coach for me,” Albano said. “She talks constantly to the others, helps them out. But also, when Ursula was a freshman and sophomore, she’d always look to me on the bench (during games) for support or direction or whatever.

“This year, she doesn’t do that. She knows what I want, what the team wants. She knows what’s going on all the time and knows the best thing to do.”

And right now, Lovely said, the best thing to do is simple: Win more games. Kennedy is 4-3, but victories in the upcoming league games--especially against powerful Katella or Los Alamitos--will pave the playoff way.

No matter how the basketball season goes, Lovely is anticipating a successful track and field season and hoping to improve on her best high jump of 5 feet, 11 inches. She will be competing for a new coach, Gary Fite. Ward has taken a job at another school in the district.

Though Lovely hasn’t decided whether she’ll compete in track and field or basketball in college, she said she’d like--if possible--to do both. Texas A & M has contacted her for track efforts, but Lovely hopes to see more offers as her season progresses.

“I feel really good about everything now,” Lovely said. “It’s starting out great and the team’s coming around. And I’m a big, bad senior now. 1987 will be fantastic.”