THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Halpern Finds Coaching More Rewarding a 2nd Time Around

Jeff Halpern earned a strange reward after his first season as a varsity basketball coach. Two years ago, he led Van Nuys to a 21-3 record, an East Valley League title and reach the City 2-A semifinals.

His reward? He got his walking papers.

Because of declining enrollment at Van Nuys, Halpern was laid-off. “I was crushed,” said Halpern, who served as a B and C team coach for 10 years awaiting his chance at a varsity job.

So, he hit the streets looking for work. He found a teaching position at Birmingham, but the Braves already had a coach. To keep busy, Halpern spent his first basketball season at Birmingham coaching the wrestling team.

“To sit out of coaching a year really hurt,” Halpern said.

But the waiting paid off. After the retirement of Jim O’Hara, a veteran of 30 years, Halpern, 43, got the Birmingham job and has the Braves off to one of the best starts in school history. After winning its own tournament Tuesday, Birmingham is 10-1 and ranked fifth in The Times Valley poll.

Birmingham has fashioned its fast start on defense, good bloodlines, and 6-6 forwards Keith Owens and Ennerea Maxwell, who lead the team in scoring and rebounding. Owens averages 17.5 points and 11.3 rebounds; Maxwell averages 14 and 11.5.

The other starters are under 6-0, but they key Birmingham’s pressure defense that has allowed only 55 points a game. Guard Adam Zuckerman and forward Charles Johnson average 10 points, and Zuckerman has 73 assists.

Damon Buford is the fifth starter and he represents half of the team’s famous-father connection. A 5-8 transfer from Harvard, Buford is the son of Don Buford, a former major league baseball player. The first player off the bench and the team’s only junior is 6-1 Jason Moore, son of Manfred Moore, a running back at San Fernando High, USC and the NFL.

Birmingham lost the son of New York Knick Dave Stallworth when Paul Stallworth was academically ineligible. Stallworth, a Division I prospect according to Halpern, has moved out of the school district.

Buford was a central figure in Birmingham’s only loss of the season, a 58-55 defeat to Glendale in the second round of the Simi Valley tournament. Buford blamed himself for the loss, but Halpern said the defeat may have been the best thing that’s happened to his team.

The Braves blew a six-point lead in the last 90 seconds. After Glendale rallied to tie the score with 10 seconds left, Buford hit one of two free throws. On an ensuing in-bounds play, Glendale tried a length-of-the-court pass that Buford went up to intercept. Instead the ball went through his fingers and resulted in a Glendale layup that won the game.

“Glendale was the best team we have faced and our kids took the loss hard,” Halpern said. “But they knew after that game they could play with good teams. Here was a team that lost to Simi Valley by just five points. Our kids seemed more determined after that game.”

Birmingham enters Northwest Valley League play this week with a nine-game winning streak but has not answered an important question. Can the Braves stop the league’s big players such as Shelton Boykin of San Fernando and Gary Gray of Granada Hills?

“We haven’t played teams with those kinds of big players and that’s our challenge,” Halpern said. “We still use our quickness and do it with our guards. We’ll try to set the tempo with our pressure defense.”

Birmingham opens league play Friday at home against San Fernando.

Jim Bonds and Ken Sollom, the Valley-area’s most prolific quarterbacks and Santa Clarita Valley neighbors, will remain in the same neighborhood during the college recruiting season. Bonds and Sollom have scheduled visits this month to Michigan and probably will visit Arizona and USC.

Both quarterbacks met with Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler while the Wolverines practiced for the Rose Bowl at Mt. San Antonio College. Sollom will visit Michigan on Jan. 16, according to his mother. Bonds said he will visit the school on Jan. 31.

Bonds and Sollom, who ranked No. 1 and 2 in the Southern Section in passing, have said they will go to different schools, and the deciding factor may be UCLA. Coach Terry Donahue met in Newhall on Friday with Bonds, who said he is very interested in UCLA. Bonds will visit UCLA on Jan. 17. The Bruins have stopped recruiting Sollom, according to his family.

Girls before boys: Simi Valley Coach Dave Murphy spoke up for Simi Valley High girls this week by disputing Bob Hawking’s claim that his boys team may become the first in school history to shoot better than 50% in a season. The Pioneer boys are shooting 55.9%, which is a school-record pace.

But the boys cannot claim they are first over 50%. During the 1979-80 season, the Pioneer girls shot 51.1%, thanks in large part to Cheri Graham, who averaged 28.8 points and made a staggering 69.1% of her shots.

Graham scored 1,381 points and is the only Pioneer girl to break the 1,000 mark, but she may soon have company. Senior forward Julie Arlotto has 749 heading into the start of Marmonte League play. She is averaging 17.9 points, a pace that will result in more than 1,000 points.