THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Surgery Isn’t Keeping Chaminade’s Coach Out of Las Vegas

Bernie Kyman, Chaminade High baseball coach, freely admits he’s a bad patient. A more prudent man would heed his doctor’s advice instead of trying to con his physician.

Kyman admits to that charge as well, but he wouldn’t have it otherwise. Not even skin-cancer surgery will prevent Kyman from accompanying his team to Las Vegas this week, even if he must manage his club from a wheelchair.

That’s the plan. Kyman, 46, underwent cancer surgery Thursday that required skin grafts on both ankles. He was ordered to stay off his feet for one week to allow the grafts to take effect, but he struck a deal with his doctor. Kyman was granted clearance to accompany his team on a three-day trip to Las Vegas, provided he coach the team in a wheelchair to rest his feet.

So, when the Chaminade contingent arrives Wednesday in Las Vegas, the first order of business will be to find a wheelchair for the coach.

“I’m fine other than the fact I can’t walk,” Kyman said Saturday, two hours after returning home from the hospital. “My feet don’t hurt until I try to walk, so I’m making like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, just sliding my feet when I walk. But I conned the doctor into letting me go on the trip.”

Kyman has arranged for an assistant to hit infield practice before Chaminade’s two games in Nevada, and Kyman will direct the team from his seat in a wheelchair in the dugout once the game begins.

The trip is important to Kyman, who has been the school’s athletic director for the past seven years. He has relinquished that post, effective June 30, and will be succeeded by Beth Keelan. Kyman’s legacy at the school is road trips for the athletic teams. This week’s trip marks the second excursion to Las Vegas for a school team this school year. In the fall, the football team played a non-league game against Tonapah at the Silver Bowl on the Nevada Las Vegas campus.

Previously, Chaminade basketball teams have traveled to Hawaii, San Francisco and Las Vegas, and the Chaminade girls volleyball team played in San Diego.

“I’m the trip guy,” Kyman said. “I’m the local travel agent at the school.”

The 16-member baseball team, along with team scorekeepers and eight sets of parents, departs the high school Wednesday and has a two-hour workout scheduled at Nevada Las Vegas that afternoon. On Thursday, Chaminade plays a doubleheader in Boulder City, about 20 miles outside Las Vegas. Chaminade plays Boulder City at 3 p.m. and follows with a game against Pahrump, Nev.

The trip costs $1,100 and is paid for by the Chaminade athletic boosters, who raised money through bingo games at the school. The boosters stage other fund-raisers and have targeted a new lighted stadium at the school’s Canoga Park campus as their next project. Kyman said the field should be completed in two years.

Chaminade is a co-ed parochial school and Kyman originally instituted the trips as retreats. Although the religious aspect of the baseball trip has been deemphasized the intent is the same, he said.

“We used to have a priest come along and conduct a retreat for the students,” he said. “We won’t have a priest with us this time, but we’ll meet with the players and have a meeting where we can discuss our feelings and get to know each other. That’s what the trip is for, a chance for the kids to be around each other for a couple of days and to build team unity. It’s a fun thing and often the first road trip for many of them.”

Add Kyman: Although Kyman will make the road trip, he had to cancel out on spring football practice this week at Cal Lutheran, where he will serve as an assistant to Bob Shoup next season. Kyman, who formerly was an assistant at Pierce, will work with the defensive ends and linebackers.

Kyman is leaving Chaminade at the end of the school year and won’t coach baseball next season, but he will remain in coaching. Aside from the Cal Lutheran job, he wants to coach in the spring and may return to Chaminade as an assistant track coach, he said. The baseball team this season is 6-7 overall and is tied for second in the Santa Fe League with a 5-3 record.

Test day: When teammates Mike Kerber and Mike Urman get together today at a youth baseball park in West Hills, much of Canoga Park’s season may ride on the outcome. Kerber, a 6-4, 185-pound right-hander, will pitch a simulated game, throwing a maximum of 70 pitches to Urman, the team’s catcher.

Kerber missed the first two games of the season with tendinitis in his elbow and returned March 23 as the team’s first baseman. It wasn’t until Tuesday in the Thousand Oaks tournament that he made his first appearance as a pitcher, working three innings in Canoga Park’s 7-1 win over Dos Pueblos.

“I threw mostly changeups because I was getting that pitch over and they couldn’t hit it, but I was really tired after three innings,” Kerber said. “And the next day I was really sore. My ribs, shoulder and lower back all hurt. They were muscles I hadn’t used in a long time.”

Kerber admits he’s nervous about today’s outing with Urman and is particularly concerned with how he’ll feel tomorrow. the next day. But that nervousness is nothing compared to the fear he felt when he learned he had tendinitis. Kerber hurt his arm in a December winter league game and was ordered by his doctor to stop throwing and hitting for three weeks while he underwent ultrasound therapy.

“It was scary,” Kerber said. “The doctor said some people have tendinitis and it never goes away. I was just hoping it would go away and never come back. Everyone told me to take my time and I said I would, but deep inside I wanted to get back as soon as I could.”

When Kerber returned to the Canoga Park lineup, he couldn’t pitch but he could still hit. In seven West Valley League games he was 6 for 17 (.353) with two home runs before erupting in the Thousand Oaks tournament. He was 9 for 14 with a three-run home run to help Canoga Park win the tournament championship with four straight wins. After a 1-3 start, Canoga Park has won seven straight and is 4-3 in league.

Canoga Park, which scored 39 runs in four tournament games, has had little trouble on offense and now seems to have its pitching staff straightened out. Adam Schulhofer (5-1) has carried the load, and this week marked the return of Kerber and Mike Roberts, who had been academically ineligible.

If Kerber’s arm passes today’s pitching test, Canoga Park could be on track to give Coach Doug MacKenzie his first City championship in his 37-year career.

“I extended my teaching career one more year to coach these boys,” MacKenzie said. “Each time they play you learn a little more about them. This could be the team I’ve been waiting 37 years for.”