New Glendale Coach Follows a Tough Act

The Bob Davidson basketball era at Glendale High begins this week with the start of summer league competition, and with it comes the end of the golden Steve Keith era--golden as in championships.

Davidson knows he has a tough act to follow. Keith, in 10 years, fashioned two Southern Section championships, five Pacific League titles and took his teams to the playoffs eight times.

After serving as Keith’s assistant and junior varsity coach for eight years, Davidson was promoted when Keith resigned to become coach at Irvine High.

Davidson, who had only one losing season as a junior varsity coach--that during his first season--plans no major changes.

“I know coaching with Steve helped me and I will be doing the same thing he believed in,” Davidson said. “The only change will be in personalities. Our basketball philosophies are similar.”

Does Davidson feel pressure to continue Glendale’s winning tradition?

“There are two ways to look at it,” he said. “If you take over a program without tradition, there is a pressure to build a winning program. And if you take over a program with tradition, there is pressure to maintain it.”

To Keith, the switching of jobs is simply a matter of changing family life styles.

“It is a nice place where we would like to raise our family. It has nothing to do with Glendale basketball,” Keith said. “Glendale is becoming a metropolis. And Irvine is becoming what Glendale used to be: a working-class, quiet place to raise kids. These traditional values are a big part of me.”

Keith and his wife, Jan, have two children--Lauren, 6, and Brian, 4.

Keith’s move came as no surprise to his colleagues. But many, including Crespi Coach Paul Muff, thought he would go to the college ranks.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t moved into a collegiate coach position,” Muff said. “He could easily coach with guys I’ve see at the small college and major college level. He knows the game and few can teach it better.”

But Keith said he has had no offers to coach college teams, and that at this point in his life, he would have to weigh any such offer against the priority of responsibility to his family.

“During a coaching career, you hit a fork in the road,” Keith said. “You can become a graduate assistant at the college level and progress higher, get the hands-on college coaching experience. Or, you can become a high school coach.

“Sometimes my ego says I wish I’d taken that path,” he said of college coaching.

After playing four years of basketball at Cal State Northridge, Keith coached Hoover High’s junior varsity for five years, then became coach at Glendale.

Keith’s first team finished 6-15, his only losing season. “My eyes opened up. A little humility makes you a better coach,” he said.

His second team won the league title and in 1981, Keith coached the Nitros to the Southern Section 2-A championship. A 4-A championship followed in 1985 as the team went 28-0, the only Glendale area basketball team to go undefeated for a season.

Said Keith: “The ’85 season was a dream. That’s when people started to respect Glendale and we moved up to play with the big boys. We were 53-0, including summer league, but what really impressed me was that the 11 kids had a combined grade-point average of 3.3.”

Rich Grande, now playing for USC, was point guard on the ’85 team. Grande is one of only three Keith players who have played on the college level.

“That’s what impresses me the most about Steve,” Muff said. “He has the knack of making mediocre kids into a championship team.”

Keith faces a new challenge at Irvine.

“You get to the point where you don’t want to duplicate the past. You need a new environment to stimulate you. I’m excited about Irvine. I’ll be happy to accomplish half of what I did at Glendale.”

Many coaches in the Glendale area wish Keith the best, but are not unhappy to see him go.

Count Keith’s younger brother, Russ, in that category.

Russ Keith has coached Burbank to four Foothill League championships in five years but is 0-8 against his brother.

So Russ’ reaction to his brother’s departure should come as no surprise: “I’m glad to see him leave.”