Super Saturday Is Here for Prep Basketball Fans

John Farrell has created one monster and built another, and the trick now is to make sure that neither consumes him.

First of all, his creation.

He had the audacity to put together an intersectional basketball game. This is not unusual, except that Farrell’s creation is between high schools. One, Camden, is perennially one of the best teams in New Jersey, often one of the nation’s best.

This might not seem too smart, because Farrell is not the coach at Camden High School.

That gets us to the monster Farrell has built. That’s the team he does coach. Torrey Pines High School has burst upon the scene with an 18-0 record and the No. 1 ranking in San Diego County.

So there we have it.

Torrid Torrey vs. Colossus Camden.

Along the corridor of I-5 that runs between Del Mar and Lomas Santa Fe, this is Super Saturday.

Super Bowl Mania? The folks within the sphere of influence of Torrey Pines High School couldn’t care less right now. Super Bowl XXII may not be small potatoes, but it’s not today’s party. Not in this neighborhood.

It’s the back burner for the Super Bowl and a barn-burner for high school basketball . . . a bicoastal blast.

Camden, it would seem, is accustomed to traipsing around the country. Its players get back to Jersey just long enough to wash their socks. Camden played seven of nine games on the road, and its only loss was to Northeast Macon (Ga.) in a North Carolina tournament.

I’m not sure Camden came to Southern California to play Torrey Pines as much as to watch two of its alums, Milt Wagner and Billy Thompson, play for the Lakers. Only this team would prefer a basketball game to Disneyland.

Farrell heard that Camden had one game scheduled in Southern California--Monday night at St. Bernard in Playa del Rey--and wanted another one. He volunteered to subject his Torrey Pines players to these marauding villains.

Those who know Camden had to be shaking their heads and wondering if Farrell should have his head examined, especially anyone who knows Farrell. After all, a few years back, he played against Camden for a darned good Bishop Laughlin (Brooklyn) High School team and nearly got run off the court. And Camden is the third-best team in New Jersey, and that’s including the Nets and Rutgers. Princeton would be fourth.

I can imagine that Farrell’s invitation went something like this . . . “You want to bring your fellows out here. We’d love to have you,” he probably said. “I’ll see if I can talk my kids into getting off their surfboards long enough so you guys can at least work up a sweat.”

What Farrell wouldn’t say is that his “kids” don’t look--or play--like the kids bagging groceries down at the corner market. Torrey Pines players look like, for want of a better comparison, a grove of Torrey pine trees.

Farrell thought he would have some tall players this year in returnees Courtie Miller (6-7) and Kevin Flanagan (6-9), and he had a clever guard named Tom Underwood to get the ball to them. And then 7-footer Neal Pollard transferred from Utah and 6-foot 7-inch Jeff Fleig came from Reno.

“The first time I saw Jeff,” Farrell mused, “I thought he was a student teacher.”

Suddenly, Torrey Pines had a skyline rather than a starting lineup.

And just as suddenly, this little exercise in transcontinental good will has become a hot ticket. The best way to get into Torrey Pines’ 2,500-seat gym may be dressed up as a custodian. Cox Cable will telecast it, tape-delayed, on Channel 30 Monday night at 8.

What we’re talking about here is a delightful whirlpool of attention for a high school game.

Farrell, as coaches are inclined to do, builds it up one minute and pleads for perspective the next.

“It’s an opportunity for us to play on a great level,” he said. “Playing the best makes you better . . . and it’ll help our program in the long run because of the kind of tradition we’re trying to build. But . . . I would like to see people get a little more worked up for our league games.”

Palomar League games are forever. A game like this, an occasion like this, will be here and gone.

Farrell’s most immediate concern was Friday night’s game at San Dieguito, which happens to be Torrey Pines’ archrival. This is one of those contests that pair kids who go to the same pizza joints, beaches and theaters. It’s the kind of game that’s always a little bit scary.

“Heck,” Farrell said, “San Dieguito’s only five minutes from here.”

Torrey Pines survived that little confrontation to set up the bash with those kids from 3,000 miles away. About all these teams have in common is that they bask in the same sun, whenever it might be that it shines in Joisey.