Too Slow, Can’t Jump, But . . . : . . . Another Palisades Cager Fools Them All, Makes Bruin Team

Jeff Bronner is another slow white kid from Palisades High School who can’t jump. Nevertheless, he hopes to become a star in major college basketball and play professionally.

Bronner has completed one leg of his ambitious journey. As a walk-on (a non-scholarship player) freshman, he has made the first UCLA team of Jim Harrick, who was named the Bruin coach last April after nine successful seasons at Pepperdine.

It wasn’t easy, either. About 50 aspiring players turned out for Harrick’s first practices, including 12 from last year’s team. And Bronner, a 6-foot, 3-inch guard, beat out some veterans as well as a raft of would-be walk-ons.

It won’t be any easier for him to win much playing time with UCLA, but then it was sometimes difficult for three other not-so-swift, non-jumping variety Palisades basketball players to reach the big time.

Even though Kiki Vandeweghe was a marvelous high school player for Palisades and a great outside shooter, particularly for a tall forward, there were critics who said he was too slow to become a great at UCLA. Vandeweghe didn’t become a starter until his junior season of 1978-79, but he went on to finish in 10th place on UCLA’s career scoring list with 1,380 points and to become one of the National Basketball Assn.’s top scorers.

Chip Engelland, a former Dolphin guard, was the Los Angeles City scoring champion in his senior season of 1979-80. Although some said he was a bit lead-footed, he became the sixth man for strong teams at Duke University and has played professionally in the Philippines, the Continental Basketball Assn. and, most recently, in Calgary, Alberta.

Then there’s Steve Kerr, another ex-Palisades guard who was not fleet-footed and wasn’t recruited by college basketball powers after his 1982-83 senior season. Lute Olson finally gave Kerr a scholarship when Olson was named coach at the University of Arizona, long after most other college teams had completed their recruiting. Everyone knows what a career Kerr had at Arizona, and he was drafted this year by the Phoenix Suns of the NBA.

So Bronner has three excellent role models for his quest, and Engelland, between stints as a professional, worked out with him and helped him fine-tune his game when he decided to go out for the UCLA team.

Bronner didn’t set out to play at UCLA immediately after he graduated from Palisades in 1987. He was headed for UC San Diego, where he expected to play a lot of basketball.

But in July, 1987, Bronner’s father Richard, an attorney and newspaper publisher who had played basketball at the Coast Guard Academy and Penn State, died of cancer at 44. And Jeff, the eldest of four children, put all of his career plans on hold.

He decided not to go to UC San Diego in the fall of 1987 because it meant “leaving home two months after my father died. The timing was not right.”

He spent the next six months working as an assistant to Peter Hyams, a family friend, who was then directing the film “The Presidio.” In January, 1988, he decided to go to UCLA and try out for basketball.

He began working out five hours a day with Engelland, who helped him revamp his whole game, he said. He also lifted weights and trimmed down from about 190 pounds to his present 175. Losing weight, he said, has made him stronger and quicker.

He made a commitment to basketball, he said, because he had devoted so many years to the sport and because “I love it.

“My dad loved basketball, and he certainly transferred that love of competition and sport to me. I know that playing at a place like UCLA is a reach for me, but my dad taught me never to shy away from tough goals.

“I know the odds are against me for getting much playing time at UCLA, but then the odds were against me for making the squad. It’s not easy to make a 12-man squad when 12 guys are coming back (from the previous year), but I have and I know I can help the team.”

Harrick says that Bronner has already been a big help. “Jeff came out, and he was probably as hard-working a player as I’ve seen. He makes our team better; he is a tremendous asset.”

He said that Bronner, who spent time at Harrick’s summer basketball camp at Pepperdine, is an intelligent player. He’s also a top student and won a college scholarship in an oratorical contest for student-athletes.

“The mental beats the physical part of the game by 4 to 1,” Harrick said. “Jeff understands everything we do on defense and offense. He has limited talent, but I’ll tell you something: There are a lot of college teams that Jeff Bronner could play on.

“Right now he’s a practice player, but I’ll tell you something: The best compliment I could make would be that I would not be afraid to put him in the game.” But will he ever play much for UCLA?

“I don’t know if his future is here at UCLA,” Harrick said. “That’s down the road. But we love him.”

Jerry Marvin, his coach at Palisades High, also loves Bronner. He said that he was “really excited” when he heard that he had made the UCLA team.

“He’s a good basketball player--not a great one, but a good one,” Marvin said. If playing a lot for UCLA “has anything to do with intelligence

and hard work, he will do well,” he added. “He may be slow, but he is smart--and very dedicated.”

Bronner said that he has learned how to be dedicated from Vandeweghe, “who was certainly my idol,” and from Engelland.

But will dedication, hard work and intelligence enable him to play his way into a scholarship at UCLA?

“I really have a positive attitude,” he said. “I really believe things will work out, and I have total faith in Coach Harrick and the whole coaching staff.

“It will be hard if I don’t get playing time, but I think I can make this team better--by hard work, by pushing other guys and competing at a level I never reached before.

“I know it will get tougher for a guy in my position, but for some reason I’m not afraid of the challenge. People have told me that I was crazy, giving up a comfortable time at UC San Diego. But I’m still enthusiastic and enamored of the program (at UCLA).

If he is eventually cut from the UCLA team, would he try to catch on with another college team, one where he could be a starter?

“I’m hoping to play my way into a scholarship,” he said, adding that he hasn’t given much thought about having to leave the UCLA team. “I have faith in Coach Harrick; I know he’ll make the right decision.”