Big Shoes to Fill : Ron McClurkin Stands In for an El Camino Legend, Coach Paul Landreaux, and Stands Up to the Pressure

When the El Camino basketball team opened its season three weeks ago at the Fullerton tournament, a referee approached Ron McClurkin and asked: “Where’s Paul tonight?”

McClurkin just laughed. He wasn’t insulted or upset. He maintained his usual calm while Bill Becktel, his assistant, informed the referee that Paul Landreaux is now an assistant basketball coach at UCLA.

Basketball at El Camino without Paul Landreaux seems hard for more than just referees to believe, but the larger-than-life Landreaux is no longer the basketball coach at El Camino. The Warrior legend is gone--at least for one season, on a year’s leave of absence--and McClurkin has been assigned the difficult task of filling his shoes.

If Landreaux decides to return next season, McClurkin, interim head coach for a year, will go back to being his assistant. If Landreaux doesn’t, El Camino will advertise the job nationwide. McClurkin, whose team is 6-1, will apply, but there’s no guarantee he’ll get it.

“It’s hard to say what his chances are,” said El Camino Athletic Director James Schwartz. “It depends on how successful he is this season. He’s been very loyal to this program, and it was not a major decision for us to stay with Ron. Now we want to see if he’s the kind of person we want to be the head of our program.”

McClurkin, who assisted Landreaux during his nine years as the Warriors’ head coach, realizes that El Camino’s standards are high. Landreaux’s record helps illustrate why.

In nine years he led the defending state champions to three state titles and six conference titles and into the community college Final Four five times. His worst season was 1983, when El Camino posted a 21-11 record.

During that time McClurkin, 32, acted primarily as a recruiter for Landreaux. He went to area high schools and scouted players who would later become part of the program.

Five of those players, from last year’s state champion squad, are competing in the NCAA. Guard/forward Kirkland Howling is at Clemson, center/forward David Lee is at North Carolina, guard Eric Dunn is at Oregon, guard Darron Jackson is at Northern Arizona and forward Charles White is at Purdue.

McClurkin scouted all of them and brought them to El Camino, which wasn’t difficult considering the program’s reputation.

“He was a recruiting coordinator,” Landreaux said. “He saw a lot of players. I think there will be some adjustment for someone who has never really coached before, but I think he deserves the opportunity to (be head coach).”

Before recruiting and scouting, McClurkin was somewhat of a team manager. He did everything from sweep the gym floor to care for balls to transport players.

It wasn’t until 1985, when he started working with guards on defense, that he became directly involved with coaching. Before that he had virtually no experience on the court.

“That’s why no one expects me to do anything,” McClurkin said. “It’s not El Camino and all its past success that they’re going to look at; it’s Ron McClurkin and the fact that he’s never coached before. That’s why they figure it could be over.”

That however, is not the attitude among the players, according to sophomore guard Kevin Mixon. He played for El Camino two years ago, sat out last year, and is back this year. Mixon says McClurkin’s system is practically the same as Landreaux’s, and players respect McClurkin and work hard for him.

“The biggest difference,” Mixon said, “is that he’s (McClurkin) more of a laid-back coach. He doesn’t show as much emotion as Coach Landreaux.”

Mixon also said one of the best things about McClurkin is that he’s not preoccupied with succeeding a school legend.

“He doesn’t worry about it. He just comes in and coaches. I mean those are big shoes to fill. I don’t think anyone can come here in one year and fill those shoes.”

Before El Camino, the only basketball coaching McClurkin did was at the Gardena YMCA, where he worked with youths. He took the job a few years after moving here from North Carolina, where he grew up in a family of 12 brothers and sisters.

“That’s when I decided, ‘Hey, I think I want to do this coaching job for real.’ I just needed someone to teach me the fine points of the game.”

So McClurkin, who lived in Inglewood at the time, called area high schools and junior colleges volunteering his help. Some turned him down and others simply ignored him.

Landreaux remembers getting two messages from McClurkin: one while coaching at Trade Tech and another after being named head coach at El Camino in 1979.

“He was a very persistent young man,” Landreaux said. “He called Trade Tech and I threw the message in the trash. Then I got the job at El Camino and there was that name again. That time I returned the call, and after talking to him, I invited him to stay on the staff.”

Landreaux told him that a college degree was essential in order to succeed as a coach.

So McClurkin went to Cal State Dominguez Hills, where he received a bachelor’s degree in physical education and recreation in 1983 and a master’s in education in 1987.

He also went to the Paul Landreaux school of hoops.

“Coach (Landreaux) knows everything,” McClurkin said. “He knows every position. With him it’s like being in school. I came into this thing with no experience nine years ago trying to prove that I wanted to do this seriously. I’m finally getting a shot to do it, and I feel I can.

“Don’t get me wrong. Every day when I walk out of that gym at 6 p.m. there’s something I could call him (Landreaux) and ask him about.”

But McClurkin hasn’t contacted “The King” to seek his basketball expertise. It’s bad enough that he has to live under his umbrella.

“I talked to him at the beginning,” Schwartz said, “about Paul’s shadow, and it doesn’t seem to phase him. It would probably bother me, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.”

McClurkin actually likes the comparison because he says his team is underestimated.

“They automatically come out playing hard,” McClurkin said. “Before, it was ‘We’re the best.’ Now it’s ‘We’re going to show them.’ They come out to play. We’re more fired up now.”

McClurkin and his players aren’t the only ones who believe El Camino will have a good season.

“Ron is doing an excellent job,” said Cerritos Coach Jack Bogdanovich, whose team beat El Camino in the final of the Fullerton tournament in double overtime.

“I really don’t see (Landreaux’s absence) as a problem at all. He’s got a good team, and they’re going to win a lot of games. And Ron is very personable. Nothing against Paul, but everybody likes Ron.”

Maybe not for long. The sweet-talking guy, who has been more of a buddy than anything else to the El Camino basketball players, has changed his act in his quest to fill some big shoes.

“I’m tougher than Coach ever was,” McClurkin said. “One of the guys called me ‘little general’ the other day.”