Bouncing Back : Poly Basketball Team Overcomes Shame of Coach’s Dismissal on Morals Charges to Salvage Season Under Untested Leader

When the rumors first swept through the halls of Poly High, members of the basketball team fought back feelings of shame and embarrassment and tried their best not to believe.

Just 3 weeks before the start of the season, their basketball coach had left the school, and the reason being whispered about campus was difficult to accept. It was not until early December that a newspaper story confirmed their worst fears: Coach Mark Erwin had been arrested for allegedly asking a 15-year-old male student to engage in sexual activity.

Erwin was arrested Dec. 1, nearly 3 weeks after Poly had reassigned him to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s downtown headquarters. The 43-year-old coach, who is awaiting arraignment at Malibu Municipal Court, had conducted the first week of basketball practice in November. But when the players arrived at school after the Veterans Day weekend, Erwin was gone, leaving the team without a coach for the second time in 5 months.

Last summer veteran Coach Al Uyemura told the team that he was leaving the school for private business. But that disappointment paled in comparison to this latest setback.

“We felt let down and disappointed,” senior guard O. G. Magno said about Erwin. “The basketball team felt ridiculed. We were ashamed and embarrassed because he was part of the team.”

While struggling with those feelings, the players also faced the prospect of a new coach. And Bob Knight, he wasn’t. Jay Werner walked into the gymnasium for his first practice and faced a group of doubting, depressed players.

The Parrots had reason to doubt. Werner, who joined the Poly staff 2 years ago as an assistant football coach, never played so much as 1 high school basketball game at Agoura, and his college athletic experience came as a defensive back for the Pierce football team. His greatest exposure to the sport came via ESPN and the cable TV network’s late-night college basketball programming.

He did have a year of basketball coaching experience: He led the Agoura girls’ junior varsity to a 1-15 record 3 years ago.

Scott Cooper, Poly’s only returning starter and leading scorer this season, assessed the situation and devised a personal solution to the problem: transfer to another school. He decided to stick around, but after the first few games he probably wished he hadn’t. The Parrots started the season with a 26-point loss to Granada Hills. This was followed by a 29-point defeat by Grant.

Remarkably, no one quit, even after a depressing 1-4 start. Instead, the players discovered that they enjoyed playing for Werner, who surprised them with his basketball knowledge. It seems that all those nights staring at college games on ESPN were not wasted on him. “He must have done a lot of studying,” senior forward John Bruner concluded.

With the start of Valley Pac-8 Conference play, what began as a nightmare season for Poly now seems salvageable. The Parrots won 4 of their last 5 preleague games, and with Friday’s 93-68 rout of Monroe the team has 2 wins in 3 conference games and is 7-6 overall.

Although you could not convince any Parrot player of it at the time, the loss of Erwin may have been fortuitous.

“When we found out about Erwin in the papers we were all stunned and surprised,” Cooper said. “You know, he’s about 6-6 and 300 pounds and has a deep voice, and we just never expected anything like that.

“I hate to say this, but I’m kind of glad the whole thing happened. I’m sad about what happened and sad about his name being ruined, but it has been good for the team.”

During their brief association with Erwin, the Parrots chafed at his gruff style that included yelling and a rigid approach to the game. Said Cooper succinctly: “I didn’t like him as a coach.”

Werner’s credentials may have been shaky, but the players have responded to his methods. He emphasizes player input and individual attention, dispensing heavy doses of positive feedback.

“Werner wanted our input. He wasn’t dictatorial,” said Magno, who has a 4.0 grade-point average as well as an advanced vocabulary. “He told us to just play and he watched what we did. He was very subtle. He gave us a lot of encouragement and didn’t yell a lot of orders.”

Werner attributed his soft-sell approach to uncertainty because he didn’t know how long he was going to coach. When Erwin was suddenly reassigned, Poly Athletic Director George Tidebeck asked Werner to fill in on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’t until 2 weeks later, just before the first game, that Werner was assured of the job for the season.

“Because I didn’t know if I was staying, I didn’t want to change much,” Werner said. “I just wanted to be positive. If a player made a mistake I just went up to him and let him know I was still with him.”

While Werner helped erase the players’ doubts about him, he wrestled with his own. His self-confidence never wavered during practice, but he had his doubts on game day. In his first month on the job, the 29-year-old coach squared off against veteran coaches Bob Johnson of Granada Hills, Gary Shair of Chatsworth, Howard Levine of Grant and Steve Miller of North Hollywood.

“I was nervous about the job but I wasn’t afraid,” Werner said. “I know my background is football but I always wanted to be a basketball coach. I’m a real basketball junkie. But I was scared about the other coaches. I was afraid I wouldn’t be prepared for emergencies. I have a lot to learn. I have to learn to make adjustments quicker.”

Perhaps, but his players give him high marks in tactics, saying his substitution patterns and use of timeouts have been correct. The greatest compliment to Werner’s abilities may have come when Jerry Cord stopped showing up at practice.

Cord is the longtime coach of the school’s highly successful baseball program. He also spends the winter as a junior college and high school basketball referee, and he has coached Poly B and C level basketball teams for what he calls “a million years.”

Because Werner had the basketball job thrust upon him, Cord assisted with the administrative end of the position, ensuring that the paper work moved smoothly. But Cord’s contribution went beyond paper pushing. He counseled Werner on basketball technique over lunch at school and dropped by at practice to offer encouragement to the players.

Cord also played a part in what the Parrots feel was the season’s turning point, during the holiday break. Poly lagged behind Bell-Jeff at halftime during a North Hollywood tournament game when Cord showed up after officiating a Glendale College game. With Cord shouting encouragement and instructions from the stands and Werner supplying his gentle guidance from the bench, the Parrots seemed to change from a ragged band of underachievers into a competent assemblage of players despite an 83-77 loss.

“You could actually see it from the bench,” Werner said. “You could see the excitement in their faces.”

Cord noticed the same thing, saying Coach Joe Dunn of Bell-Jeff, the team ranked fifth in the Valley by The Times, passed on his praise of Werner.

“Bell-Jeff has a good little team and Joe Dunn was impressed by us,” Cord said. “I could see it, too. They started to believe they could beat some people.”

It was never Cord’s intention to scrutinize Werner’s performance, and he now feels no need to stop by the gym and check the team. Still, the Parrots have a long way to go. Their lineup features no starter taller than 6 feet, 2 inches and Werner is making no predictions about the playoffs.

But many of the problems of November and December seem behind the team now. Erwin, who has had no contact with the team since he left the school, is fading from memory and the players are optimistic about the season.

“At one point everyone was really down,” Cooper said. “We had lost our coach and we didn’t think we could beat anybody. You know, Coach Uyemura had been around the game a lot more than Werner and he knew more, but Werner gets through to us more. We’ve learned to respect him.”