After Making Several Stops Along the Way, Bill Reynolds Settles Down Coaching at Southern California College : HE’S HOME AT LAST

The twists and turns of life have led Bill Reynolds to some pretty exciting places.

West Point. Paris. Costa Mesa.

OK, so not all of them have been exciting. Some, like Southern California College, have just been comfortable.

For the past 7 years, Reynolds has been the head basketball coach at Southern California, a small (enrollment of less than 900) college in Costa Mesa.

It’s not exactly the center of the college basketball world--it’s more like an outpost. A fringe element of college sports known as the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics.

“Being at SCC is probably much different than being in a normal situation,” Reynolds said. “It’s our own little world here.”

Still, Reynolds has made his mark at this out-of-the-way school, located across the street from where the largest swap meet in Orange County sets up shop every weekend.

The Vanguards have won a Golden State Athletic Conference championship and have averaged more than 20 victories per season during the Reynolds regime. This season, Southern California is 16-2 overall and 6-0 in conference play.

Success? Sure. More importantly, stability.

“Maybe it sounds kind of corny, but we really do feel like we’ve built a family atmosphere at SCC,” Reynolds said. “There aren’t too many places where I can maintain the stability I like and the reasonable home life I want.”

A reasonable home life was not something Reynolds enjoyed as a youth. It was a happy home, to be sure, but reasonable? Well . . .

“I think we moved five times alone when I was in the fourth grade,” he said.

The son of a career Army officer, Reynolds spent his formative years packing and unpacking. During one 10-year period, the family moved 15 times.

Stability was a reliable suit case.

“I can’t say I enjoyed moving,” Reynolds said. “I wasn’t real outgoing or real confident. I would get settled in, start to develop some friendships and then, poof, up and away we went.”

Joseph and Kay Reynolds were married Jan. 1, 1939--just 2 1/2 hours after Joseph graduated from West Point. Their wedding picture was featured in Life magazine as the first couple married that year.

Bill Reynolds was born in 1942, and a few weeks later his father was shipped out to Europe. Reynolds didn’t get to know his father’s face until until Joseph Reynolds returned after World War II.

In 1948, after 3 years of following Army orders around the country, Joseph Reynolds was assigned to teach at West Point. For the 6-year old Bill Reynolds, it was paradise.

In the fall, he would watch Army’s football team while it was still a national power. In the winter there was basketball, wrestling, boxing and ice hockey. The spring, baseball and track and field.

“You could ride the bus for free, go anywhere on base,” Reynolds said. “At 11 a.m., I would go to the hockey match, then to the basketball game. After that was over, they would have boxing at one end of the gymnasium and wrestling at the other end. I fell in love with sports during that time.”

Orders are orders and, after 3 years of sports bliss, Reynolds’ father was transferred to France. Reynolds spent 3 confusing years in Paris, where the only sport anyone seemed to play was soccer.

After returning to the United States, the Army bounced Joseph Reynolds around from Kansas to Washington and finally to El Paso, Tex.

By that time Reynolds had become a pretty good baseball player. He was offered a scholarship to Sul Ross State University, an NAIA school in Alpine, Tex. But Joseph Reynolds had one last move.

“My dad was retiring and they wanted to move to California,” Reynolds said. “They were really encouraging me to come with them and discouraging me from going to school in Alpine.”

Next stop, Alta Loma, Calif., and Chaffey College.

Reynolds played baseball and basketball at Chaffey, although he admits his usefulness to the basketball team was somewhat limited.

“I was the 11th man on a 10-man team,” he said. “I was the designated free-throw shooter. When the other team got a technical foul, I would get to come in and shoot it.”

No 4-year college was interested in a designated free-throw shooter, but UC Santa Barbara did want him as a baseball player and offered Reynolds a scholarship.

Reynolds enrolled as a physical education major with hopes of coaching baseball some day.

He played second base for the Gauchos from 1960-62. During that time he roomed with Gary Davis, a starter on the Santa Barbara basketball team.

Reynolds became intrigued with basketball and constantly pumped Davis for information. The two would stay up late at night talkin’ hoops.

“Bill was like a sponge,” said Davis, now a rancher in Arroyo Grande, Calif. “He was always interested in how our offense worked or what we did in practice. He didn’t just watch the game, he studied it.”

Reynolds began attending basketball practice in his spare time, as well as going to all the home games. He even took a basketball theory class from Art Gallon, then the Gaucho coach.

The more he learned from Gallon, the more he wanted to coach basketball.

“After being around Gary and taking the class from Dr. Gallon, I came to a point where I thought I might like to coach both sports,” Reynolds said. “But, even then I felt I might prefer basketball.”

In June of 1963, Reynolds was hired by La Quinta High School to teach physical education and coach the C team in basketball and junior varsity baseball.

But when he got to La Quinta, he was told he was the freshman football coach.

“I spent the first 3 days of my career coaching freshman football and not having a clue what I was doing,” Reynolds said.

After 3 days, the administration decided it might be better to have Reynolds coach basketball.

Reynolds spent one year with the C team and another with the junior varsity. Then, in 1966, Bob Wallace resigned as head basketball coach and Reynolds was offered the job.

By then, he had given up completely on coaching baseball.

In Reynolds’ first varsity game as coach, La Quinta played Marina, coached by Lute Olson, in the Marina tournament.

“I remember it was something like 24-3 at the end of the first quarter and they had thrown 3 or 4 different presses at us,” Reynolds said. “It was very humbling.”

Two nights later, in the consolation semifinals of the tournament, Reynolds was sitting a couple rows behind Olson and another coach. Both were watching another team lose badly. Olson turned to the coach next to him and said, “They’re as bad as La Quinta.”

“I vowed then, that no matter what, we would be prepared to play,” Reynolds said.

If nothing else, Reynolds’ teams have been prepared. And that’s one of the reasons for his success through 13 years of high school coaching (11 at La Quinta and 2 at Bolsa Grande). He was 167-139 as a high school coach.

Under Reynolds from 1966-76, La Quinta won 2 Garden Grove League titles and went to the playoffs 4 times.

Always, the Aztecs were prepared.

“One year, we were getting ready to play La Quinta and we had just come off a victory over Los Amigos, who was really good then,” said Clete Adelman, who coached Bolsa Grande from 1972-76.

“We had a couple of pretty quick guards and I thought we could press Bill’s team, no problem. When the game started, he had one of his guards throw a baseball pass to midcourt to another guard, who threw it to another player for a basket. They did that all night and never dribbled the ball up court. We couldn’t press them and they beat us.”

After 11 years at La Quinta, Reynolds felt burned out. He resigned at the end of the 1975-76 season. He spent the summer traveling with his wife and three daughters and returned to La Quinta to teach, but not coach.

But, after 2 years, Reynolds was ready to return to coach. He took the Bolsa Grande job in 1978 and coached 2 years before resigning, this time because his wife, Shirley, was ill.

It took a year and five specialists before the Reynolds discovered the illness could be controlled with medication.

Reynolds had become a counselor at Bolsa Grande. He was happy with his job, but the itch to coach began again.

In the spring of 1980, he visited Southern California College on a whim and met Ed Moriarty.

“When Ed found out who I was, he asked if I was interested in helping out,” Reynolds said. “I discussed it with my wife and she said if I really wanted to do it, I should.”

After the 1980-81 season, Moriarty resigned and went into real estate. Reynolds was hesitant to apply. He didn’t think he could devote time to both his job at Bolsa Grande and coaching at Southern California.

However, the players and the school’s administration both wanted him.

Once he accepted the position, Reynolds went about changing the image of the team. He installed a run-and-gun offense, had his players press the entire game and put as much pressure on opposing teams as possible.

“Sometimes I think we might be confusing ourselves more than the other team,” Reynolds said. “But I felt if we needed to be known for something. Not that an up-tempo team is all that original, but it’s worked.”

After 2 years, Reynolds thought about moving on. He applied for a for jobs at Cal Poly Pomona and United States International.

“I didn’t even get interviews, so obviously they were looking for something I didn’t have,” Reynolds said. “I thought about it and realized that those schools don’t have a whole lot more than SCC does.”

So, Southern California College is now his home.

“I knew after moving ump-teen times when my father was in the military that I just wasn’t going to do that when I finally found a place where I was comfortable,” Reynolds said. “I guess I’m just not a restless person.”

And besides, he’ll always have Paris . . . and West Point . . . and El Paso . . .