A Mover and a Shaker : Reseda’s Nomadic Jeff Halpern Specializes in Basketball Revivals

Visitors to the Reseda High gym can’t help but notice the Lion. There, larger than life on the south wall, is a painting of the school’s mascot, the Regent. Stylized with humanlike facial features, it sports a white tank top and holds a basketball in one paw and a volleyball in the other. It has a look of nobility to it, one benefitting the king of beasts, but one that seemed out of place until this year. For in previous seasons, the Reseda boys’ basketball team had distinguished itself as anything but a king.

Consider:

In 1985-86, Reseda was 5-16 and winless (0-12) in Valley 4-A League play.

In 1986-87, the team was 6-13 and 2-10, but with the school’s football (2-A Division) and the girls’ basketball (3-A) teams winning City Section titles, the improvement paled in comparison.

In 1987-88, the Regents sank to new depths, compiling a 2-14 record (1-11 in league play) while the girls’ team was successfully defending its City title and the boys’ soccer and volleyball (3-A) teams were winning their first City championships.

“Things were pretty bleak,” said Coley Kyman, a two-year starter at quarterback on the football team and at forward-center on the basketball team.

“Before this year, we were used to losing. We went into games expecting to lose.”

Then Jeff Halpern replaced Tim Nakano as coach in September, and things began to change, albeit slowly at first.

After starting the season with six losses, the Regents (9-10) won nine of their last 13 games, finished second to North Hollywood with a 7-3 record in the Mid-Valley League and will play at Wilson in the first round of the City 3-A playoffs at 7:30 tonight--their first postseason appearance in four years.

There is no doubt that Reseda’s move from the 4-A to the 3-A has been instrumental in its resurgence, but Halpern also has played a major role in the Regents’ drive to respectability.

After coaching Van Nuys to a 21-3 record during the 1984-85 season and guiding Birmingham to a 22-3 mark in 1986-87, Halpern came to Reseda with a reputation as a winner. But he also was known as a nomad, having also lasted only one season (1987-88) as an assistant at College of the Canyons.

“My wife has told me to at least try and stay at a school more than one year,” Halpern said. “That’s kind of a standing joke around the house. . . . I never intended to move around as much as I have. It’s just turned out that way.”

Halpern, 45, said that the Reseda job has been the most challenging and rewarding--and at times, frustrating--of his career.

“We were coming from two ends of the spectrum when I came here,” Halpern said. “The kids were coming from a program that hadn’t won in years and I was used to winning.”

After opening the season with an 84-30 stomping at the feet of Taft, followed by a 70-44 rout by Wilson, Halpern had serious doubts about whether he was up to the challenge.

“When we lost to Taft by 50 points, I really took it personally,” Halpern said. “I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ I blamed it on myself.

“Before, when I saw teams getting killed, I wondered how a coach could let that happen. But now I know how.”

However, neither of those losses caused Halpern as much grief as a 70-59 overtime loss to Birmingham in a consolation-bracket game of the North Hollywood tournament in December.

Reseda led by eight with two minutes left in regulation only to lose its sixth consecutive game.

“That one really hurt,” Halpern said. “We let that one get away. The kids weren’t used to leading that late in the game and they fell apart. They didn’t know how to win those tight games.”

Ironically, the Regents began to turn their season around with a win against Birmingham three games later. In that game, they came from behind to defeat the Braves, 43-42, in the third-place game of the Birmingham tournament. They followed that with a 71-59 victory over Poly in a Valley Pac-8 Conference opener.

“The victory against Birmingham was a big win,” assistant Mohamed Marhaba said. “Even though they’re not a powerhouse, they are a legitimate team.”

Marhaba, the sixth man on Halpern’s Van Nuys squad that advanced to the 3-A semifinals, was an assistant under Halpern at Birmingham and gladly came to Reseda with his mentor.

“It was kind of like a homecoming,” Marhaba said. “So when he asked if I wanted to coach with him, I didn’t hesitate.”

Establishing good relationships with his players has been a key to Halpern’s success.

“I’ve always tried to develop a good rapport with the kids,” he said. “I’m not the smartest tactician as far as X’s and O’s go, but I think I’m able to get the most out of the kids. I think I’m able to get kids to want to play for me.

“If you sit too far above the kids, when it comes down to it, and you need them in that really critical situation, they’re not going to perform for you.”

Anthony Cook, the leader of Halpern’s Van Nuys team and a forward at Arizona, attributed much of his mentor’s success to concern for his players’ welfare.

“You can just tell that he really relates to all his players and cares about what happens to them, both on and off the court,” said Cook, an All-Pacific 10 Conference selection last year. “And that makes you want to play for him. It makes a big difference to you as a player knowing that your coach cares about you.”

Cook said that Halpern’s friendship with the Van Nuys players helped transform the Wolves into a better team. “We did things off the court together,” Cook said. “We had team dinners at various players’ houses and we went to movies and sometimes to other games together. We were a very close-knit team and it showed in the way we played.”

Halpern has a special fondness for that team, which was upset by San Pedro, 77-70, in the semifinals.

Despite the loss, Halpern had established himself as a legitimate varsity coach after 10 years at the B and C level at Grant, his alma mater. But any satisfaction was diminished quickly when Van Nuys released him from his position at the end of the school year because of budget cuts. “I was devastated. I felt like I had made a name for myself and it was yanked out from under me,” Halpern said.

Halpern began teaching at Birmingham in the fall of 1985, after his release, but did not coach basketball until a year later when Jim O’Hara retired. He immediately guided the Braves (12-11 a year earlier) to the Northwest Valley League title and the City 3-A final, which they lost to Granada Hills.

Though his job was secure, Halpern took the position at Canyons last season while still teaching five classes at Birmingham.

“I wanted to get a taste of coaching at the collegiate level,” Halpern said. “I thought it’d be challenging, so I took the job when the opportunity presented itself.”

Halpern intended to return to Canyons this season, but when Birmingham told him that he would have to teach six classes instead of five--thus interfering with his duties at the Valencia campus--he took the job at Reseda.

“I learned a lot at COC,” Halpern said. “But I also learned that I need to be a head coach. After having your own program for so many years, even if it’s at the B and C level, it’s different working for someone else. You don’t have as much input and the kids look at you in a different way, without as much respect.”

And respect is important to Halpern. “I expect what I give,” he said. “If the kids don’t give back to me as much as I give out, then I get upset.”

Apparently, there’s been little upsetting about his stay at Reseda. But will Halpern stick around?

“I feel like I’ve found a home at Reseda. I feel comfortable there,” he said. “But if a head coaching position opened up at the community college level, I do believe I could hold my own.”