Camarillo Gun Pulls the Trigger : Junior Averages 41 Points in Tournament While Father Calls Shots From the Bench

Pardon David Harbour if he doesn’t remember the first basketball game he saw. It wasn’t such a terrific game. There was, after all, the hourlong drive to get there. It was only a junior varsity game and it was getting close to nap time, to boot.

Harbour was all of two days old.

It was in January, 1973, and David was propped in the visitors’ bleachers at Santa Barbara High while his mother, Sharon, watched his father, John, coach Hueneme’s junior varsity team.

Even then, basketball served as the brightest of the Harbour lights.

“They’ve always been best friends,” Sharon Harbour said of her husband and son. “They’re really two of a kind. They’re very serious about basketball--almost perfectionists.

“When they do something, they want to do it well. David’s been that way since he was born.”

Nearly 17 years later, most gyms can’t hold David Harbour. Certainly not the gym at Bosco Tech in Rosemead, where the 6-foot-2 1/2 guard scored 164 points--a 41-point average--in four games last week as he led Camarillo High to a fifth-place finish in the Bosco Tech tournament. His performance earned him a place on the all-tournament team.

Harbour did considerable damage. David slew Garfield with a school-record 50-point game in the opening round. He scored 31 in the next, a loss to Schurr on Thursday. He added 39 in Friday’s eight-point win over Downey and 44 in Saturday’s 16-point dismantling of Venice.

Often, when asked to comment on David’s exploits, John, 41, steers the conversation to David’s teammates. He speaks of their defense. He praises their rebounding. He commends their setting of screens. But this was an effort difficult to ignore, and John knew it.

“I think he had a terrific week; for a guy who didn’t shoot free throws well, a phenomenal week,” he said. “Mentally and physically, he took it to another level. And, I think the key was that he never was thinking about the points. When I told him he had 50, he was shocked. He couldn’t believe it.”

David is producing despite being Camarillo’s only scoring threat for the time being. The others--point guard Rick Schnell and forward Scott Foster--both have been ill and likely will not return until January. In fact, in two of the four games last week, no other player scored in double figures--and Harbour is the only one to score more than 11 points in a tournament game.

“I’m comfortable with it,” David said. “It doesn’t bother me at all as long as the other players accept that. And I think they have so far.

“I wish I didn’t have to shoot so much (28 times in each of the tournament’s first two games). There’s a lot more pressure when you feel you have to carry the scoring load.”

In between, John, who has been the coach at Camarillo since 1980, and David, a junior, have molded a fairly typical father-son relationship--except that theirs has been on display before crowds of several hundred people at a time.

Imagine having a family disagreement become the sideshow at a high school basketball game.

“We have our moments,” John said. “I have high expectations of him and the whole team. And, frankly, I’m not so nice until we reach those expectations.

“We’ve had a few little blow-ups, but lately we’ve been getting along pretty well. And, I think that’s part of the reason he’s going so well.”

David has been the coach’s best player for nigh on two seasons. Actually, David has been among John’s best players for much longer than that. John has coached David at the youth level for many years, even taking the 1986-87 high school season off to head an Amateur Athletic Union team on which David was the point guard.

That 14-and-under team was the champion of Southern California and placed fourth in the nation.

“They’ve always done things together,” Sharon Harbour said. “There is a mutual respect for each other, there always has been. John expects a lot from David, and David respects that.

“You know, when people are like that, sometimes they clash.”

Sometimes, but not as often as one would expect. They rarely take a difficult game home with them. Greg Brackett, a member of Camarillo’s junior varsity, a student in John’s math class and David’s closest friend, says David is usually content with the arrangement.

“Mr. Harbour kids around a lot,” Brackett said. “People, I think, get the impression that he is never satisfied or coaches him too hard. Sometimes they get into conflict because they have different viewpoints on how David plays. If he gets lackadaisical at all, David will hear about it.

“His dad doesn’t push him excessively. He wants to get the best out of him.”

There is little doubt concerning David’s ability. His left-handed jump shot is effective in close as well as from afar, and his slashing quickness gets him to the basket in a hurry. Of course, roundball is always big news around the dinner table.

“When we talk, our conversations are always about basketball,” David said. “I enjoy it. I respect Dad’s ability to succeed and his longing for it. That’s something I’ve always respected him for since I was a little boy.”

When it comes right down to it, differences can be settled on the court. John, after all, played two years at the University of Arizona. And who wins?

“Let’s put it this way,” David said, hedging, “it’s always really close. Believe me, it’s hard to play against your dad. He wants to win so bad, just so he can stay on top.”