Pacifica’s Basketball Team Gets Off to a Running Start

Last fall, Pacifica High School Coach Rhett Heckel greeted 10 of his basketball players with quite a surprise.

“We had a sixth-period basketball (conditioning) class and I made the following announcement to everyone: ‘Congratulations, you’re now on the cross-country team,’ ” Heckel said.

Heckel had 10 of his 12 varsity players run cross-country last fall to prepare for the basketball season.

Two other basketball players already were out for football, and Heckel wanted to get the rest of his team in condition.

And running about five miles a day was a good start.

“It was great,” said Heckel, who is in his fourth year as Pacifica’s basketball coach and his first as cross-country coach. “When basketball season started, we spent less time in practice working on conditioning.

“Normally we’re running sprints at the start of the season, but these guys already had a full season of cross-country behind them.”

The Mariners have had a tough start (2-), but the conditioning has proven to be an asset for leading scorers Randy Schulze (18 points) and Mike Maher (14).

“Running gave us a sense of camaraderie,” Heckel said. “We were all out there together every day. Cross-country wasn’t much fun in practice, but the meets sure were.”

Heckel’s starting backcourt turned in some surprising performances. Larry Nagata, a 5-foot-10 point guard, was the team’s fourth-fastest runner and Anil Hanuman, a 6-2 guard, was fifth-fastest.

“They came out and ran in their high-top (sneakers),” Heckel said.

Heckel said he plans to make another announcement next fall. And once again, the Mariners will be running . . . and running . . . and running.

“We had the biggest cross-country team in the (Garden Grove) league this year,” he said. “We had 32 kids on the varsity while most other teams had eight or 10. We had to order bigger buses just to get to the meets.”