Coach and His Star Player Are Facing Career Crossroads : Basketball: Lynwood High’s coach of 23 years is in his last season. And the team’s leading scorer must decide which college offer to accept.

Bill Notley, the Lynwood High School basketball coach known to his all-black team as the White Shadow, walked toward a class on yet another afternoon in his long tenure. His face bore a rancher’s ruggedness, his gray hair was wind-swept and he wore dark glasses and a purple LHS jacket.

Waiting at a little building in which Notley teaches driver education was Earnest Killum, his star player and a student aide in the class. Killum was casually dressed like all the students, but much taller.

A quiet senior who has a church-oriented life after being on the fringe of gangs as an eighth-grader, Killum is the area’s leading scorer with a 30-point average.

The coach and player, although separated by many years, are both at a crossroads.

Notley, 58, a Lynwood High fixture for 32 years and its basketball coach since 1967, is almost certain that this will be his last season. Lynwood Principal Michael Cureton said that Notley told him earlier in the school year that he would probably be stepping down as coach.

Killum, 18, is trying to decide which college, of the many courting him, to attend.

Notley’s career at Lynwood has spanned three eras of different racial and ethnic composition--the school enrollment was all white in the late 1950s and through the ‘60s, all black during most of the ‘70s and through the mid-1980s, and is now mostly Latino and black.

“In 1973 we (the basketball team) were still all white,” Notley said. “But all the good white players went to Orange County that year. We were 0-23.”

With the arrival the next season of talented black players, the Knights began a quick emergence. In 1976, Notley coached a 29-3 team that won the CIF championship.

Notley has not won a second CIF title, but his teams have consistently been among the top in the area. This season the Knights, 24-1 before Wednesday night’s game with Warren High of Downey, are ranked first in Division 5-AA.

“I’ve been blessed,” said Notley, whose record is 325-190. “I don’t make pretenses to being a great coach. The talent has always been here. I just try not to screw them up. I’ve always tried to convey to them, ‘Be better tomorrow than you are today.’ ”

Notley’s latest blessing is Killum. A 6-foot-4 1/2, 185-pound forward-guard, he played with grace, confidence and exuberance during a recent game.

Wearing his No. 23 purple jersey over a T-shirt in the prep fashion, he did not miss an outside shot, nor did he force one. He threw deft passes and displayed a variety of dunks, which excited the Lynwood fans who outnumbered the Gahr High fans, although the game was in the Gahr gym in Cerritos.

“Everybody comes to see him put on a show,” said teammate Charles Levy.

The show peaked when guard Michael Singleton, leading a fast-break, bounced the ball against the backboard. It caromed into the hands of a leaping Killum, who slammed it through the basket.

When Notley rested him, Killum clapped and yelled: “Let’s go, let’s go.” He scored 31 points in Lynwood’s 107-57 victory.

“He’s one of the very best,” said Don Mead, who runs a scouting service based in Irvine. “His potential is unlimited.”

Cal State Long Beach, Oklahoma, Louisiana State, Oregon State and Loyola Marymount are among the universities recruiting Killum, who probably will choose among them in late March. “They call all the time,” he said. “They tell me how good their program is and how they will help me get my degree.”

He deflects the attention well.

“My team always comes first,” he said. “I feel I owe the guys something. They depend on me to come through.”

Killum’s father, Earnie Killum, played at Stetson University in Deland, Fla., and was a guard with the Lakers in 1970-71, appearing in four games.

Killum, who lives with his mother and stepfather, visited his father in Atlanta last summer.

“We played some basketball,” the younger Killum said. “We played full court. I beat him the first night three out of four, the next night he beat me two out of three, and the last night I beat him, four to three. He’s got a jumper, boy.”

Earnie Killum, 41, an assistant high school principal, assessed his son by telephone: “He made 14 three-pointers in a row against me in one of the games. He has to tighten up on defense and work on his ball handling.”

Four years ago, Earnest Killum’s future did not seem bright.

“I was at a gym in L.A. and I had red shoestrings in my shoes,” said Killum, who grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Lynwood three years ago. “This dude told me to take the shoestrings out and be something in life.”

The advice was given by Gary Barnard, a gang counselor, who thought Killum might have belonged to the Bloods gang because of the color of his shoelaces.

“I wasn’t leaning toward gangs, but I was running with the fellas, not going to class,” Killum said. “Everything’s OK now. Three years ago I was baptized at the Missionary Baptist Church on Compton Avenue in L.A. It seems like when I met God, He turned my life around.”

Killum has acquired a humbleness that amazes Notley. “You see very few who are as good as he is who don’t think they are God’s gift to the game,” the coach said.

“I’m a quiet person,” Killum said. “I mind my own business. A big head? That’s not me.”

When Notley first saw Killum as a ninth-grader, he did not think he would be as good as he has become. “He’s made tremendous strides,” Notley said. “He’s always working on his game. If he misses a free throw, he’ll go out and shoot 200. A lot of kids who are good stop working on their weaknesses. But he wants to be a better player.”

Killum, who is scheduled to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test on Saturday, said he has a 2.8 grade-point average. “His grades will be OK,” Notley said.

Born in Oklahoma, Notley played basketball on East Texas State University’s NAIA championship team in 1954. “I was more of a defensive player,” said Notley, whose Lynwood teams are known for free-wheeling offenses.

He never gave much thought to teaching or coaching elsewhere.

“I’ve had the same house (in Huntington Beach) since 1962, the same wife (Lorna) since 1960. I don’t go in for a lot of change.”

But now he is ready to step down because he is tired of having to raise money. He said he will stay as a teacher.

“I spend more time raising money (through events such as candy sales and alumni games) than I do actually coaching,” he said. “We don’t have a booster club that raises $5,000 or $10,000 a year. And there’s no support from the (school) district for expenses.”

Notley said the majority of the money that the school district gives to the athletic program is for football. He has had to raise money for uniforms and fees for tournaments and summer leagues.

“If you don’t compete in the summer, you get farther behind,” he said. “To be competitive, you’ve got to play in summer leagues and tournaments.”

Cureton, the principal, said Lynwood has a booster program for football but not for boys basketball. He said football gets most of the money because of the expensive equipment it requires.

Notley has long been saddened by what he sees as a lack of local interest in the team. “We get a lot of alumni kids at our games,” he said. “But overall there’s not a lot of community support for the program. Some parents are very supportive of their kids and are always there (at games). But some of the kids can go all through their careers and their parents never see them play. That’s unfortunate.”

But he has never doubted his decision to stay.

“A lot of teachers complain about this place,” he said, “but I’ve enjoyed it here. I get along with the kids. They call me the White Shadow. I had a van with over 150,000 miles on it, and I had ‘Lynwood’s White Shadow’ on the license plate frame. I’m proud of that. We go places and I’ll be the only white guy in the gym. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Killum said the players respect their coach. “They don’t talk back to him,” Killum said. “We really love Notley. He does a tremendous job. We’re going to try to do it for him (win the CIF title) this year.”

After reflecting on that recent afternoon, Notley went into his classroom. In an hour he would conduct practice, and then another day at Lynwood would end and he would drive back to the beach.

In the morning, he would still get a kick out of returning.