PREP REVIEW / TOM HAMILTON : The End of a Courtship for Estancia’s O’Brien

For the past three years, Tim O’Brien, basketball coach at Estancia High School, has made his presence felt at Christ College Irvine, a small campus with an enrollment of 500.

He purchased a season pass for the past two seasons, and estimates that he attended more home games than some of the school’s administrators.

After Christ College Coach Dave Wild resigned, school officials called O’Brien to tell him about the opening. He interviewed once for seven hours, and was called back for another six-hour interview in which he supervised a practice with seven players for an hour.

Christ College Irvine’s exhaustive search for a men’s basketball coach finally ended last week, but O’Brien did not get the job.

Greg Marshall, a 34-year-old assistant at Westmont College, was hired Wednesday to replace Wild.

Marshall’s hiring ended two months of screening applicants and interviewing finalists.

O’Brien spent even longer pursuing the job.

After Wild first hinted that the 1989-90 season would he his last year as coach, five representatives from Christ College Irvine attended Estancia’s playoff game against Trabuco Hills in 1989 to get a first-hand look at O’Brien. Five months ago, O’Brien began attending Lutheran classes at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Orange on Sunday mornings “so I could better understand their ways.”

He even ran a practice with a team that he will never coach.

“I treated it like my first day of practice, when I probably should have treated it like my last,” O’Brien said.

When O’Brien, The Times’ county coach of the year this season, learned that Marshall had been hired, he said he was more shocked than disappointed.

“I don’t hold any hard feelings,” O’Brien said. “But I kept wondering what more I could have done. I had shown an interest in the job for three years. The 60-day interview process was nothing.

“I guess I wasn’t what they were looking for, but there’s no sour grapes on my part. If they offered me the job today, I’d gladly take it.”

O’Brien’s consolation is returning to Estancia next season where he has seven of his top eight players back from a team that won the Southern Section 3-A division with a memorable 51-49 overtime victory over Servite at the Bren Center.

Around the horn: The Southern Section’s 5-A division baseball playoffs figured to be highly competitive with 18 of the 32 teams having 17 or more victories. The parity in the division was evident in the first round when second-seeded Long Beach Millikan, third-seeded Culver City and fourth-seeded Hacienda Heights Wilson were eliminated.

Alemany scored the biggest upset of the first round, defeating Millikan, 11-8, to set up a second-round game against Katella.

Millikan had won 23 games, winning two of three against Lakewood, the preseason choice by USA Today as the top team in the nation.

The Garden Grove League made the best showing in the first round among the 11 Orange County leagues, with victories by all three teams that made the field--Santiago, La Quinta and Kennedy.

Where’s Aimee?: League nominations for the Orange County Athletic Directors’ Assn. boys’ and girls’ athlete of the year were submitted last week with one of the county’s premier athletes noticeably absent.

Aimee McDaniel, Brea-Olinda’s extraordinary point guard for four years, wasn’t nominated.

Orange League officials voted for Jill Schneider, a three-sport athlete from Magnolia.

McDaniel helped Brea-Olinda win four league titles, two Southern Section titles and a state championship during her career.

Brea-Olinda had a 117-9 record with McDaniel in the lineup, and anyone who saw her routinely throw 60-foot, length-of-the-court passes or win the three-point shooting contest at the Bren Center as a sophomore knew she was a special athlete.

McDaniel isn’t the first athlete to be slighted, however.

Last year, administrators of the Empire League initially failed to nominate Janet Evans but later submitted the Olympic swimmer along with Joni Easterly of Katella. Evans was named the recipient of the award.

Prep Notes

The county’s boys’ and girls’ athlete of the year will be announced Tuesday night at the spring meeting of the Orange County Athletic Directors’ Assn. at the Anaheim Stadium Club. The winners will receive a $1,000 scholarship award from Coca-Cola. . . . Players selected for the 31st Orange County All-Star football game will be honored at a dinner Thursday at the Santa Ana Moose Lodge. Reservations can be made by telephoning Phil Anton at 547-8777. . . . Mike Doyle has been elected officials assigner for the county’s boys’ and girls’ basketball games of the 1990-91 season, succeeding Louie Fuentes. . . . Frank Doretti, Los Alamitos athletic director, has been named president of the California State Athletic Directors Assn. . . . Corona del Mar High School is looking for a walk-on girls soccer coach. Contact Athletic Director Jerry Jelnick at 760-3315.

The top athletes representing the junior high schools in the Santa Ana and Tustin unified school districts will be honored June 6 at the Santa Ana Elks Club. Former Olympic track star Rafer Johnson will be the guest speaker. . . . Loara’s annual athletic booster golf tournament will be June 25 at the Fullerton Golf Course. The four-person scramble tournament will benefit Loara athletics. Reservations can be made by telephoning Ray Moore at 999-3697. . . . Former Huntington Beach basketball player Stefanie Pemper was named the most improved player on Idaho State’s women’s basketball team. . . . Servite Athletic Director Tom Vitello is accepting applications for a cross-country coach with a teaching position in the math or science department available. Interested coaches can apply by telephoning Vitello at 774-4350. . . . The top players from the Sunset and Moore leagues will meet in an all-star baseball game June 9 at Blair Field in Long Beach. Steve Barrett of Ocean View will coach the Sunset League team and Dan Peters of Millikan will coach the Moore League all-stars. . . . John Paulsen, senior starting forward on Corona del Mar’s basketball team, will play for the University of Redlands next season, according to Redlands Coach Gary Smith.