THE HIGH SCHOOLS / JOHN LYNCH : New Coaching Job Helps Carson Bounce Back From Heartbreak at Hart

The coincidence was not lost on Dave Carson. As the former coach at Hart and Burbank highs busily prepared for a new life in Spokane, Wash., he took note of where his career stood one year ago.

Carson accepted his new job as a track and assistant football coach at Rogers High almost exactly a year after he was forced to resign as the Hart football coach. Principal Laurence Strauss claimed Carson ran a negative program and the coach’s resignation July 20, 1989 ended a turbulent tour of duty with one of the area’s top programs.

The Indians were 6-5 under Carson and failed to win the Foothill League title for the first time in five years.

Carson, 42, had built a reputation as a talented coach in his five years at Burbank, fielding respectable if not especially talented teams. His 27-25 record included six forfeit losses.

But one season after he replaced Rick Scott at Hart, Carson was stunned by his ouster, which caused him to sink into self-doubt and depression. He remained at Hart as a physical education teacher, but without a coaching job he felt like an outcast.

“I was as low as you can get,” he said Friday. “The people at Burbank respected me but the people at Hart never really got to know me. When you’re treated as a nonentity, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

“I doubted myself and asked myself a lot of questions. I questioned what I did and who I was. I was always able to teach kids, but I didn’t teach the Hart kids very much.”

Taking an assistant coaching position at Muir High in Pasadena helped restore Carson’s confidence. He was hired in May as a defensive coordinator and enjoyed his brief ride with the Mustangs.

“The Muir kids took to me like a duck to water. I worked with quality kids there and was having fun,” he said.

Carson took the job in Spokane because of his friendship with football Coach Jeff Reyburn. The two worked together on Dave Currey’s staff at Cal State Long Beach in 1977-78. A visit to the area last month clinched the deal for Carson, who will move north by the end of the month.

“It’s a great place to raise a family and we’re all excited about leaving,” he said. “If you told me a year ago that I’d be packing for a job in Washington that I was really excited about, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Reclamation project: Perhaps the biggest boon to the young career of Canoga Park point guard Lindsey Dunbar came last winter with one week left in the regular season. The Hunters had shown tremendous improvement in Jeff Davis’ first season as coach, but the prospect of a losing season irked Dunbar. Canoga Park finished with a 10-13 record and Dunbar finished in the Davis doghouse.

Davis kicked Dunbar off the team after they clashed during practice. Dunbar, a 5-foot-7 junior point guard, was the team’s leading playmaker with an average of 6.3 assists a game and was second in scoring with a 12.2-point average. But he had lessons to learn that went beyond the playbook, a fact he now readily admits.

“I used to be selfish and just wanted to score,” Dunbar said. “(Davis) changed everything. I have a team attitude now and like to play with the team. Now I’m glad he kicked me off. He made me a better ballplayer and a person. I learned discipline from him.”

Davis claims that the change will make Dunbar one of the top players in the area next season. Dunbar has averaged 20 points in summer league games.

“He’s real tough to guard and now he understands the game better,” Davis said. “He’s learned to listen better. He understands the necessary communication between a coach and a point guard during the game. He looks over to the bench and he didn’t do that before.”

Dunbar claims his case is instructive. Davis has brought a winning attitude to a program that had seemed ready for the trash heap. In the season before Davis arrived, the Hunters lost a Northwest Valley Conference game to Cleveland by 97 points.

“There’s a winning attitude now and it’s been fun,” Dunbar said. “He has everything to do with it. He’s a good coach and good motivator.”

Add Canoga Park: Davis has kept the Hunters busy this summer, taking them to out-of-town tournaments two weekends in a row. After a trip to Santa Barbara for a tournament at Westmont College, the team played in the 32-team event at Skyline College in the Bay Area last weekend.

The Hunters dropped two of three games in the Bay Area and had to sleep on a high school gym floor their first night on the road.

“They wouldn’t let us stay at the college but it turned out to be a good thing,” David said. “We stayed up real late, just sitting around talking. It was like a campfire thing.

“We had another long talk the next night and I could feel the team getting real close. That’s why these trips are so beneficial.”