Off and Running : New Crespi Basketball Coach Seeks Rapid-Fire Gains With Up-Tempo Style

He had just taken over a program that had one winning season in the previous four years and had a combined record of 38-53 during that stretch. Yet Chris Nikchevich was talking about winning championships after being hired in June to replace Ed Marek as the Crespi High basketball coach.

The Mission League title was not what Nikchevich had in mind, either. He was thinking more along the lines of a Southern Section championship.

Nikchevich, a 1982 Crespi graduate and a three-year starter at point guard for the Celts, could have recited the standard spiel when a coach takes over a struggling program: “We’re going to work really hard, but it’s going to take time to develop.” He bypassed Caution Lane, however, and took Straight Shooter Boulevard instead.

“Chris has always been that way,” said Crespi Athletic Director Paul Muff, who coached Nikchevich in high school. “He’s always been very optimistic. He goes into every game thinking he has a shot at winning, even if he’s playing the Lakers.”

Much of Nikchevich’s outlook stems from his glory days at Crespi. During his three seasons on the varsity, the Celts posted a 60-18 record, won two Del Rey League titles and advanced to the quarterfinals of the section’s top playoff division in his sophomore and senior seasons.

In 1980, Crespi upset defending champion Verbum Dei and Kenny Fields, 49-48, in the second round of the playoffs, before losing to eventual runner-up Long Beach Poly, 52-42, in the quarterfinals. Two years later, the second-seeded Celts suffered a 59-57 overtime loss to Long Beach St. Anthony in the quarterfinals.

“Crespi had a very good basketball tradition back then,” said Nikchevich, 26, an All-Southern Section player as a junior and senior. “We were one of the best teams in the Valley year in and year out. . . . I’d like to help bring the program back to that level again.”

In pursuit of that goal, Nikchevich has scrapped Crespi’s post-up offense in favor of a run-and-gun attack similar to the one Paul Westhead employed at Loyola Marymount, where Nikchevich played as a senior during the 1986-87 season.

“We won’t run quite as much as Loyola did,” Nikchevich said. “But we are going to score a lot of points. I’m very interested to see if Westhead’s system can work at the high school level.”

Westhead, in his first season as coach of the Denver Nuggets, says it can.

“That system can work at any level,” he said. “You just need enthusiastic, hard-working players to run it. It’s not like running a half-court offense, where you walk the ball up court and set up. You’re constantly running, and running hard, and that’s asking a lot from your players.”

A depth-laden team is a prerequisite for running Westhead’s offense successfully, and Nikchevich figures that Crespi has the talent to do the job, especially since brothers Randy and Ray Coleman and Robby Leff have transferred to the Encino school.

Randy Coleman, a 6-foot-6 1/2 junior, was a member of the Cleveland High varsity as a freshman two years ago before moving to Chicago. Leff, a junior off-guard, is a transfer from Calabasas High. Ray Coleman is a 6-3 freshman.

“(Randy and Ray) are both very talented athletes,” Nikchevich said. “Ray hasn’t developed his skills to the point that Randy has, but he’s going to be a good player for us. And Robby will give us added depth at the off-guard position.”

Randy Coleman, Matt Carpenter (6-7), Rasaan Hall (6-4) and John Curtain (6-1) are expected to be the Celts’ starters, with the point-guard position still up for grabs. Hall averaged 17.7 points a game last season before he was declared academically ineligible for the final three games.

Nikchevich, who transferred to Loyola after starting at Brigham Young from 1982-85, thrived in Westhead’s system, which was in its second year at the time.

“I learned more about basketball during that one year at Loyola than I ever had,” said Nikchevich, who averaged 13.4 points and 7.2 assists a game for the 12-16 Lions. “There was a real sense of adventure on that team. We were venturing into a new frontier and it was very exciting and a lot of fun.”

The freedom in Westhead’s offense appealed to Nikchevich, who left BYU because he felt that the Cougar offense had become too restrictive under Coach Ladell Andersen.

“A lot of coaches try to put too much control over everybody and that interferes with their performance,” Nikchevich said. “The players are so concerned with what offense they’re running, or what defense they’re in, that they’re thinking too much and not just reacting.

“I objected to that as a player, and as a coach, I try not to be that way.”

Hall, a senior, is delighted with the autonomy Crespi’s new offense affords.

“I’m totally happy with it,” he said. “It’s more wide open and it gives the players more room to make our own decisions and that’s a lot of fun. I mean, we’ve got big guys on this team who aren’t afraid to pull up from three-point range.”

Westhead, who still keeps in touch with Nikchevich, said that players need a lot of freedom to run a fast-paced offense because they’re required to make split-second decisions.

“It’s not like a set-up offense where they can look over at the bench and see what play the coach wants them to run,” he said. “There’s no time for that.”

Nikchevich only wishes Westhead had arrived at Loyola three seasons earlier, when he was making his college choice.

After averaging 21.3 points and 7.2 assists at Crespi as a junior and 17.3 points and 7.1 assists as a senior, Nikchevich was heavily recruited, eventually choosing BYU over Duke, Notre Dame, Pepperdine and Cal.

“Looking back, I might not have made the right decision,” he said. “But hindsight is 20-20. I really would have liked to have played for a local school, but besides Pepperdine, the local schools were kind of in disarray back then.”

Nikchevich averaged 4.3 points and 2.4 assists as a freshman at BYU, helping the Cougars to a three-way share of the Western Athletic Conference title. When Coach Frank Arnold was forced to resign after that season, however, the offense became more restrictive under Andersen, according to Nikchevich.

Despite those limitations, he averaged 6.8 points and 3.1 assists over the next two seasons before transferring to Loyola.

After leaving Loyola, the 6-2 1/2 Nikchevich played for the Vancouver Nighthawks of the World Basketball League for players 6-5 and under in 1988, but that was a far cry from the bright lights and big crowds of a major college.

“It was like going from the penthouse to the outhouse,” Nikchevich said. “It was really bad. Half the time, we didn’t get paid on a regular basis. And when we did, sometimes they’d just hand us cash. . . . I liked playing basketball, but that was just a second-rate operation.”

Shortly before launching his brief WBL career, Nikchevich started coaching at Crespi. He coached the sophomore team in 1987-88, assisted the junior varsity in ‘88-89 and moved up to the varsity as an assistant last season.

“To be honest with you, coaching was the furthest thing from my mind when I was in high school,” Nikchevich said. “I had hopes of playing in the NBA. I never envisioned myself coaching.”

Muff, who coached at Crespi from 1976-89, was surprised when Nikchevich returned home to coach, but not Westhead.

“Chris was a terrific kid to have around,” Westhead said. “He played as hard as you could possibly play. At LMU, he’d practice for two hours, lift weights for two hours, then sit around and talk basketball for two hours. He just couldn’t get enough of it.”

Despite his fondness for basketball, Nikchevich does not envision himself coaching for the next 20 or 30 years. The profession is just too unstable for his liking.

“I’m enjoying it now,” he said, “but I haven’t even thought about it down the road. I just want the kids to have fun playing the game. I don’t want them approaching basketball like it’s war. I want them to enjoy it. I want them to take it seriously when they’re on the court, but I don’t want them to think it’s a life-and-death situation.”

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