PREP FLASHBACK : THIS WEEK IN COUNTY PREP SPORTS HISTORY

10 YEARS AGO

The catch-phrase of the year was “Who shot J.R.?” from the TV show “Dallas.”

So when the La Quinta basketball team showed up at Bolsa Grande with 6-foot-9 All-American forward Johnny Rogers, they were greeted by a banner that read: “Who Will Snuff J.R.?”

The answer? Nobody.

Rogers scored 39 points in the Aztecs’ 80-59 Garden Grove League victory. Rogers made 17 of 22 shots, which impressed USC Coach Stan Morrison, who was in attendance.

“Rogers is the best-shooting big man I’ve ever seen in high school basketball,” Morrison said.

Despite the praise, Rogers accepted a scholarship to play for Stanford and later transferred to UC Irvine.

5 YEARS AGO

New Perspective: John Moore traded his coach’s whistle . . . for a referee’s whistle.

He quit his job as the varsity basketball coach at Laguna Hills High School to become a referee. He went from “Good job, Coach,” to “What game are you watching?” He went from hearing fight songs to listening to “Three Blind Mice.” And he did it by choice.

“I started going to the officials meetings just to get to know the rules,” Moore said. “I spent 18 years in coaching, I would like to think by going to those meetings, I learned more about the game.

“I try to remain faceless and colorless (in the game). The toughest games to work are the JV games where there’s nobody in the stands. The first thing I learned in this business is to try and do anything to stay out of trouble.”

One of the ways he did that was to not officiate games in the South Coast League, where he had coached.

The reaction from coaches and fans was better than Moore expected.

“I haven’t had an incident,” he said. “In fact, I haven’t called a technical this season. I’ve had a couple of kids from a losing team tell me that I called a good game. My wife has gone to a couple of games, and she’s my biggest critic. As a ref, I’d like to fade into the wall. But as a first-year ref, this has been better than I hoped it would be.”

1 YEAR AGO

When the Bell Rang for the Fourth Quarter: After 12 years as the Mission Viejo basketball coach, Bob Minier had seen his share of wild games. So he had no reason to get worked up after watching his team win a tense game over Dana Hills, 54-43, that included a bench-clearing brawl in the fourth quarter.

“A typical South Coast league (game),” he said of the league opener.

Then he added the obvious: “It was a hard-fought opener, I’d say.”