200th is Just Another Win for Johnson : High schools: El Camino basketball coach keeps a low profile as his teams roll up victories.

His 200th victory as El Camino High’s basketball coach came and went Friday in typical Ray Johnson fashion.

No ceremonies. No mention of it to his players or even his athletic director.

When asked why he didn’t make a big deal of the milestone? Johnson said: “I didn’t win the 200, they did.”

His players have grown accustomed to their low-key, low-profile coach with the curly hair and brown polyester pants that make him resemble a character from the early ‘70s.

Senior guard Jeff Reeves, a two-year starter, seemed insulted that he wasn’t informed of Johnson’s victory plateau.

“I really don’t know why he didn’t say anything,” Reeves said. “He’s just not concerned with himself though. I figured he was getting close to it, but I had no idea he had reached it.”

Herb Meyer, El Camino’s athletic director and football coach, seemed somewhat embarrassed that Johnson’s consistency--200 victories in less than 11 seasons--had gone unnoticed by him.

“I don’t even remember anybody talking about it like it was coming up,” said Meyer, who has coached the El Camino football team to six section titles. “I talked to him (Tuesday) and he didn’t say anything about it. We would have made an issue of it had we known.”

Not much was made of El Camino’s near upset of Artesia in the quarterfinals of the Division II state tournament. Despite having their two leading scorers, Glenn Ankton and Travis Gilley, shoot a combined three for 25 from the field, the Wildcats lost at Artesia--the eventual state champion--by only four points.

Artesia was equipped with four Division I-caliber players, including arguably the best high school player in the nation, 6-foot-8 forward Ed O’Bannon. Gilley was the only El Camino player given a Division I scholarship.

So how was El Camino able to stay with Artesia, which had defeated its previous 14 opponents by an average of 24 points?

“That was just kids believing that they could play with anybody and taking their game to another level,” Johnson said. “They understood each other’s games so well. If we’d have played them somewhere different, we may have won that game.”

San Pasqual Coach Tom Buck, who has known Johnson for more than 20 years, said he was as surprised as anybody that El Camino came so close to knocking off Artesia.

“They were a very good San Diego team, but to play Ed O’Bannon and that crew so tough is hard to believe,” Buck said. “But I think that goes back to Ray and confidence he builds in his players. There’s a basketball cockiness his kids have that you don’t see in any other program in San Diego.”

You didn’t see much cockiness in anybody 11 years ago when Johnson took the El Camino job after two seasons as the junior varsity coach at Oceanside. Johnson inherited a 1-19 team, but he took it to 10-13 the next year.

In 1983, Johnson won his first Avocado League championship and fell to La Jolla in the section finals.

“We had five real good players that could all shoot and run,” Johnson said. “That’s what got things rolling.”

Things haven’t stopped rolling since. Six consecutive years and seven of the past eight, El Camino has won or shared the Avocado League title. Four of those years, the Wildcats have won the league outright. In ’86 and ‘90, they won the section championship.

Although Gilley, Ankton and center Dee Boyer graduated, this year’s team--14-3 and 7-1 after defeating Escondido last night, 90-61--looks to be on course for another league title and possibly a third section championship.

“Now it’s not even a goal to win league,” Reeves said. “It’s not even mentioned. It’s something we all know has to get done.”

Once known only as a football school, Johnson said El Camino is beginning to get a reputation for basketball.

“We’ve got a basketball tradition here,” he said. “Kids want to play here. They devote themselves to playing. I think within our own school the expectations for basketball are as high now as they are for football.”

Meyer agreed: “People said before he took over, you can’t have a good football program and a good basketball program, but he’s been able to do it.”

And Johnson has been able to do it largely without crossover athletes at a school with an enrollment of 1,660--not large by North County standards. None of last year’s starting five played football. This season, only forward Bryant Westbrooks starts for Johnson and Meyer.

Meyer and Buck say there are many reasons for Johnson’s success, but they point to his relationship with his players as the key.

“Ray has a great rapport with his kids,” Buck said. “The kids that play a lot for him have a great deal of confidence in him.”

Said Meyer: “The amount of time that he puts in to working with the kids really helps. He works with them over the summer a lot. He gets very close with the kids and that develops a cohesiveness.”

The time Johnson spends with his team is not lost on his players.

“I think our winning has a lot to do with the off-the-court stuff,” said McCoy, a 5-11 point guard, and the team’s third leading scorer at 16 points a game. “He has a family and I know sometimes he would rather be doing something else than taking us to a summer league game. We respect him a lot for that. So when we lose, we feel like we let him down.”

Johnson wants his players also to feel they’ve let each other down by losing. He encourages his players to develop relationships off the court.

On the court, Johnson stresses an up-tempo game that is dictated by an attacking man-to-man defense.

“If you did anything else with the kind of kids we have here, you’d be restricting their ability,” he said. “The trade-off is that we play good defense and we have a lot of freedom in our offense.”

Johnson acknowledges that he sometimes gives players too much freedom. Twenty-five foot jump shots are not uncommon in El Camino’s offense.

“There aren’t too many bad shots you can take for me,” he said. “There are some shots they put up, you’re just shaking your head, and then they go in. But then you say, ‘I’ve seen it happen before, so it’s not a fluke.’ Every once in a while we have to bring them back to reality. If they miss four in a row, ‘I’ll say, ‘Let’s think about where you’re shooting from.’ ”

It’s rare for Johnson to show much emotion on the sidelines--a Rollie Massimino or Lou Carnesecca he’s not.

“I want the kids to be in the same mental condition I am,” Johnson said. “If I get too high-strung, they’ll react to that.”

During the course of a game or practice, Johnson’s patience occasionally is tried. But he’s usually able to stay calm. Where does he get the patience?

Johnson says it comes from working with special education students at El Camino.

“I realize to pull kids through things, it’s going to take time more than anything,” he said. “We give kids time to get through their growing stages.”

But there are occasions when Johnson is pushed too far. McCoy remembered one such instance during a summer league game.

“I talked back to him and he sat me down when we only had five players left,” McCoy said. “We wound up losing the game because we only played with four players, but he made his point.”

And then there was the time when Johnson pulled a Bobby Knight by walking out of practice and turning the lights out.

“That was weird,” said Reeves, the Wildcats’ leading scorer this season at 22 points a game. “I’ve never seen him do something like that. We were on a losing streak and that really woke us up.”

Johnson’s viewed as a motivator, a communicator and a teacher, but not always as a good game coach. But Buck said Johnson is very underrated in that aspect of coaching.

“Last year versus us in the CIF playoffs, he made some great moves,” Buck said. “Sometimes Ray is overlooked for those things.”

Johnson acquired his basketball knowledge as a player for Riverside North High and then later at California Baptist College. He decided while at Cal Baptist that he wanted to make coaching his livelihood.

“I knew what it did for me when I was growing up,” Johnson said. “I knew the positive end of basketball helped me.”

Although the hours are long and he’s probably away from his family too much, Johnson said he has never regretted his decision to coach.

“Seeing the kids go on and being successful is the most fun,” said Johnson, who currently has nine former players playing college basketball. “It’s always fun to see them come back and enjoy the success that they’ve had.”

But Johnson admits he’s wondered what it would be like to coach at a higher level. This summer, Johnson’s curiosity got the best of him and he applied for the vacant Palomar College job. He was interviewed, but was turned down.

And now he wonders why he considered leaving.

“I’m glad I didn’t get it now,” he said. “After going to a couple of junior college games, geez, you’ve only got 20 people in the stands. There’s not much support there. The real reason I did it was because I wasn’t going to have to teach as many classes. But it would have been unstable. I’m glad it didn’t work out. I’m real happy here.”

The administration and players at El Camino are happy to have him.