Original Anteaters Court Memories : Basketball: Players say they were happy to launch UCI basketball in 1965. Today, they will return as university honors its first team.

To those who came to gaze at the University of California’s new campus more than 25 years ago, the possibilities seemed limitless.

They let their imaginations wander, blocking out the sight of cows grazing in the tall grass and the sound of workmen pounding nails.

It was easy to envision those steel beams one day becoming home to UC Irvine, and that someday soon it would be as respected as the Berkeley or Westwood campuses.

After all, it was the early 1960s, and there was plenty of open space at the base of the San Joaquin Hills to hunker down and create something new and different.

Indeed, opportunity brought Irvine’s first basketball team together, just as it attracted its first student body and faculty.

Years before the school opened on Oct. 5, 1965, Dan Rogers would drive past the construction site on the way to his job as assistant basketball coach at USC. Often, he’d pause for a moment to watch the progress and dream of coaching there.

Once he was hired, Rogers found players where he could, selling them on the chance to establish something original.

Right from the start, tradition took a beating.

Irvine’s mascot--the Anteater--was taken straight from the Sunday comics and pasted on Irvine’s athletic teams. To many, it seemed as strange as the school’s space-age architecture. Where were the ivy-covered walls, anyway?

Irvine’s first basketball team won more than it lost, though it hardly seems as important now as it did then.

Looking back, 25 years later, the players say they were happy to have been the first Anteaters.

Today, UCI returns the favor, honoring the 1965-66 basketball team.

This afternoon, they will scrimmage in Crawford Hall, where they played their first game as the first Anteaters.

Later, they’ll have dinner together and attend tonight’s Irvine-UC Santa Barbara game in the Bren Center. At halftime, they will be introduced to the crowd as the pioneers they were.

COACH AND CARPENTER

No one worked as hard on Irvine’s future as Dan Rogers. He was there from the beginning, hanging doors in the administration building as a carpenter during off-seasons at USC.

When it became clear Irvine would have an NCAA Division II basketball team (early on, there seemed to be some doubt the school would field athletic teams at all), Rogers began to get interested.

He was an assistant at USC for three seasons and had coached at Newport Harbor High School before that.

“I thought that was going to be my career the rest of my life--coaching and teaching at USC,” he said. “Then I got ambitious.”

He pursued the Irvine job with everything he had.

Rogers began following Chancellor Daniel Aldrich to promotional events, hoping to get a word with him.

He asked Pete Newell, a successful coach at California and a good friend, to recommend him to Aldrich.

Finally, after his interview with Athletic Director Wayne Crawford, Rogers faced his chief rival for the job, Al Sawyer, on the court.

Rogers brought the USC freshmen to play Sawyer’s Orange Coast College team. Rogers, figuring the winner would have the inside track on the UCI job, invited Crawford.

“We went without a basket for the first 10 minutes,” Rogers said. “Finally, we caught them and beat them.”

Rogers got the job, one of the first 25 people hired by the university. And he went right to work recruiting, not just basketball players but students as well. Later, he started the Big I Booster club, which raised money to get the school’s athletic program off the ground.

One of Rogers’ jobs at USC was to recruit, so he knew where to find top talent. He didn’t waste his time on high schools, heading straight to the community colleges for established players.

COME BE AN ANTEATER

“Recruiting wasn’t that bad,” Rogers said. “I was enthusiastic as a recruiter.”

Mark Nelson, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound center, came to Irvine from Glendale College. Dale Finney, a 6-4 forward, came from nearby Santa Ana College (now Rancho Santiago).

Eldon McBride, a 6-4 forward, played at Antelope Valley, where the team finished third in the state tournament his freshman season. Bob Johnson, a guard, played at Cerritos.

Crawford saw Tom Bryan, who had played junior varsity ball at Orange Coast, shooting baskets in the gym and told Rogers to have a look for himself.

“Crawford told him, “There’s this 6-4 kid shooting baskets in the gym you should look at,’ ” Bryan said. “Well, I’m only 6-2.”

Most of the players came from winning backgrounds, which Rogers liked. But some weren’t as academically gifted as the administration would have liked.

One, a guard named Les Powell who played with Johnson at Cerritos, was refused admission.

“He was a phenomenal player,” Rogers said. “If we had gotten him, we would have gone 25-1. I begged Aldrich to let him in. I knew the guy would have made it academically.”

It was to be the first in a number of disagreements that caused a rift between Rogers and the administration.

Powell landed at Utah State, where he was the Aggies’ MVP two consecutive seasons.

Jim Splittgerber was another key loss for Rogers.

He was expected to be a high-scoring guard, but before he played a game for Irvine he injured his knee and never played a game.

“He was just never the same,” Rogers said.

Splittgerber’s injury promoted Bryan to the starting lineup.

Bryan played at Costa Mesa High but never made the varsity at Orange Coast. “I was a big star on the junior varsity,” he said.

He worked the following summer on a 41-foot albacore boat and didn’t return to school in time to try out for basketball again.

The next year, he was cut by Sawyer because the coach said Bryan had made threatening telephone calls.

“He said, ‘I know it’s you,’ ” Bryan said. “I was in an illegal fraternity at Coast. I had buddies who got in trouble. Anybody who was in the frat got in trouble.”

Bryan told Sawyer he didn’t make the calls, but that didn’t change the coach’s mind. And Bryan would have to wait until Dec. 1, 1965, to play his first varsity college game.

BEAT THE AUNTEATERS

They “zotted” until the rafters nearly came down at the University of California, Irvine Wednesday night as the Anteater basketball express rocked and rolled to an impressive 85-71 victory over UC Riverside in the first-ever major athletic contest for the fledgling Orange County institution.

--The Daily Pilot, Dec. 2, 1965

“I can’t remember if we won or lost,” Nelson said.

“Did we win that first game?” Finney said.

“It’s kind of a vague memory to be honest with you,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s only point was a free throw, the first point ever scored by an Anteater.

He remembers Finney scored the first basket.

“That could be, but that’s really reaching for it,” Finney said.

It’s the little things they remember most.

Before the game, Chancellor Aldrich jumped center against Riverside Chancellor Ivan Hinderaker--Aldrich winning.

The crowd of 1,837 in Crawford Hall, big even by today’s standards, yelled “zot” every time the Anteaters scored.

Bryan had 22 points, McBride had 17, Finney 16 and Nelson 13.

“We played well,” Rogers said. “I was very pleased. We played with tremendous intensity. I didn’t know what to expect.”

Neither did the others, so they didn’t come into the first game with expectations of any kind.

“Every game we had that year, we were unknowns,” Nelson said. “A lot of people laughed at us because of our nickname. (But) we beat a lot of good teams.”

Said Johnson: “We might have been outmanned, but at least we knew what we were supposed to do.”

Irvine finished the 1965-66 season with a 15-11 record, playing most of the local colleges with the exception of UCLA and USC. Cal State Fullerton, Chapman and Riverside were the Anteaters’ biggest rivals.

There was nothing to suggest that playing for Irvine was anything but small-time.

Said Nelson: “When we showed up at UC Riverside, at the end of their gym was a banner that said ‘Beat the Anteaters,’ spelled A-U-N-T-E-A-T-E-R-S.”

POSTSCRIPT

With a few exceptions, they haven’t seen or spoken to each other since their playing days. Today, they will come from near and far to reminisce.

Finney, who led the team in rebounding and assists, lives in San Diego County. So does Bryan. Nelson, who averaged 15.3 points, lives in Sacramento. McBride lives in Washington state.

Johnson, who transferred to Cal State Fullerton after one season, has worked for the same Anaheim wholesale company since 1969.

Rogers works for a commercial real estate firm within eyesight of the campus.

He coached only one more season at Irvine.

“I quit before Wayne Crawford could fire me,” he said. “We disagreed on the way we were going. I decided if I was ever going to try business, I was going to try it while I was young.”

The era died quickly. Most of Rogers’ recruits, who had come from community colleges, left when he did, happy to have been the original Anteaters.

In the years since, UCI joined the Division I ranks, sent players to the NBA, and, on one glorious March night in 1986, even beat UCLA in Pauley Pavilion.

But back in ‘65, no one could dream all that would happen.