Caltech Coach Trades Winning for the Joy of Instructing Players

Caltech men’s basketball Coach Gene Victor remembers the day during his first season at the school when Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian, a longtime friend, came to visit him.

“He came to one of our practices, took a look around at the players and he said, ‘You won’t win a game,’ ” Victor says. “He said, ‘You’ll have to be very patient,’ and I said, ‘You’re probably right.’ ”

In his fifth season as coach at Caltech, Victor has surpassed Tarkanian’s initial prediction, but not by much.

During that span, the Beavers have won 24 games, including five last season.

Victor got the 700th victory in his 38-year career, 64-53, over Arizona Bible College in the first round of the Caltech Tournament on Nov. 29 in Pasadena. Victor, 65, has a 700-445 record, including a 3-4 mark this season.

Most of those victories came at the community college level at Mt. San Antonio in Walnut, where he coached for 28 seasons and still ranks among the all-time state leaders in coaching victories. He also found success in five seasons as the coach at El Monte High in the 1950s.

But, despite the fact that the coaching victories do not come as often, Victor is not complaining.

“I averaged 20 wins a year before I came here, but that kind of stuff doesn’t really matter to me anymore because it’s just great to work with these kids that we get here,” he said. “These are the kind of kids who are really going places. They’re the kind of kids who are the future of our country.”

In fact, Victor said the average student at Caltech has scored at least 1,400 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests.

So he isn’t too concerned that the Beavers haven’t won a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game in at least 10 seasons and probably will not win a conference game this season.

“The guys that are here have to make a different kind of commitment, that’s for sure,” Victor said. “The type of kid who plays for us would be here whether (the basketball program) was here or not. They’re doing it because they want to do it, not because they have to.”

With a major emphasis on education at the school, Victor said he gets a lot of players who have never played organized basketball.

“For a lot of the players, since its their first time, they’re just excited to be playing on a team and wearing a uniform,” Victor said.

It also makes his task as a coach more challenging.

“As a teacher who’s been coaching for a long time, you have to do a lot more coaching than you would at another place,” he said.

While the players are not as talented as most of their opponents, Victor says there are not many teams that work harder. Even Tarkanian’s team at UNLV.

“He’s probably coaching in his last year with the best athletes around and we probably have the worst,” Victor said. “But we both have the same work ethic. Our players come to practice on time and they work very hard.”

All things considered, Victor says he couldn’t ask for anything more.

The women’s volleyball teams at Azusa Pacific and Cal State Bakersfield went into their national tournaments with high expectations, only to lose in the quarterfinals last week.

Bakersfield lost in five games to North Dakota State in its opening match of the NCAA Division II Elite Eight Tournament at West Texas State in Canyon and Azusa dropped a five-game match to Purdue Indianapolis in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament at Ft. Hays State in Hays, Kan.

It marked the second year in a row that Bakersfield was eliminated by North Dakota State, but last season the Roadrunners lost in the semifinals. Bakersfield finished at 26-10.

Azusa played well early in the 20-team NAIA tournament, winning four consecutive matches to sweep through pool play before losing to Purdue Indianapolis.

Still, the Cougars finished with a 34-8 record--their best in five seasons under Coach Lori Kildal--and have reason for optimism next season with the return of five of their top seven players.

College Division Notes

Several College Division basketball teams from the Southland are off to fast starts. Perhaps the most impressive men’s teams thus far have been California Collegiate Athletic Assn. rivals Cal State Bakersfield and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, both of which are 5-0 in nonconference games. With CCAA schools UC Riverside (5-1) and Cal Poly Pomona (3-1) also playing well, it figures to be an interesting conference race. Redlands is off to the best start of SCIAC men’s teams at 4-1 although Claremont-Mudd (2-2) and La Verne (1-3) are still regarded as top contenders. In women’s play, Cal Poly Pomona has the best record among CCAA teams at 4-1 in nonconference play, and Claremont is the early leader among SCIAC teams at 4-1. . . . Lenee Hill, a senior middle hitter who led the Azusa Pacific women’s volleyball team to the NAIA District 3 title and a berth in the NAIA tournament, has been chosen 1991 NAIA player of the year by the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. . . . Sophomore Chris Powell and senior Doug McCrary, who led Claremont-Mudd to its 10th consecutive SCIAC water polo title, have been named to the all-conference first team. Barney Grubbs of Pomona-Pitzer was selected conference player of the year.

The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo men’s soccer team lost, 2-1, in overtime to Sonoma State in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II final four tournament at Melbourne, Fla. San Luis Obispo, which finished second to Cal State San Bernardino in the CCAA, finished at 14-5-4. . . . After six games, senior Jeff deLaveaga of Cal Lutheran is averaging 29.3 points and has moved into third on the school’s all-time scoring list. . . . The Cal State San Bernardino men’s basketball team established five school records in a 145-81 victory over LIFE Bible College in the Lee Fulmer tournament last week in Redlands. Among the records were 145 points in a game, 58 field goals and 22 three-point baskets.