Stability Is the Difference Between the Powers, the Pitiful : Girls’ basketball: Coaches who commit for the long haul are the key to ending disparity between county teams.

Numbers don’t lie, someone obviously unfamiliar with used-car salesmen and government economists once said. And perhaps nowhere in sports is that notion more evident than in high school girls’ basketball.

A glance at the results of girls’ basketball games around the county on any night gives a clear indication that disparity among area teams is as prevalent today as it was 18 years ago, when the Southern Section sanctioned the sport.

There have been numerous blowouts in nonleague and tournament games this season, and many more can be expected in league action, where the gap between the powerhouse programs and those at the other end of the spectrum is even more pronounced.

Many of the teams recently manhandled by opponents also suffered similar indignities in previous seasons, and their future is not particularly promising unless they address several crucial questions. Some of the area’s more successful coaches say dealing with these issues is essential in developing winning programs.

“To me, the No. 1 factor is the coaching changes taking place,” said Woodbridge Coach Eric Bangs, who won seven consecutive league titles before taking a sabbatical last year. “Some of the programs that are not doing well have real transient coaches that come and go every other year. If you look at the top teams, you see that those coaches spend a lot of time with their players. That’s hard for a walk-on coach to do. That’s not to say that some walk-on coaches don’t do a great job, but it’s much more difficult to establish a winning program that way.”

Jim Weeks, veteran girls’ coach at Costa Mesa, echoes that opinion. He believes that an on-campus coach, or a walk-on who commits to a long-term stint with a team, provides a foundation and a uniformity in philosophy. This foundation, Weeks says, begins at the lower levels and carries on to the varsity squad.

“That’s a key,” Weeks said. “It gives stability to the program and lets the girls know they are going to be doing certain things the same way for three or four years.”

Anyone who doubts those assessments needs to look no further than Irvine, Anaheim and Westminster.

Although various factors have contributed to their downfall in the past few seasons, the three schools have experienced repeated coaching turnovers. Anaheim currently has its third coach in three seasons; Westminster and Irvine have their third in four. The instability has left its mark: Anaheim has won two of its past 49 games, Westminster is 10-59 since the 1988-89 season and Irvine is 4-60 over the same span.

The uncertainty of who will coach a team from year to year not only wears thin on the players, who plunge into each season with high expectations only to find themselves on the short end of lopsided scores, but also on the athletic directors who must find coaching candidates who, at the very least, will distribute uniforms and fill out starting lineups.

“It’s difficult when you have to hire a walk-on coach,” said Diane Taylor, girls’ athletic director at Anaheim. “Because they are not on campus, there’s no communication with the kids on a regular basis. That’s one of the main things you need to build a good program. It helps the coaches have a better idea about the talent available at the school. I’ve been lucky with the walk-on coaches we’ve had. They’ve been very responsible. But it’s still not the same.”

Taylor didn’t have to look far this year to replace Samuel Lias, who moved on after coaching the Colonists for one season. Mark Adams, a life sciences and English teacher at Anaheim and the junior varsity coach at Los Alamitos the past two seasons, has taken over the team. But Taylor knows what it’s like to search for walk-on coaches after the old ones leave, sometimes for reasons that Esperanza Coach Marc Hill says are predetermined and calculated.

“In girls’ basketball, some people see the job as a stepping stone to other positions, so most coaches are not there long enough to establish a winning program,” said Hill, a full-time teacher at Esperanza who has won more than 160 games with the Aztecs. “The women coaches look to get a college job and the men are looking to get a boys’ job. . . . To get parity you have to start with the coaches. The schools put a lot of priority into football and try to get the best person for the job, but in girls’ athletics it’s first-come, first-served.”

Even if schools could secure the services of qualified coaches for several years, other important aspects need to be considered in attempting to mold teams that can hold their own on the court. For example, Bangs and the others cited summer camps and year-round programs where the girls can sharpen their skills.

“A lot of the schools right now are playing basketball almost all year-round,” said John Koehler, now in his 12th season at La Habra. “If you don’t do the same and you happen to go up against one of those teams you might find yourself in trouble. Some of their subs have become as good as some of the starters on the weaker teams, so there’s no letup.”

Said Bangs, “Some of us run a little camp for our girls in the summer and we seem to be doing well.”

No argument there. Woodbridge is 11-3 and ranked sixth in the county, and two of the other three teams involved in the camp, No. 3 Marina (12-2), and No. 5 San Clemente (8-4), are having banner years. Even defending Pacific Coast League champion Estancia (7-6), though not dominating as it was last season, is holding its own.

If the constant shuffling of coaches and the lack of summer camps and year-round programs aren’t enough reason for failure, Hill points to the so-called “feeder” programs as an essential but often missing component for the development of a competitive team. As expected, many of the struggling high school programs don’t have any such sources from which to draw promising talent.

“If you’re going to be a successful program in CIF, you have to develop your younger players,” Hill said. “From my end, we’re trying to organize from the NJB (National Junior Basketball) and start attracting the talent there. We’ve opted to go to the community level and get more enthusiasm.”

That formula has been expertly used and refined by Brea-Olinda, traditionally the premier high school girls’ program in the county. The No. 1 Ladycats, who have won two state championships and more than 300 games under Coach Mark Trakh in the past 11 seasons, are the beneficiaries of the high-power Polcats program, an all-star traveling unit composed of Brea Junior High students and sponsored by the Brea Police Department.

But at a few other schools, even some with large enrollments and excellent records in the sport, getting girls to try out for basketball has become increasingly tough. Fountain Valley Coach Carol Strausburg, who oversees one of the leading programs in the county, says one of the reasons is that many athletes are concentrating on only one sport and basketball at certain schools is not a priority. That, she says, contributes to the imbalance among teams.

“When I first started coaching basketball, we would have 100 girls try out. I don’t have near those numbers anymore,” said Strausburg, who has been with the Barons since the 1977-78 season. “What I see happening is that many schools will have to encourage the girls to play more than one sport. If you have a 6-foot tennis player perhaps she can come out and play some basketball. People are becoming more specialized.”

That’s the case, for instance, at Laguna Beach. A few weeks ago, the girls’ volleyball team won the Southern Section Division 5-A title. Now the basketball team is trying to gain some respectability, and Coach Lyman Olney faces the challenge of fielding a competitive squad without the services of most of the volleyball players, who also rank among the best athletes on the 650-student campus.

“I know that (volleyball coaches) don’t discourage (the girls) from playing basketball, but there are some who choose to concentrate on volleyball because they’ve had that much more experience playing volleyball,” said Olney, who was 4-15 in his first season with the team last year after the Artists won only one game the previous year. “One of the drawbacks is that they can’t make a total commitment to basketball.”

Of course, regardless of how prosperous or deep any particular team is, there is one aspect of the situation that deserves an answer: Do stronger teams need to mercilessly hammer weaker opponents? No, says Strausburg.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to do,” she said. “You don’t have to embarrass people like that. If you’re going to break records, do it against a team that offers some competition. I’ve seen (coaches) press when they’re 40 points ahead. There are things you can do to keep from running up the score. You can work at keeping the ball until there are three seconds left on the (shot) clock or you can work on passing the ball around. You can slow the game down.”

No Contest

The following games, listed by margin of victory, illustrate the disparity in Orange County girls’ basketball:

Winner Loser Score Margin Date Marina Pacifica 90-27 63 Dec. 14 Tustin Foothill 83-20 63 Jan. 4 Dana Hills Saddleback 66-10 56 Dec. 30 Marina El Toro 79-28 51 Dec. 26 Brea-Olinda Rosary 75-25 50 Dec. 9 Ocean View Irvine 82-33 49 Dec. 2 University Magnolia 72-27 45 Dec. 30 Woodbridge Santa Margarita 69-26 43 Dec. 26 Capistrano Valley Laguna Hills 76-37 39 Dec. 18 San Clemente Trabuco Hills 57-19 38 Dec. 21 Estancia Loara 56-23 33 Dec. 30