A Legendary Figure, Logan Ends His Run As Valhalla’s Coach

George Logan, one of San Diego County’s true coaching legends, is stepping down as the boys’ soccer coach at Valhalla High School.

“I’m just getting long in the tooth and short in breath,” said Logan, 59, a native of Scotland who moved to San Diego in 1960. “I’ll still be around the game in some capacity, but it’s time.”

Logan, who will continue teaching humanities at Valhalla, leaves a Norseman program he started in 1974-75 and led to San Diego Section titles in 1986, ‘87, ‘88, ’89 and ’91. Valhalla also won 10 league titles and made the playoffs 15 times.

Including one season (1973-74) at Monte Vista, Logan is 298-74-37 (.744 winning percentage) at the high school level.

He also coached the men’s soccer team at San Diego State from 1968-81 and guided the Aztecs to a No. 1 national ranking in 1981. At times, he said, the college and high school seasons would overlap, and he would hold practice at Valhalla at 5:30 a.m. and at SDSU in the afternoon.

“Things have gone well,” Logan said. “You don’t want to leave when you start thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go practice today.’ I wanted to leave with nothing but pleasant memories. And I’m doing that.”

There will be at least one more pleasant memory in the near future. Logan has been nominated as the state coach of the year and will attend a ceremony for such April 3 in Walnut Creek.

“Probably the biggest source of satisfaction--and I mean this humbly and sincerely--are the number of (former) players (88) who have carried on the sport and the tradition in the coaching ranks,” he said.

Two of those 88--Mission Bay’s Bruce Cochrane and Mira Mesa’s Pat Corr--won section titles earlier this month.

“I firmly believe coaches don’t make players; players make players,” said Logan.

“A lot of credit should also go to the local (club) coaches who hone these kids’ skills for seven or eight months. I only have them for three or four months, and I’m only able to polish those skills.”

Mind over heart: Since opening, Southwest High had gone three years without winning even one football game before Carl Parrick arrived at the school as its defensive coordinator in 1978. The Raiders won their first game that season, 6-0, over Mar Vista.

Parrick became the head coach three years later, and the Raiders have gone 62-49-4 in his 11 years, winning the league title once and finishing second seven times.

Parrick is now hoping--and working hard--to bring that winning attitude to Bonita Vista. About a month ago, he accepted the head coaching job there, replacing Jim Wilson, who will retire in June.

“My heart told me to stay at Southwest, and my mind said go to Bonita Vista,” Parrick said. “This time I went with my mind. Usually I go with my heart. We’ll have to see what happens.”

Coach honored: Hal Mitrovich, the former boys’ basketball coach at Hoover High, was honored by the San Diego County Basketball Coaches Assn. during halftime of Saturday’s Lee Trepanier Memorial Boys All-Star Game.

Mitrovich, now retired, was presented a special plaque for his 27 years of service to high school basketball.

Posthumous honor: The name of the San Diego County 2-A vs. 3-A All-Star Basketball Game was changed this year to the Lee Trepanier Memorial All-Star Game in honor of Trepanier, the coach who guided Point Loma to consecutive Division II (1984) and Division I (1985-87) girls’ state titles, another section Division I title in 1989 and a Division III title in 1990. He assisted current coach Shannon Anderson in 1991 before succumbing to stomach cancer.

He is credited by most section coaches as the man who did the most for San Diego girls’ basketball.

Little players, big numbers: The three top scorers from Saturday’s boys’ and girls’ all-star basketball games were sub-6-foot point guards.

Carlsbad’s Chad Nelson, who is 5-feet-11, scored 23 points and Kearny’s Ali Nayab, 5-10, added 17 to lead the 2-A boys to a 91-86 victory over the much taller 3-A squad.

Rancho Bernardo’s Carol Pajarillo, 5-5, led everyone in the girls’ game with 20 points. The 3-A, however, prevailed, 85-73.

Nice move: Pajarillo said it was the first time she had ever played in all-star game, but you wouldn’t have known it by watching her routine at the free-throw line.

Upon getting the ball, Pajarillo would bounce it once between her legs, twirl it around her back, take four quick dribbles, spin the ball backward into her right hand and let fly.

Eight out of 10 times she followed up the routine with a wide smile.

“I was just trying to have fun out there,” said Pajarillo, who added that a friend taught her the routine a couple of days before the game. “This was a game of expression.”

Said Lori Becker, Escondido’s coach who guided the 2-A team: “I don’t know where she got that from, but I like it.”

Her regular season coach, Peggy Brose, said the same thing.

Dunk king: It took a while to be recognized officially , but Kearny High School’s Demetrius Brown is the new San Diego County slam dunk champion after winning the seventh annual Slam-N-Jam at Mt. Carmel High School. Brown scored a pair of 97s in the final round, edging Serra’s Darryl Van Cleave (6-0), who had a pair of 96s, a fact that escaped event officials when they announced the winner. Fans quickly charged the scoring table and alerted officials to the mistake.

Brown (6-1) said he didn’t mind, he was just as happy when he thought he finished second.

Monte Vista’s Aaron Elliott took third place (191 points), and Chula Vista’s Jerome Green was fourth and Madison’s Donny Collins fifth.

All the finalists were juniors except for Elliott, but that is no guarantee for next year--defending champion Aaron Harmon from Mt. Carmel failed to reach the 10-man semifinals.

True story: From the Patrick Henry-Kearny baseball game on March 13. With two outs in the bottom of the seventh of a 3-3 game, Patrick Henry changed pitchers after intentionally walking in the winning run, and that pitcher, Ted McClure, proceeded to hit the first batter he faced with his first pitch to give Kearny the 4-3 victory.

How can that be?

Apparently, there was some confusion as to how many intentional walks Patrick Henry wanted to grant with runners on first and third. Initially, the umpire thought it was two, which would have forced home the winning run.

Kearny Coach Dale Twombley, whose son, Patrick Henry catcher Dennis Twombley, ultimately has to ask the umpire for the walk(s), gave his OK to continue the game with only one walk issued and the bases loaded.

McClure then entered and hit Eddie Feistel on the ead with his first pitch. Game over.

One more thing, Kearny’s tying run in that same inning came on a slash bunt by Travis Krant.

Said Kearny’s Twombley: “Some games end ugly, you know.”