In Spring, It’s the Only Basketball Game in Town for Girls : High schools: Tom Marumoto launched the league last year to fill a void and keep him involved in coaching.

Tom Marumoto ran from the parking lot to the gym, two bags filled with uniform jerseys and basketballs in one hand, a notebook filled with paperwork in the other.

“I was all ready to go, and things got hectic at work,” he said. “Then I hit real bad traffic on the way here.”

The delay in getting the game started was no problem for those waiting in the Irvine Boys and Girls Club gym. If it weren’t for Marumoto, there would be no games.

Marumoto and his wife Joyce run Orange County’s only spring girls’ basketball league for high school players.

Now in its second year, the league--officially called Marumoto Sports Training spring league--includes several of the top names in the county: Costa Mesa guard Olivia DiCamilli, Fountain Valley center Julie Murdent, Huntington Beach guard Deana Itow, Newport Harbor forward Kala Ross, Kennedy guard Lynly Matsumoto, Corona del Mar guard Mollie Flint and Huntington Beach forward Clare Walker.

There are 12 teams with college nicknames--Boilermakers, Nittany Lions, Rebels, Hurricanes--each with eight players who rotate into the game. All games are played Monday nights, three in Irvine and the other three at the Eastbluff Boys and Girls Club in Newport Beach. The teams, which Marumoto puts together after holding tryouts, play two 20-minute halves with a running clock. The season is divided into four divisional games and possibly as many as four more in the playoffs.

“I don’t assign all the great players to the same team,” said Marumoto, who oversees one location during games while his wife is at the other. “I rate all the players, and I try to make all the teams balanced.”

The volunteer coaches and the paid referees are former area players Marumoto hand-picks so they can impart his basketball philosophy and objectives. For instance, coaches include former Corona del Mar and Golden West College standout Markus Muller-Stach, plus Laguna Beach guard Darren Gravley and Woodbridge guard Todd Loewe, both of whom recently completed their senior seasons. They have known Marumoto for years.

Marumoto, 55, says he launched the league partially because he sensed a need for it and also to remain involved in coaching. Now a part-time pharmacist at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, where he was the assistant director in the pharmacy department for several years, Marumoto devotes most of his free time to working with young athletes privately or in clinics. He played baseball at Whittier College and has been coaching different sports at various levels for 30 years.

Much of his early coaching involved teams his three sons played for, and things evolved from there.

“Some parents started asking me to tutor their kids in sports,” Marumoto said. “I really love coaching. I like to work with individual athletes. As I taught the skills to individual players, I wanted my students to practice those skills in a controlled environment. That’s one reason I started the league. I tell the players to practice the things they need to work on but still keep within the team concept.”

Marumoto doesn’t coach a team. Instead, he roams the gym, talking to parents, players, coaches, officials and anyone else connected with the league. But he still tells the coaches and players what he would like emphasized during games, even when his well-meaning inquiries and concerns sometimes backfire.

“I was watching a game one day, and I noticed the coach wasn’t playing one of the girls,” Marumoto said. “I want all the players in the game as much as possible, so I told him to put her in. He said, ‘Tommy, she has a bad ankle. She can’t play.’ ”

As far as some high school players and coaches are concerned, Marumoto can do no wrong.

San Clemente Coach Mary Mulligan, for example, says the league is a great avenue for the players, and wishes there were more like it. Estancia Coach Russ Davis, who has 13 of his players in the league, says Marumoto is helping to put girls’ basketball on the map. And Newport Harbor Coach Shannon Jakosky predicts that many high school programs will be strengthened because of the league.

“Tommy is filling a huge void in this area,” Jakosky said. “Basketball is beginning to catch up with volleyball here. All the high school (basketball) coaches in Orange County are going to benefit from his program eventually.”

Said Itow: “There are a lot of very talented players here. This gives you a chance to work on your game against tough competition.”

That competition includes players who might not be able to afford the $90 registration fee, so Marumoto sponsors them. Last year, he said he waived the fee for about 10 players. The fees help cover the cost of referees, gym rentals, uniforms, equipment, the clinics he conducts and promotional materials.

“We sent out about 5,000 applications this year,” Marumoto said. “Every coach in Orange County got one.”

Marumoto said his wife prepares the statistics each week, and they make them available to anyone who’s interested.

“Within the next morning, she has the stat sheets done,” Marumoto said. “We send the results to every coach in the league and to high school coaches who request them. . . . My wife is a big part of the organization. I always make sure she’s at one site and I’m at the other.”

Even when the traffic is not what the doctor ordered.