Kids of Coaches Are Often Held Up to Higher Standards

Coaches’ kids aren’t always model student-athletes. Former Foothill Coach Jim Reames recalled the summer of 1989, when he took a traveling team to Lubbock, Tex.

“We had just finished playing in the BCI (Basketball Congress International) tournament in Phoenix and I asked (former Newport Harbor Coach) Jerry DeBusk’s son, Craig, to play for us in Lubbock.

“We hadn’t been at the hotel in Lubbock for more than 20 minutes when I got a phone call from the front desk. Some of the guests were complaining that Craig and two other players were jumping out of their fourth-story window into the pool.

“The manager told me, ‘This is a life-threatening incident. They’re jumping over 12 feet of concrete from the fourth floor to reach the pool.’ So I decided to call their parents because we were going to be staying there another four days.”

DeBusk, now coaching at Santa Margarita, remembered the call from his best friend Reames.

“Jim told me he was making a professional call and that he was really nervous because Craig was jumping out of a fourth-story window,” DeBusk said. “I talked to my son and when we finished, he says, ‘Really dad, it wasn’t that bad.’ ”

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Capistrano Valley Coach Mark Thornton said he knew his oldest son, Todd, was destined to play for him as early as 1982, when Todd was 4 years old.

“It was my first year and we were playing (Ridgecrest) Burroughs for the CIF (Southern Section Division 2-A) championship at the Long Beach Arena,” he said. “We lost and afterward I went up into the seats to see my wife. There was Todd crying up a storm because dad’s team had lost. He was a Cougar even then.”

Thornton’s youngest son, Brad, made a career option this season when he told his father he wanted to play on the Cougars’ freshman football team.

“He had never played football before, but he watched one practice and said, ‘Dad, I’m as good as those guys,’ ” Thornton said. “I said all along I wasn’t going to discourage my sons from playing any sport.”

But when Brad broke his foot playing Mater Dei Thornton must have wondered about his son’s decision to put on the pads.

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Jimmy Harris said he’ll never forgot his first varsity game.

“I was scared stiff,” he said. “I can remember playing off guard with Greg Evans at the point. The first two times Greg threw me the ball, it went right through my hands and out of bounds. I wanted to crawl into a hole. I’ll never forget that.”