Endsley Is Trying to Make a Game for Himself

It’s basketball season, which means Eric Endsley’s surfboard gathers dust in the garage.

It means his baseball mitt needs to be oiled and worked into condition for the spring.

It means the ammunition cartridge in his paintball gun will be empty for a while.

Nobody will ever confuse Endsley’s outfield play with that of Ken Griffey Jr., nor will he challenge Kelly Slater’s reign on the waves. And his aim with a basketball is much better than with his paintball gun.

So basketball season means scrapping his hobbies and postponing baseball conditioning. It means pulling on those size 13 hightops and posting up as the center for Marina High (4-3).

Endsley, 6 feet 7 and a rail-thin 215 pounds, has averaged 19.5 points and 10 rebounds this season, with a season-high 25 points against Irvine in a first-round game in the Irvine World News tournament. He has drawn some interest from colleges such as Air Force, UC San Diego, Pepperdine, Colgate and Brown.

“Eric can play at the next level,” Marina Coach Steve Popovich said. “He can play somewhere, but I don’t know what level.”

This is Endsley’s senior season, his last chance to rattle the same rims that Duke’s Cherokee Parks did as the Vikings’ dominant center in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Endsley has become a compact version of Parks.

“Two things motivate me this season,” Endsley said. “I play each game knowing that it’s my last season at this level. And if you’re playing bad, you look at the guy guarding you and you think ‘You (jerk), you’re trying to take my scholarship away.’ That’s great motivation.”

Said Popovich: “Eric’s strength is that he is starting to score inside and finish off shots. He wasn’t doing that a year ago.”

Endsley and Andy Nieto are the only returning starters from last season’s team. Endsley knows that in the end, he and Nieto are the Vikings’ go-to guys.

“Andy and I are good for 40 points a game,” Endsley said. “If we show up every game, and the other players don’t try to be heroes and play their roles and play hard, we can be right up there as one of the best teams in the Sunset League. It just depends if our whole team does that.

“There’s not a whole lot of varsity experience at all. The rest of the guys are juniors and sophomores, young kids. If Andy and I don’t step up, we’re going nowhere.”

Does Endsley like that role?

“I like it better than someone trying to lead me,” he said.

Endsley spent his first two years in the Marina program under the easy-going Popovich, who coached the Vikings to the 1991 Southern Section Division I-A finals with Parks at center.

Endsley was a freshman during Parks’ senior season, just beginning his journey through the Vikings’ program. But by the time he reached the varsity as a junior, Popovich had resigned and was replaced by former Western Coach Greg Hoffman.

Never have two coaches been further apart in their approach.

For Endsley, a Popovich practice was like catching a smooth ride in six-foot surf. A Hoffman practice was like getting dumped off a 20-foot wave at Banzai Pipeline. Either way, you learned from the experience.

Hoffman was from the Bobby Knight school--yell and yell at your players until they get it right. Then yell some more, just for the hell of it.

Hoffman’s motivation by intimidation turned Western into a winner, but turned some of the Marina players, and their parents, against him. Endsley wasn’t one of them.

“Playing for Hoffman was a toughening experience,” Endsley said. “Practices were intense and there was no moment where you could relax.

“Popovich has more patience with you and will help you out if you mess up. Last season, it wasn’t really like that.

“Last season was a good experience, though. The coaches would yell in your face until it wouldn’t faze you anymore.”

While many of his teammates took the criticism personally and quit, Endsley thrived in Hoffman’s system.

He was named to the Irvine World News all-tournament team after scoring 28 points and pulling down 18 rebounds against Santa Ana Valley. He averaged about 15 points until a bout with pneumonia at the start of the league season sidelined him two weeks and slowed him down the rest of the way.

“I would have a slow first quarter, then Hoffman would yell at me and I would get upset and go out and get something like 15 points in five minutes,” Endsley said. “There were a lot of times last year when I played my best when I was real angry.”

While Hoffman made Endsley a tougher player, the player gave the coach something he rarely had while at Western--a tall center who could post up, rebound and still have good shooting range up to 15 feet.

And when Hoffman preached defense, Endsley listened. He played Huntington Beach’s Tony Gonzalez, a first-team All-Orange County player, to a virtual standoff. Both finished with 10 points.

“You need to have a kid like Eric to play in this league,” Popovich said. “He’s very physical and you need that.”

It was a small personal victory for Endsley, one of few in a season that ended in a disappointing 11-15 record (4-10 in league). Hoffman resigned at the end of the season, and Popovich returned after a one-year stint as an assistant coach at Saddleback College.

“We played well in the nonleague season,” Endsley said. “But we had a lot of problems. I got sick and Vlad Nieto hurt his ankle and Andy Nieto hurt his ankle, and it was all downhill from there.

“We didn’t have our whole team together for most of league. We had everyone for four or five nonleague games, and we beat Santa Margarita, the top team from Washington (state) in the Orange Holiday tournament before losing to Kennedy in the finals.”

The end of basketball season meant the start of baseball season, much to the delight of Endsley’s father, Ray, a former pitcher at Utah. Endsley, an outfielder, made the Viking varsity last season and recently finished playing for a fall scout team. But so far, no colleges have shown interest in Endsley.

Between baseball games, Endsley always finds time to make the waves.

And if he gets bored with baseball and surfing this spring, there’s always volleyball. Marina volleyball Coach Jason Bilbruck looks at Endsley and visions of Southern Section playoff berths start dancing in his head.

“He’s played three years of club volleyball,” Bilbruck said. “And he could start middle blocker for us right now.”