Ventura Coaches Had Guard Down as Ramirez Made Point Right Away : Just Out of High School, He Took Charge of Pirates

It wasn’t supposed to work so well so fast for Joey Ramirez on the Ventura College men’s basketball team.

The Ventura coaches, men in the business of running a first-rate program by recruiting outstanding players, knew Ramirez was good but needed to smooth some rough edges to become a top junior college point guard.

They figured he would sit on the bench last season, his first with the Pirates, and learn by watching the projected starter at the position, Donyhel Johnson. Even one of Ramirez’s uncles tried to convince him to go elsewhere, saying he would be relegated to mop-up detail.

Talk about misreading a guy.

“We initially thought he’d come in and back up some people, develop as a point guard, and then play,” said Virgil Watson, the Ventura assistant who recruited Ramirez from Santa Paula High. “What surprised us is how fast he developed. He took on all challengers.”

Ramirez wasn’t exactly a stranger to the Ventura staff. He had attended several basketball camps run by Pirate Coach Philip Mathews. But even Mathews wasn’t prepared for what Ramirez showed him right out of the blocks.

“He just blew (the other point guards) away,” Mathews said. “There was never a word of complaint from Dony. Joey just took the job away. It’s that simple.”

Said Ramirez: “I hate sitting on the bench, so I tried as hard as I could.”

There wasn’t much Johnson, now playing at Langston University in Oklahoma, could dispute. With Ramirez running the floor, the Pirates are a precision machine.

The 5-foot-10 sophomore with explosive quickness and an accurate three-point shot is the team’s catalyst. He averages 15.0 points and six assists and has made 83.6% (102 of 122) of his free throws and was named the most valuable player in two of the five tournaments in which Ventura played--and won--this season.

Last season, he averaged 11.0 points and 4.8 assists during the regular season.

But perhaps the true measure of his value to the squad is the leadership he provides. With him in the lineup, the Pirates are 55-3 the past two seasons and reached the state championship game last March before being upset by Columbia, 97-88, in the title game at the University of San Francisco.

He also helped Ventura reel off 21 consecutive victories at the start of last season, a school record the current team continues to improve on with every game. The Pirates (23-1, 5-0 in Western State Conference play), the state’s top-rated team, try for their 24th consecutive victory tonight against Bakersfield at home.

The pressure for making the Ventura offense click without the scoring threats featured on last season’s team hasn’t slowed Ramirez. He knows that taking care of the ball and shadowing an opponent on defense all over the court won’t be sufficient anymore. The Pirates need him to shoot--and often--to complement forward Brandon Jessie, the team’s primary scorer.

Ventura could live without Ramirez’s scoring last season. Forward Calvin Curry, now at Oklahoma, could score from anywhere on the floor and generally did, averaging 21.1 points during the regular season. Guard Stephane Brown, now at Oregon State, averaged 12.6 points.

The Pirate arsenal is not as deep this season.

“It’s a lot more demanding for me this season,” Ramirez said. “Last (season) I had Stephane (Brown, now at Oregon State) in the backcourt with me. But now I have to look more for my shot. It doesn’t bother me, though. I’ll shoot it.”

Even if he can’t find the range sometimes. Until he pumped in 20 points in a 76-62 conference victory over Canyons on Thursday night, Ramirez had struggled with his shooting lately, making only five of 29 shots the previous two outings, but still making enough free throws to score in double figures each time. Yet, it was a given his shot wouldn’t stay as quiet as he does on the court.

Ramirez is the antithesis of the brash, loud-mouth guy who tries to harass his opponent with verbal jabs. In fact, he can’t even see the point of it.

“I don’t really like to talk trash,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, they are only talking to themselves. Sometimes when they talk, it doesn’t even make sense.”

That quiet, almost shy demeanor on the court, Mathews says, doesn’t carry over to Ramirez’s shooting.

“He has never been bashful about shooting the ball,” Mathews said. “I tell him not to let (missed shots) become a psychological thing.”

Ramirez never had time to concern himself with that at Santa Paula. There, whether he shot blanks or hit nothing but net, he was forced to shoot. The Cardinals were perennial doormats in the Frontier League until Ramirez and Terry Bell, now a teammate at Ventura, made them contenders in the 1990-91 and ‘91-92 seasons.

In his junior season at Santa Paula, Ramirez averaged 23.2 points and 5.9 assists to lead the Cardinals to second place in the league behind Santa Clara. He averaged 22.2 points, seven assists and three steals the following season as Santa Paula again finished second to the Saints.

“At Santa Paula, I shot about 20-25 times a game,” Ramirez said.

Cardinal Coach Tom Donahue says that was sheer necessity. Ramirez was the best player he inherited when he took over the program in 1990.

“I went to see him play in an adult league and I remember telling my wife, ‘(Ramirez) is for real,’ ” said Donahue, who occasionally plays tennis with Ramirez and talks to him frequently on the phone. “I was so impressed with his quickness and his range and his tenacity. I had to tone him down in practice sometimes. He would go all-out all the time.”

Ramirez always gives it the extra effort. An accounting major with ambitions of transferring to a Division I school--Pepperdine and Cal State Fullerton are among those recruiting him--Ramirez is motivated by the forces that influence his life. In basketball, that’s Mathews and the other Ventura coaches. Away from the court, his parents Rudy and Tana have left their mark.

“I see school as another challenge,” Ramirez said. “My parents have always pushed me. I’ve always wanted to do well for everything they have done for me.”

They attend all of his games. And not just his parents, but many other family members and friends who live in Santa Paula or the Ventura area.

“His great-grandmother, who is 83 years old, goes to all the games,” Tana Ramirez said. “His sister (Janis) also goes and takes Lindsey (his 1 1/2-year-old niece). A bunch of us went to San Francisco (for the state championships). . . . It’s real special. He has worked real hard to get to this point.”

Mathews, Watson--and especially Donyhel Johnson--realized that long ago.