SPORTS NOTEBOOK : Crossroads Baseball Coach Resigns Post

Crossroads High baseball coach Bill Keep resigned Monday after two seasons at the private school in Santa Monica.

Keep, 27, guided the Roadrunners to two consecutive Delphic League co-championships. This season the Roadrunners had a 12-12 overall record and lost in the first round of the Southern Section Division V playoffs.

“I gained a lot of experience in the position I was given,” Keep said. “It was time for me to move on. I want to start working more with college ballplayers.”

Last summer, Keep began coaching college players with the Westchester White Sox of the Pacific Wooden Bat League. Keep is coaching the team again this season. Former Crossroads standouts Richard Condon and Adam Polk and former Beverly Hills first baseman Jeremy Booth are Sox members.

In 1993, Keep was hired to replace longtime baseball coach Chuck Ice, who wanted to devote more time as the school’s athletic director. Keep instituted his own baseball philosophy, but was hard-pressed to duplicate Ice’s success.

Ice said he will start interviewing coaching candidates and hopes to have a decision by July 10.

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Providence and former Crossroads basketball star Austin Croshere has been selected to the 1995 USA men’s basketball team for the World University Games, which will be held in Fukuoka, Japan.

“I’m very happy to make the team,” said the junior forward, who tried out at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. “I thought that I would I would make it, but I wasn’t totally sure. It was exciting when I heard my name called out.”

Croshere, who graduated Crossroads in 1993, was The Times’ Westside Player of the Year in 1992. Last season, Croshere averaged 10.2 points and 4.9 rebounds for the Friars.

Also selected to the USA World Games team were Charles O’Bannon (UCLA), Chucky Atkins (South Florida), Ray Allen (Connecticut), Tim Duncan (Wake Forrest), Brian Evans (Indiana), Jerod Haase (Kansas), Othella Harrington (Georgetown), Allen Iverson (Georgetown), Kerry Kittles (Villanova), Jerome Williams (Georgetown) and Lorenzen Wright (Memphis).

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Westchester High star receiver Tony Griffin has been selected to represent California in the 44th annual Shrine All-Star Football Classic July 22 at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium.

This year’s 44th annual game matches the best players from California against prep stars from Texas. In the past, the game pitted California’s best players from Southern California against Northern California.