Run and Shoot Is His Game : Ulloa Makes a Basketball Career for Himself at Cal Lutheran With His Legs and Shooting Eye

Squeak, squeak, swish. Squeak, squeak, swish.

These are the sounds of Dave Ulloa at practice, as he drills one three-point shot after another in a nearly empty Cal Lutheran gymnasium.

As Ulloa works around the three-point arc, from right to left and back again, he appears every bit the consummate gym rat.

Actually, he is diligently working toward a peak performance in his secondary sport.

Ulloa’s first love as a kid growing up in Brooklyn was soccer, but after his family moved west he tried out for basketball as a freshman at Hoover High because the school didn’t have a boys’ soccer program at the time.

Although his skills as a basketball player were limited, Ulloa ran his way on to the junior varsity.

“I could dribble a little bit and I couldn’t even shoot very well, but the coaches liked me because I really hustled,” Ulloa said.

Though only 5 feet 9, Ulloa went on to be a three-year varsity starter for Hoover. He is in his fourth year as the starting point guard for Cal Lutheran, and he leads the Kingsmen (11-4, 3-1 in conference play) with averages of 18.3 points and 5.3 assists entering a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference showdown tonight at 7:30 against visiting Pomona-Pitzer (9-5, 4-0).

Ulloa has overcome his shortcomings by making the three-point shot his ally. He spent hours of extra time shooting in the Hoover gym and training in the weight room.

“He’d be in the weight room all the time and I’d have to kick him out,” Hoover Coach Kirt Kohlmeier said. “I’d say, ‘Dave, I do have a life outside of this place,’ and he’d say, ‘Ah come on. Just give me 15 more minutes.’ ”

The work began to pay dividends during Ulloa’s sophomore season. He was moved up to the varsity midway through the season and he led the team in scoring his last two seasons.

After averaging 23 points as a senior, Ulloa was recruited heavily by Cal State Long Beach, but he chose Cal Lutheran because the graduation rate of basketball players was substantially higher there than at Long Beach.

“I was pretty fired up about playing for a [NCAA] Division I school,” Ulloa said. ‘But my Dad stepped in and said, ‘Hey, it’s important that you get a degree and an education. Basketball is secondary.’ ”

Ulloa is on pace to graduate with a degree in criminal justice in June and the Kingsmen have compiled a 73-22 record during his career.

Cal Lutheran won or shared the SCIAC title in Ulloa’s first two seasons, but fell to a three-way tie for second--two games behind Pomona-Pitzer--last season when Ulloa missed eight games because of a broken right hand.

Pomona-Pitzer shot 66.7% to deal Cal Lutheran its final loss of last season, 91-73. The Sagehens led, 46-19, at halftime after hitting 16 of 24 shots, compared to Cal Lutheran’s seven of 27.

“That game was just like a whole blur to me,” Ulloa said. “Everything that they shot just went in.”

Ulloa has been thinking about that loss for 11 months.

“I totally respect their team because of the way they played last year and they didn’t rub it in our faces or anything,” Ulloa said. “But they’re coming into our gym and we haven’t lost at all this season in our gym.”

His confidence and high-intensity style of play have led some to characterize Ulloa as cocky, but his own coaches wouldn’t want him any other way.

“Dave has the kind of demeanor you want in a player,” said Mike Dunlap, who coached Ulloa at Cal Lutheran for two seasons before moving to Adelaide, Australia to coach professional basketball.

“You want a tough-nosed player on the court, but someone who is very approachable off it.”

Ulloa has an easygoing manner away from the court. He views life in Thousand Oaks as a breath of fresh air after spending his first 10 years in a gang- and drug-infested neighborhood in Brooklyn.

“As much as I love excitement and stuff, it’s just peaceful here,” he said.

“Everybody is real nice. You can look at somebody here and they won’t look back at you and say, ‘What do you want? Do you have a problem?’ ”

The second of three children born to an Ecuadorean father and a Salvadoran mother, the bilingual Ulloa said it was easy as a child to be drawn to the hustle and bustle of life on the streets.

“There was a time where I kind of strayed into it,” he said. “My personality was kind of into the flash, but my Dad saw my friends I was hanging out with and he took me aside and said, ‘I don’t want that from you.’ ”

The Ulloas moved to Southern California in 1984 to try to make a better life for their children. After living briefly in Inglewood, they settled in Glendale.

Galo Ulloa, Dave’s father, has held two full-time jobs for the past 14 years so his family could live in a neighborhood where, he said, “our children would not be tempted by gangs and drugs.”

Maria Ulloa said her son learned his work ethic from his father. Kohlmeier doesn’t doubt it. He said Ulloa is the hardest-working player he has coached.

“His attitude is you work hard and things will come to you,” Kohlmeier said. “He doesn’t expect anything to be handed to him.”

Ulloa always has enjoyed a good challenge, which is among the reasons he has no regrets about playing basketball instead of soccer.

“I think I would have been a better soccer player than I am a basketball player because of my physical stature,” he said. “But I don’t think my heart would have been in it as much because basketball presents so much of a challenge to me.

“I kind of thrive off the things my Mom will hear in the stands. She’ll hear people say, ‘How’s that little guy scoring so much? Stop him! What’s he doing?’

“So what if I’m small? I can still do a lot of things on the court.”