Laughing at Hard Times : In First Varsity Basketball Season, Vasquez Players Take Their Beatings Lightly

The girls on the Vasquez High basketball team were practicing layups recently when three of them suddenly collapsed on the floor.

One tripped and fell; the others keeled over laughing.

“We take things light,” Vasquez Coach Grant Bergstrom said.

Good thing.

Vasquez, a school of 355 located just off Highway 14 in this small desert town, ended its inaugural varsity basketball season this week. The results weren’t pretty: The boys’ team had a record of 3-16, 0-9 in the Alpha League. The girls’ team was 1-17, 0-8.

The girls’ team averaged only 11 points a game and lost by scores of 119-8, 102-4 and 73-8.

Only four girls averaged more than a point per game. Yet the Mustangs kept coming back for more.

“I guess when you lose games, as many as we have lost, it’s kind of normal,” said Heather Lingawi, a freshman guard. “We haven’t ever not scored, so you have to remember that part.”

By focusing on the positive--their 41-34 victory over tiny Santa Clarita Christian--players finished the season with their heads held high, still full of youthful optimism.

“A game is just a game,” said junior center Jen Cook, whose 2.7-point average was second-best on the team. “It doesn’t matter when we lose. The bus ride home is still usually loud.”

Said Lingawi: “I don’t really look at it as winning or losing. I just go out there and have fun.”

Fortunately, Bergstrom is a patient man. “It gets frustrating at times,” he said. “But we’re a young program and we’re inexperienced. It’s going to take a while.”

Only three of the 12 players on the Vasquez girls’ team played basketball anywhere other than their driveways and backyards before this season. Half of them are freshmen.

“We’ve had to start at the basics for some of them,” Bergstrom said. “Very, very basic things like not walking with the ball . . . telling them you have to dribble, things like that.”

Most of the Vasquez girls shoot by launching two-handed jump shots from their chests. During games, less than 20% of their attempts found the bottom of the basket.

Bad passing also hampered the team. The Mustangs often committed more turnovers than they took shots.

“I have to remind them to make pass fakes,” Bergstrom said. “They’re looking right at the person they’re passing to, it’s getting intercepted, layup. They just haven’t been exposed to [the game] enough. They need time.”

Etcetera, etcetera.

A regulation surface on which to play would probably help. As it is, some fading black lines painted on a gray linoleum tile floor mark the basketball “court” at Vasquez.

The floor is 11 feet short of regulation in length, eight feet short in width, and as slippery as ice. Steel cafeteria tables fold up into the wall a few feet from one sideline and there is a stage wall within a short stride of one of the baselines.

A couple of teams canceled games or declined to play at Vasquez because of the gym, and several Mustang players had run-ins with the obstacles.

“I think it should be a little bigger,” said guard Tamie Hayes, who averaged a team-high 3.3 points. “I think everybody on the team has tested the walls and the doors.”

The Mustangs could also use some additional coaching help. Daniel Williford, the boys’ varsity basketball coach, also coaches the junior varsity boys’ squad and the football team. Bergstrom coaches both the varsity and junior varsity girls’ teams, running practices simultaneously. There are no assistant girls’ coaches, not even a trainer to tape ankles.

Bergstrom doesn’t even have a team manager to keep score for him. He paces the sidelines during games, barking out instructions on defense, calling plays on offense and, about five times a game, marking in his book which player has scored for his team.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Bergstrom, an art teacher at Vasquez. “I’m usually tired when I get home. But I don’t have any regrets about this. If I didn’t do this then they wouldn’t have a coach. I remember what athletics meant to me when I was in school. Why shouldn’t these kids have the same chance?”

Transportation for games usually is a problem. The school budget allows for only one bus per day for athletics. Occasionally, three sports teams from Vasquez are headed for different destinations on the same day.

“It’s a very low-budget experience,” Athletic Director Jim Gwyn said. “It causes some problems, but in spite of all the roadblocks the kids are faring pretty well.”

An average game for the Vasquez boys’ team resulted in a 97-60 loss, but Williford said his players maintained a positive outlook.

“They still come out and play hard every night,” he said as the Mustangs wound down their season. “I have to give them credit for that because I know a lot of kids would usually give up on a program like this.”

Bergstrom said his girls’ team has managed to remain upbeat despite averaging only 9.3 points in its losses.

“Morale just hasn’t been a problem,” he said. “Most of the teams have been pretty good about not running up the score on purpose. They aren’t making fun of us, they’re just running their offense and getting open shots.”

Vasquez opened in the fall of 1993 in response to complaints from parents in Acton and Agua Dulce who previously sent their children to Highland or Palmdale highs, 20 miles away.

The high school shares a campus with High Desert Junior High. Most of its classes are in portable buildings.

The Vasquez athletic program played only at the junior varsity level for its first two years before Gwyn decided it was time to move up to varsity.

“We really didn’t have a choice,” Gwyn said. “There weren’t a lot of schools willing to play our JV teams with so many juniors on them.”

Last year, the boys’ junior varsity basketball team won almost as often as it lost. The girls didn’t have a team.

Next year, the school’s enrollment will grow to 550.

Progress has been slow but steady.

Two years ago, Vasquez applied to join the Alpha League at the junior varsity level. This year both Mustang basketball teams played in the league’s varsity circuit, although some people wonder if that was such a good idea.

“We really shouldn’t be in this league,” Cook said. “Maybe, eventually, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”

Village Christian Coach John Domke, who called his team’s 102-4 victory over the Mustangs “the hardest game I’ve ever had to coach,” agreed.

“They really shouldn’t be at the varsity level,” he said. “We weren’t trying to embarrass them. We could have scored 200 points and set any individual records we wanted to. . . . “

Bergstrom predicts his team won’t be a walkover much longer.

“I see improvement every day,” he said. “Half of the team is ninth-graders. By the time they are seniors, I expect to have a top-notch program. We have to keep working for it and then someday it will pay off and we’ll be like ‘Wow! The work was worth it.’ ”