Wulfemeyer Makes This Shot at Fame

Long before the three-point shot, Mark Wulfemeyer could score from anywhere on the basketball court.

Wulfemeyer, 40, who will be inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame tonight, is considered by many to be the most famous high school basketball player in county history.

But Wulfemeyer paid a price for his teenage fame, falling into relative obscurity after disappointing minor league baseball and college basketball careers. He has yet to settle into a steady business career and only recently could bring himself to watch his son, Mark, play basketball for El Toro High. He found it too painful to watch basketball games after his promising career faltered.

From 1971 to 1974, Wulfemeyer, a 6-foot-1 guard, was the talk of the Southland as a basketball player at Troy High. He scored 2,608 points in his career, third-best in Southern Section history.

Wulfemeyer, who lives in Corona, was named the section’s 4-A player of the year in 1974, when he averaged a county-record 36.5 points.

“He was awesome, unbelievable, fantastic,” said Fullerton College baseball Coach Nick Fuscardo, who was Wulfemeyer’s baseball coach at Troy and the school’s basketball announcer. “He hit more shots from half court like they were a regular part of the game. Whenever he shot the ball he hit nothing but net. It didn’t matter if they put two guys on him, he’d make it.”

Fans packed gymnasiums everywhere when he played. Wulfemeyer, who even jumped center, rarely disappointed.

As a freshman he made his first seven shots in his first varsity game, scoring 26 points against Downey Pius X. He had 55 points against Kennedy and 50 against eventual Southern Section 2-A champion El Dorado in a game the Warriors lost, 106-96.

He was also was a hard-throwing pitcher for Troy’s baseball team, and after graduation signed with the Angels. Arm trouble right out of high school cut his career short, so he played basketball for a couple seasons at USC before finishing at an NAIA school in Kansas.

“I had some bad advice in that part of my career,” said Wulfemeyer. “I guess I should have just picked one sport and played.”

His high school exploits, however, will be hard to forget.

Fuscardo remembers the time Wulfemeyer went over the top of two defenders to get his own missed shot, snatched the ball out of the hands of one and, without touching the ground, put the ball off the glass into the basket.

Then there was the time Wulfemeyer made his first seven shots and hit a half-court shot at the halftime buzzer against Lakewood.

When he showed up for the first day of summer practice in 1970, Wulfemeyer confronted then 27-year-old Warrior Coach Bill Morris about playing with the varsity.

“I told him our policy was for freshmen to play with the freshman team and then, if you improve enough, we’ll think about moving you up to the junior varsity,” Morris said.

But after only two games--one with the freshman team and another with the junior varsity--Morris was convinced he had a hotshot on his hands.

As reports of the Fullerton shooting sensation spread, crowds grew. School officials moved games to Fullerton College, then across State College Boulevard to Cal State Fullerton.

“We’d have an 8 p.m. game and I’d walk past the gym at 4 p.m. and people would be lined up around the building waiting to get in,” Morris said. “We had TV hook-ups outside the gym.”

But all that attention took its toll.

“Mark and I were both unprepared for all the publicity that was involved,” Morris said. “I was a young coach and Mark was a young man. It was a difficult situation.”

Wulfemeyer, a quiet, reserved youngster with few friends outside of prep basketball, withdrew.

“There was a lot of pressure on us,” he said. “I don’t wish a player like me on anybody. We had a pretty good team and my teammates, all very good players, sacrificed a lot for me. I probably hurt them tremendously for scholarships because I monopolized the ball so much.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Orange County Hall of Fame

* What: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies and dinner.

* Date: Tonight

* Time: Ceremonies at 6 p.m., dinner at 7:30

* Location: Near Gate 6, Anaheim Stadium

* Honorees: Don Johnson, former Cypress College men’s basketball coach; Mike Lansford, former Ram kicker; Dick Tucker, former Orange Coast College and Brea Olinda High football coach; Clyde Wright, former Angel pitcher; Mark Wulfemeyer, former Troy High basketball and baseball standout.

* Background: The Hall of Fame opened in December 1993. This year’s additions brings the total of inducted members to 78.

* Tickets: Sold out.