Reflecting on Holiday Memories

It’s time for a few holiday memories from a handful of those involved in Orange County community college athletics.

Family was a popular topic, especially with Cypress baseball Coach Scott Pickler, who recently hosted 28 people at his house for Thanksgiving.

Family get-togethers are especially exciting these days for Pickler and his wife, Sharon. Their son, Jeff, is a senior at Tennessee and a member of the college’s baseball team. Keri, their 16-year-old daughter, is a dancer, and was in New York most of last year performing in the musical “Big.”

Sharon lived with Keri in a studio apartment in New York and Scott’s brightest holiday memory came last year when he went to New York for the first time over New Year’s.

“Being in New York that time of year,” Pickler said, “and seeing my daughter dance, that was outstanding.”

Don Sneddon, baseball coach at Rancho Santiago, can’t forget a holiday fishing trip.

Sneddon, who would like to some day combine a trip on a fishing boat with a baseball clinic, remembers the trip not so much because he caught his first marlin, but because of a message left on his office phone answering machine.

The message was left by Bob Hamelin who told Sneddon that he was leaving UCLA and coming to play at Rancho Santiago. Hamelin hit 37 home runs and drove in 107 runs and batted .520 in 41 games as the Dons finished second in the state. Hamelin later was the American League rookie of the year for Kansas City in 1994.

“It was a week before Christmas,” Sneddon said. “I remember that. That was the trip I caught a 220-pound Hamelin on . . . I wish I had a picture of him hanging upside down next to me with a fishing pole in my hand.”

Mike Thornton, Orange Coast women’s basketball coach, also had a Christmas story, although not a happy one. His father, Chuck, died on Christmas night in 1985.

Thornton was coach of the Marina High girls’ team at the time and the school’s 16-team holiday tournament started the next day. He coached his team in three of the four games, missing only the day of the funeral.

“My dad was probably the biggest supporter I’ve ever had,” Thornton said. “He would have wanted me to be at my games. But this is always a hard time because I have mixed emotions this time of year.”

On a lighter note, Saddleback’s Justin Vedder, a sophomore quarterback who helped the Gauchos to an 11-0 record and a co-national championship, always thinks of one special football game at this time of year. But it’s not a game where coaches were yelling instructions or scolding players for mistakes.

Instead, it was really more about a bunch of kids playing in the mud. Three years ago a series of storms rolled through Southern California, and Vedder, a recent graduate of Laguna Hills High, and several of his friends met on a rain-soaked Laguna Hills field to play football a few days before Christmas.

“I’m not kidding,” Vedder said, “there were three or four inches of water on the field.”

The game raged on for a few hours leaving the players covered in mud. Not wanting to go home dirty, they all jumped into the high school pool to clean up.

“When we jumped in the pool we were all black from head to toe,” Vedder said. “The pool was dirty for a couple of weeks afterward.”