Basketball Is Worth the Wait for Burnett

In high school, LaTasha Burnett knew she was good enough to play college basketball. She didn’t think it would take eight years to do it.

In those eight years, the 1992 graduate of Lynwood High has won a state junior college championship, nearly made it in the WNBA and coached high school for five years. Now Burnett is finally playing in the NCAA. At 25, she is the starting point guard for Cal Poly Pomona and is quickly making a name for herself in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

It’s the realization of a dream for Burnett that, in 1992, looked as if it might never come to fruition.

While at Lynwood, Burnett fielded offers from many Division I schools, several of them in the Pacific 10 Conference. But she was living with her grandmother, mother, niece, younger brother and younger sister at the time. Her mother was ill and unable to work. So Burnett went to Harbor College while working to support her family.

She enjoyed plenty of success there, leading her team to the playoffs twice and the state championship her sophomore season, when she was a junior college All-American. Then it was decision time again, and again she chose family, deciding to work rather than to continue her education.

Still, she stayed close to basketball, taking a job as an assistant coach with the women’s team at Compton College. Then she became the girls’ junior varsity coach and varsity assistant at Inglewood High in the 1995-96 season, a job that she kept for four years. That job not only kept her in basketball, it ultimately was the determining factor in her returning to college.

“I had been doing all this preaching to those girls about getting a degree and going to school, then I realized, ‘I’m being a hypocrite,’ ” Burnett said. “All the girls who were freshmen when I got to Inglewood High were seniors. I decided I was going to do this. Break off, take care of my own business and show it can be done.”

But before making that decision, Burnett had already given a bigger dream a shot, seeing if she could make a WNBA roster.

When the Sparks held open tryouts before the 1997 and 1998 seasons, Burnett was there. The second time, she survived several cuts before suffering a strained Achilles’ tendon at the end of training camp.

So it was back to Inglewood High, where a chance meeting with a coach who had recruited her in high school got her return to school in order.

At a Christmas tournament in Las Vegas, Burnett ran into Coach Paul Thomas of Cal Poly Pomona.

They rekindled their relationship and before long, Burnett was on her way to Pomona.

“LaTasha asked me the rules about transferring and the conversation had to stop because that would be recruiting,” Thomas said. “I told her I had a brochure.”

Back in California, Burnett called Thomas and before long was on her way back to school.

The timing was also right for her family. Her mother was healthy again and back at work. Her sister had a job. And her brother was finishing high school and preparing to enter the military.

So far, Burnett, a kinesiology major who wants to teach and coach once she’s out of school, said the situation couldn’t have worked out better for her.

“I couldn’t be happier,” she said. “I love it here. I lucked out this time.”

She isn’t the only one. Thomas has to be counting his blessings too.

The Broncos are 14-2 overall, 8-1 and in first place in the CCAA. And if there’s any question as to how important Burnett has been to that success, one game answers it.

With the Broncos trailing by 28 points in the first half at San Francisco State on Jan. 7, Thomas benched his starters, then got the spark he was looking for in Burnett. In the second half, the junior had 19 points, six rebounds, three assists and four steals, and the Broncos had a 73-62 victory.

“That’s taking over a game,” Thomas said. “That’s how good she can be.”

But after a five-year layoff, Burnett admits she still is working off the rustiness, and that may take some time. Eight years removed from high school, however, she has learned that waiting has its rewards.

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After leading her team to the Division II championship game in December, Cal Poly Pomona women’s soccer player Ruth Van’t Land was named the Division II player of the year. The junior had 17 goals, nine assists, 43 points and seven game-winning goals, all team highs. She joins Redlands senior Danny Ragsdale, who was named the Division III football player of the year, as area national player of the year winners.

The Master’s College has been granted membership in the Golden State Athletic Conference of the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics. The Master’s, which has been an NAIA independent school, will become the conference’s 11th member Aug. 1 for a one-year probationary period, during which the school’s teams will be ineligible for conference championships.

UNIVERSITY BEAT

The fifth-ranked USC men’s volleyball team won both of its matches last weekend at No. 9 Penn State, winning in three games Friday and four Saturday. Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play opens this week. The Trojans are at San Diego State on Friday, when No. 1 UCLA hosts Pacific. No. 2 Long Beach State opens at UC San Diego on Thursday, and No. 4 Pepperdine is at San Diego State on Sunday.

UCLA freshman Sara Walker last weekend became the first woman since 1994 to sweep the singles and doubles titles at the National Collegiate Tennis Classic at Sherwood Country Club. Walker defeated USC freshman Jewel Peterson, 7-5, 6-0, for the singles championship, then teamed with senior Amanda Basica to defeat Pepperdine freshman Paola Palencia and sophomore Ipek Senoglu, 8-4, in the doubles final. On the men’s side, the area’s top performer was sophomore Andrew Park of USC, who lost to Stanford’s Geoff Abrams, 6-3, 6-3, in the semifinals.

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Division I All-Americans

Selections from Fall 1999:

MEN’S SOCCER

* First team: *Sasha Victorine, Sr., M/F, UCLA. Second team: Carlos Bocanegra, Jr., D, UCLA.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

* Third team: Isabelle Harvey, Jr., M, USC.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

* First team: Roberta Gehlke, Sr., OH, UC Santa Barbara; Cheryl Weaver, Soph., MB, Long Beach State. Second Team: Sarah McFarland, Jr., OH, Loyola Marymount; Kristee Porter, Soph., OH, UCLA.

MEN’S WATER POLO

* First team: *Sean Kern, Jr., 2M, UCLA; Matt Armato, Sr., A, UCLA; Allen Basso, Sr., D, USC. Second Team: Greg Lonzo, Soph., D, Pepperdine; Tom Coughlan, Jr., 2M, UC Santa Barbara; Pat Cochran, Sr., D, Long Beach State; Richard McEvoy, Sr., G, USC. Third Team: Adam Wright, Jr., P, UCLA; Peter Janov, Sr., 2M, USC; George Csaszar, Jr., D, USC.

* National player of the year