Shiebler Makes Persistence Pay Off

There isn’t a high school basketball coach in America who wouldn’t want Charlie Shiebler on the team.

He’d walk through a swarm of bees to make it to practice. He’d scrape his elbows to retrieve a loose ball. He’d sleep in the gym if someone gave him a key.

During his freshman year at Crespi High, Shiebler would ride his mountain bike from his home near Pierce College to summer school in Encino, then ride back to Woodland Hills for summer basketball camp at Louisville.

“That was the start of my dedication to basketball,” he said. “I put basketball ahead of almost everything. Just to get to practice was hard work, and I had to get through practice. I didn’t mind the conditions.”

Classmates who spotted Shiebler riding along Ventura Boulevard would honk their horns.

“I became known as the kid who rode his bike,” he said.

Shiebler was so committed and dependable that when a friend blew a tire, guess who came to the rescue?

“I threw him on my handlebar,” he said.

As a 6-foot-2 senior, Shiebler is the most valuable player for surprising Crespi (13-4). He guards the opponents’ best offensive player, is close to perfect on free throws late in the game, makes clutch three-point shots and never stops hustling. He’s averaging 10 points, five rebounds and three assists.

He doesn’t lose his composure, even if opponents try to provoke him with trash talk.

“They can talk to me all they want,” he said. “I think it’s just wasting breath.”

Off the court, Shiebler swears he never loses his temper.

“I don’t see any need for people to be mad at one another,” he said. “I may get frustrated with myself, but I’ve never been in a fight, never been disciplined, never.”

He has a 3.9 grade-point average, 1050 SAT score and is known for his kindness. He frequently gives teammates rides home in his car while serving as an unofficial chauffeur.

“I don’t mind it,” he said. “If some kid gets stuck, it’s a good feeling you get to assist somebody.”

Most of his family lives in New England, which helps explain his admiration for Larry Bird, the former Boston Celtic great.

“That’s the person I look up to,” he said. “He came from nothing to become a great basketball player. His hard work and determination when people said he couldn’t do it. . . . He proved them wrong.”

Shiebler is trying to follow the same path.

“I like to set out a goal and even if people try to deter me, I’m pretty persistent in not allowing it,” he said.

Coach Dick Dornan has concluded, “If you asked me in seven [seasons] of coaching who my most dedicated player was, it would be him. He’s like a dream player to coach.”

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David Danipour is an unlikely starter for North Hollywood. He had so little confidence in his basketball abilities two seasons ago that he kept trying out for the sophomore team when varsity coach Rob Bloom insisted he play junior varsity.

“Yes, you’re good enough,” Bloom told him.

“No, I’m not,” Danipour said.

Three times, Danipour showed up for sophomore tryouts. Three times, Bloom told him in a loud voice, “You’re not playing sophomores, you’re playing JVs.”

Danipour finally relented, led the JVs in scoring and has become a valuable two-year varsity contributor for North Hollywood (12-4, 2-0 in the Sunset Six League).

“I thought differently,” Danipour said of his coaches’ decision. “They were right.”

The 6-foot Danipour has overcome plenty of obstacles, from family commitments that require him to do everything from filling out tax returns to cooking.

Playing basketball was his choice and conflicts with what his father wants. But he has maintained a 3.6 GPA, scored 1400 on the SAT and wants to join an older brother attending a University of California school.

He won a $10,000 scholarship from the Children’s Defense Fund by writing an essay on how he “Beat the Odds.”

He said the scholarship served as motivation “to keep going, that I was on the right track. That I could overcome obstacles thrown in my way and that anyone can if you set your mind to it. I try my best all the time.”

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It was an outrageous, unwarranted action to banish Crespi’s football team from the current Mission League starting in 2002 and place the Celts in a league with schools far away from their Encino campus.

Principal David Doyle should remove Crespi from the Catholic Athletic Assn. as retribution for member schools refusing to consider Crespi’s long tradition of playing Valley schools.

It makes no sense for Crespi to join a new Mission League for football made up of Cathedral, Serra, Bishop Montgomery, St. Bernard and Bosco Tech. Just wait until Crespi parents figure out how long the bus rides will be to Gardena, Torrance and Rosemead. Since the school opened in 1959, Crespi has competed in a football league without at least one Valley team.

Crespi will remain in the Mission League for other sports, but competing in this new league for football would last four years.

It appears the Celts were outmaneuvered by fellow Mission member Harvard-Westlake, which has competed in a football league with Serra, St. Bernard and Bishop Montgomery the last few years. Other Mission members are upset with Harvard-Westlake. But the real culprit is St. Paul, which will join Mission teams Notre Dame, Chaminade, St. Francis, Harvard-Westlake and Alemany in the newly aligned Del Rey League.

St. Paul is not looked at kindly by Mission schools. It’s the school that accepted former Alemany running back De’Andre Scott as a transfer student at midseason last year. Because the Swordsmen didn’t want to play Division I, they get to come to the Valley and Crespi is exiled over the hill. It’s absurd.

“We fought to the last breath,” Principal Gary Murphy of Chaminade said.

Crespi will probably end up playing Notre Dame, St. Francis and Chaminade in nonleague games, but that won’t help reverse a foolish decision.

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Eric Sondheimer’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422 or eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.