Beach Ball’s a Tough Game in Laguna

Maybe the glory days of these beachside courts were the 1980s, when the competition was tougher, the crowds bigger, the games more civil and the rims more forgiving. But for the hoops junkie who doesn’t mind the occasional spat or stray elbow, there are still plenty of reasons to bring your jump shot down to Laguna Beach and the courts at Main Beach.

“You’ve got the weather, the women, the basketball and a little South of France look going on,” said local legend Gerard “Sweets” Suite as he gazed out at the blue sea, white sand and luxurious yachts sitting off the Laguna coast.

Suite, a stocky 41-year-old point guard who has kept himself in tremendous shape, has been pounding his dribble and floating his knuckleball jumper through the wind here for 15 years. He remembers the days when weekend three-on-three tournaments would feature NBA stars and top college players home for the summer.

“You couldn’t even get a seat,” said Suite, who played high school ball in New York at Power Memorial High, better known in basketball circles as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s alma mater. “It was a pure game, wide open and fun to watch.”

Main Beach veterans say those tournaments and the NBA veterans who played in them, such as Byron Scott, Kurt Rambis, Michael Cooper, Norm Nixon and Billy Paultz, put their courts on the basketball map.

Ron Lutz, Laguna Beach’s recreation supervisor for the last 24 years, helped create the buzz by organizing the weekend tournaments, which attracted more than 125 teams to the two half-courts nestled between South Coast Highway and the pounding surf. Lutz put the pairings together Friday nights and then watched the talent flock to the courts early Saturday mornings.

Los Angeles Clipper backup center Sean Rooks would drive two hours from Fontana during his high school and college years just to play half-court basketball.

“It was worth it,” said Rooks, a 10-year NBA veteran who starred at Fontana High and the University of Arizona and is a former Laker. “This was the place to be. The stands surrounding the court were packed. It was quite a scene.”

As word spread throughout the hoop subculture, and the courts were celebrated in various pickup basketball guidebooks and sports magazines, the games began to deteriorate.

“There was a foul on every play,” Lutz said. “A simple game to 15 points by ones was taking almost an hour to play.”

Lutz tried hiring referees to tone down the physical play. But in 1994, he gave up and shut down the tournaments.

The grandstands are long gone now and so is Lutz, preferring to spend his weekends with his wife rather than breaking up fights over traveling violations. But the Laguna Beach games are still better than most, which is why Rooks still travels from Claremont to play pickup ball at the beach during the NBA’s off-season.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Rooks and three buddies ruled the court while his wife caught up on her reading and his kids played with their beach toys in a courtside sand pit. Rooks did his share of scoring and rebounding, but he was hardly a dominant force.

“Today is one of those play-and-be-careful days,” said Rooks, who would rather stay healthy for the upcoming NBA season than trade elbows under the backboards with the weekend bruisers. “You always have to assess the crowd here. The older you get, the more careful you get.”

Many of the better players who frequent the courts these days are a lot like Greg Alley, a 6-foot-5 rugby player who played basketball at Azusa Pacific University in the mid-1990s. On a recent Saturday, he waited patiently for two hours before finally taking the court and picking up two members of the losing team from the previous game. One of those losers happened to be Suite.

“It’s a little rough, but that’s why I enjoy it,” said Alley, who recently finished a stint with the U.S. national rugby team. “It usually stays pretty clean.”

Alley could have played much sooner on the B court, where the skill level is much lower and the players are older. Sometimes, the players on A and B courts sort themselves out by their dress.

The A players usually wear long shorts, numbered jerseys--often from their city league team--and the latest and most expensive high-tops. The B court players are sometimes seen in low-top shoes, short shorts and high tube socks.

Four-on-four games are played to 11 points, with each basket counting as one point. They can drag on, as they are often plagued by fouls and erratic shooting.

On weekdays, middle-aged guys with potbellies usually dominate the courts until late afternoon. The players with serious game don’t start arriving until about 5 p.m. On the weekends, the talent show and the bickering start about 10 a.m.

Shooting with or against an ocean breeze can be difficult for even the surest of perimeter shooters, and new highly tempered steel rims have added to the frustration.

“A lot of players never learn to adjust to the wind,” Lutz said. “You need a flatter-trajectory shot here because of the wind. You want to shoot on the right side, or top of the key with the winds at your back. You don’t want to shoot on land side into the wind.”

Alley and Suite didn’t have much luck negotiating the wind on this day. They lost to a team of Laguna Beach veterans. But they will both be back to try their luck again. “It’s a good, high level of ball,” Alley said. “There aren’t a lot of places where you can consistently get that.”

And there aren’t many better settings.