Asking for Double

Jim Harris caught a break in the first round of the Southern Section basketball playoffs. Like nearly all his peers, he had only one game to coach.

Hopefully, he enjoyed it, because now it’s back to what has become his routinely break-neck schedule.

Harris coaches basketball at Huntington Beach Ocean View High. Not just boys, not just girls. Both. He is among eight basketball coaches in the 541-school Southern Section who pulled double duty this season.

Only Harris and Fullerton Troy Coach Kevin Kiernan coached two teams that compete above the small-school levels. And only Kiernan, long a successful girls’ coach, had what most might consider a plausible explanation.

He took over the Troy boys’ program when the school’s former coach quit only days before the season was set to begin. Harris, 59, the only boys’ coach in the history of Ocean View, had no such excuse.

He surprised everyone by seeking the job when the opening developed last spring.

“My principal tried to talk me out of it,” said Harris, who earlier this season notched his 500th career victory as a boys’ coach. “All my boys’ coaches thought I was going to make them help me with the girls. My players thought I was crazy.”

But no one is complaining about the results.

The Ocean View boys’ team is 22-6; the girls are 22-2. Both were undefeated in Golden West League play -- the boys for the sixth consecutive season.

It was the boys’ team too that provided Harris with a brief respite earlier this week. As the No. 2-seeded team in the Division III-AA playoffs, it earned a first-round bye.

By Thursday, though, Harris was back to business as usual. The Ocean View girls opened their playoff run with a 44-38 victory over Norwalk Glenn.

That was followed by a 72-65 victory Friday night by the boys’ team over Mission Hills Alemany in a second-round game.

The girls next play today and, if they win, on Wednesday, and the boys play Tuesday -- similar to the alternating schedule that allowed Harris to keep pace with both teams throughout the season.

Kiernan wasn’t so lucky. In taking over the Troy boys’ program at the last minute, he was stuck with a sometimes-overlapping schedule. He missed five girls’ games -- all victories -- so he could be with his struggling boys’ team.

“It’s really a grinding experience,” Kiernan said. “In some ways it was rewarding, but I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone who wants a life outside the gym.”

Santa Maria Valley Christian, Encino Holy Martyrs, Capistrano Valley Christian, West L.A. Baptist, Shandon and Baker Valley also have one coach for two teams; those schools compete at the Southern Section’s lowest levels.

The Troy girls are seeded No. 1 in Division II-AA. The boys’ team did not make the playoffs. Kiernan plans to give up one of the teams next season, although he isn’t sure which it will be.

“I’m leaning toward staying with the boys,” he said. “I couldn’t do two again. It was such a tough year. There is something to do every minute of the day.”

Harris expects to keep coaching both Ocean View teams next season, much to the amazement of friend Rich Schaff, who recalled his own experience at Ocean View when he doubled as a varsity boys’ assistant and the head girls’ junior varsity coach one season.

“I was 24 and I almost lost my mind coaching boys and girls at the same time,” Schaff said. “I don’t have any idea what [Harris] is doing over there or how he’s doing it.”

Harris acknowledges that his days can be long and hectic. He has two booster clubs to deal with and double the number of parents to pacify.

The schedule has worked out so that he has had to miss only two girls’ games this season -- both tournament games in December.

But the anticipation of coaching his daughter Kelsey, who will be a freshman next fall, along with a deep-rooted passion for coaching basketball has allowed Harris to enjoy himself.

“There are no early days,” Harris said. “It’s very time consuming. If I didn’t have some very good assistants, I couldn’t do it.”

Jimmy Harris Jr., Jim’s son, is co-head coach of the boys’ team. Stephanie Horiuchi and Aaron Mason are second in command for the girls’ team, which has seen a remarkable turnaround this season after going 12-16 in 2002-03.

Ocean View’s last girls’ league title was in 1996. The school’s records are sketchy, but Harris said he believed no Seahawks girls’ team had gone through league play undefeated.

Senior Leila Abufarie returned to Ocean View after playing last season at Huntington Beach Edison. D.J. Butler, a 6-foot-2 freshman and daughter of former Ocean View standout Kevin Butler, also arrived this season. But the players point to Harris as the key to the turnaround.

“I think it has a lot to do with him coaching,” said senior Erica Williams, the team’s leading scorer. “Everything is different. The way he runs practices, his whole coaching style and his philosophy on life. He’s laid back, but he cares.”

Junior Vanessa Alderfer was one of Harris’ biggest supporters when the job opened. She lobbied hard, dropping by Harris’ office routinely to try to convince him to take the job.

“I was going to quit,” Alderfer said. “But I could see how much he loves the boys’ team and coaching. I really wanted that for our team.”

All the while, the boys’ team hasn’t suffered. Matt Sargeant, the team’s top player and leading scorer, was among those who called Harris crazy for taking on the added responsibility, but he changed his tune.

“My first reaction was ‘How in the world is he going to do it?’ ” Sargeant said. “But then I was like, if anyone can do it, he can. He spends his whole life in the gym anyway so it wasn’t that big of a change.”

But Harris doesn’t spend all his time in the gym. He is a math teacher at Ocean View and is also a father of five. Kelsey is the youngest, and Harris still finds time to coach her eighth-grade team.

That allows for quality family time that might otherwise have suffered with his role as double-varsity coach. His wife, Sandi, spends time with her husband and son by attending games.

“We’re such a basketball family,” Jimmy Jr. said. “Even if he wasn’t coaching, we’d be going to basketball games. He’s just got such a passion for it and that rubs off on everyone around him.”

Kiernan’s wife is an assistant, and his 2- and 3-year-old children attend practices and games. He is a special education teacher at Troy and also teaches a night school class for adults.

“The past few months have been a total blur,” Kiernan said. “You don’t really think about how you did it, because you don’t have time. You just do things and keep moving on.”

Harris said he wouldn’t recommend anyone taking on a dual role unless they were fully prepared, but he added that the rewards make up for any inconveniences.

“I’m the one getting the most out of this,” he said. “I’ve had some great things happen to me as a coach. One was when my son played for me and the other is this.”