This Local Kid Helped a Return to Relevance

The UCLA basketball program was in disarray in the latter part of the 1980s, the allure of the Bruins’ championship-winning heyday a fading memory, when Don MacLean was a senior starring at Simi Valley High.

Walt Hazzard, the Bruins’ fifth coach since John Wooden’s retirement in 1975, was on his way out the door in the spring of 1988 and UCLA had reached the NCAA tournament only once in five seasons. Several coaches turned down the job before Pepperdine’s Jim Harrick, a former UCLA assistant, was hired.

It was no wonder that MacLean cast his gaze elsewhere, visiting Kentucky, UNLV, Georgia Tech and even Pittsburgh.

Or that one of the reasons MacLean ultimately chose UCLA was because -- in addition to wanting to stay close to home -- the 6-foot-10 forward believed that he would have a chance to start as a freshman.

“I thought I was pretty sharp,” said MacLean, a broadcaster since retiring after nine NBA seasons. “To go and sit for two years and learn behind somebody isn’t the way to go. The way to go is to get in the fire and play.”

MacLean, in leading UCLA back to national prominence, was the leading scorer as a freshman, sophomore and junior and second to Tracy Murray as a senior. He replaced Lew Alcindor as the school’s all-time scoring leader.

“I’m trying to think,” he said, “but I can’t remember a situation where I said to myself, ‘I wish I had gone somewhere out of state.’

“I came in and played well as a freshman, but it was nice to go home sometimes and to be able to get away from school. When you come back to Simi Valley you feel like you’re at the end of nowhere anyway, at least back then, and I could go home and kind of shake it out for a day or two.”

-- Jerry Crowe