Calame has delivered service with a smile as Glendale YMCA’s senior

director

Service comes in all different forms for Ray Calame.

It’s a big part of his life as the senior director of the Glendale

YMCA. Even more so as someone who has helped thousands of kids enjoy

camping and basketball as the person in charge of youth sports and co-ed

camping for the YMCA.

Tuesday, the 55-year-old found a way to help someone in need again

when he helped a mother rescue her two young children from her locked car

at the YMCA.

“It’s something that could happen to anybody. How many times has

someone been in a hurry and locked the door before realizing what they’ve

done?” Calame said.

“I was just one of about 16 people trying to help get the kids out and

calm her nerves. The fire dept finally got the kids to open the car from

the inside and everything was fine.”

Providing service, coming to the needs of others and giving a lot of

himself has been a lifelong endeavor for Calame, who graduated from

Glendale High in 1962. He went on to play basketball at Glendale

Community College for two years before transferring to Cal State

Fullerton.

It is his love of basketball that has led Calame to coordinate and

oversee the Glendale Panthers basketball program through the YMCA for

girls and boys ages 6 to 17.

Chip Stone, who played for Calame as a 11-year-old in 1978 and later

at Glendale High, said Calame’s willingness to give of himself makes him

a rarity in sports.

“He is there for the kids at the YMCA so much so that it amazes me

that he finds time for his own family. But he is as good a father as he

is a leader at the YMCA,” Stone said.

The YMCA offers both recreational and competitive leagues for

basketball but Calame said that winning games is secondary to the real

message behind Panthers’ basketball.

“The things these kids learn playing basketball in an organized

setting that the YMCA offers can serve them later in life,” he said.

“Things like sportsmanship, sharing, getting along with others and

following rules are the keys to leading a productive life.”

*

Calame calls himself the original latch-key kid who lived south of the

railroad tracks in Glendale. He had to fend for him self so much as a

youngster that being independent helped him find opportunities early in

life.

When he was an eighth grader at Roosevelt Junior High, he worked at

the Sam Berry Basketball Tournament every year at Glendale Community

College. His job was to replace and remove the name placards on the

scoreboard.

Because he spent a great deal of time alone growing up, basketball

became an early passion because it was a game and a sport that he could

play by himself.

But as he recalled it, his collegiate career almost never happened

because he quit playing basketball after his junior year at Glendale

High.

“I played all of 1 1/2 minutes that season for the junior B team and

felt pretty discouraged about my prospects as a senior,” he said.

“Besides that, I had to walk to and from school from where the Amtrak

depot is and working and making money seemed like a better way to spend

my time.”

Calame’s sabbatical from basketball lasted exactly one year. As a

freshman at GCC, former coach Abe Androff took a liking to him and had

him redshirt that first season.

By his freshman year the following season, Calame had honed his skills

and become a defensive specialist and a player who went as hard as he

could from the beginning to the end of the game.

He won the award as the Vaqueros’ defensive player of the year in

1964-65 and was an All-Western State Conference honorable mention that

season. He then took his skills to Cal State Fullerton, where he was

all-conference as a senior with 15 points a game and 14 rebounds.

Calame still considers himself a competitive player at 55, but

realizes his energy is better spent helping young people find positive

outlets for their energy.

“I had never been camping before I started taking campers to Camp Fox

from 1973 to 1994, so I guess that camping trip lasted over 20 years,” he

said. “The things I’m most proud of is to help kids discover the wonders

of the outdoors and to make sure that every kid who wanted the experience

could go even if he had financial hardships.”

*

The story goes like this: A group of Roosevelt students was walking

home on Grandview Street after a flag football game at Brand Park in 1958

when they decided to see if New York Yankee Manager Casey Stengel was

home.

After Stengels wife shooed them away, a gruff old man is his bath robe

motioned for the kids to come inside his home and ushered them into his

trophy room, literally a baseball shrine of memorabilia.

For several minutes, Stengel captivated Calame and his friends with

tales of the Yankees and baseball and reminded the kids that being a good

citizen was much better than being a good baseball player.

That is a lesson that Ray Calame has never forgotten to this day.

The Calame File

Children: Trish, Tracey, Khaley, Zachary, Noah, Mattie.

Granddaughter: Emily.

Nickname: “Grandpa Gator.”

Did You Know?: Calame has been an assistant boys basketball coach at

Glendale High since 1989. He was the girls’ frosh-soph coach last year

and might get a chance to play against his daughter Khaley this year if

Glendale plays Saugus, where she will be a freshman.