Solitary Success : San Bernardino Wins, Produces Prospects Without Fanfare

As the San Bernardino High School boys’ basketball team took the floor before a recent homecoming game, rap music blasted from speakers surrounding the court while cheerleaders tried to warm up the incoming crowd.

With every crisp pass and layup made during pregame drills, San Bernardino’s players tried to do their part in getting the biggest home crowd of the season--about 800--excited. But, once the game began, the crowd’s excitement lulled as San Bernardino methodically routed San Andreas League rival Victor Valley, 83-60.

Winning quietly has become a way of life at San Bernardino, which has a 204-26 record the past eight seasons. Fans accustomed to the Cardinals’ success have great expectations. This is a program that has won seven consecutive San Andreas League titles and is one victory away from its eighth.

In 25 games, San Bernardino is the CIF Southern Section’s top-ranked and only undefeated team.

But such success has not helped the gate.

“I don’t know why we don’t have more fans,” center Ray Owes said after the homecoming game. “I really don’t know.”

Support outside the gymnasium, which holds about 2,000, is evident across the San Bernardino campus, near the city’s downtown. A large sign greets visitors, “Welcome to Cardinal City,” and the school’s basketball program simply reads, “Tradition” above a picture of this season’s three senior captains.

“We have great community and administration support,” Coach Scott Kay said. “But we don’t draw as well as we could. Sometimes, I wonder if expectations aren’t too high around here.”

Kay, who became coach in 1983, is partially responsible for those expectations. Since his arrival, the Cardinals have had eight consecutive 20-victory seasons and won their first Southern Section title in 1989. They have won 47 consecutive league games.

The season before Kay took over, San Bernardino finished third in the San Andreas League and had an 8-13 record overall.

Kay also has played a major role in the academic careers of his players. When he took over, Kay and Cheri Kimble, a learning-resource teacher, began a lunchtime program that has been so successful other sports program have joined.

Kimble, who assisted with a similar tutoring program at Indiana University under Bobby Knight, says that Kay is the reason the school’s study program has flourished.

“It takes a coach to work with it,” Kimble said. “And Kay makes it go here. He enforces the same rules with his best players to his 12th player. The kids know that if they don’t raise their grades, they won’t be able to play.”

Kay pushes his players to take college preparatory classes, which has helped San Bernardino (enrollment 2,300) increase its rate of athletes receiving scholarships. Four players from San Bernardino’s 1988-89 team will be playing in college next season.

Junior guard Marlon Smith, who was ineligible to play as a freshman, but has a 3.0 grade-point average, praises Kay.

“Most of the guys who played here under Kay are in college now,” Smith said. “I remember when I was a freshman, I looked at all of the dudes who used to play and I wanted to be like them. Now, I want to go to college and play ball.”

San Bernardino’s basketball fortunes improved dramatically after 1983 when the Cardinals’ rival school, Pacific, closed. It has since reopened. San Bernardino not only picked up Pacific students, but also Kay, Pacific’s coach since 1979.

Kay’s first season at San Bernardino was special. With Jack Simmons and Kyle Kopp starring, the Cardinals were 21-5 and won their first league title in 11 seasons.

“It could have been a problem, having a lot of players from Pacific coming here,” said Kay, 37, who was a shooting guard at Pacific in the late 1960s. “But it wasn’t. I just think that I’ve been in the right place at the right time.”

The next season, San Bernardino repeated as league champion with a 26-5 record and reached the quarterfinals in the Southern Section 2-A Division playoffs.

The Cardinals improved the next season with a 25-4 record and their third consecutive league title. They reached the semifinal round of the playoffs.

“The biggest change I made was going to more of a man-to-man defense,” Kay said. “Other than that, we’ve just had a stretch of great inside players who were surrounded by good players with quickness.”

Kay’s first dominant big man was Kopp, who is playing water polo at Cal State Long Beach. Kopp, a 6-foot-5 center, started three seasons and was named the league’s most valuable player in 1985. After Kopp came Emory Lewis, who is playing at Arizona State. Lewis, a 6-4 forward, was named Southern Section 2-A Division player of the year in 1986 and holds several school scoring records, among them most points in a career, 1,132.

In 1988, Byron Russell took over as the main inside force for San Bernardino and led the Cardinals to a 28-2 record his junior season and a Southern Section title his senior year. Russell, who is playing at Cal State Long Beach, was an All-Southern Section performer and league MVP in 1988.

For the last two seasons, Owes, an All-Southern Section performer in 1990, has been the Cardinals’ star. Owes, who signed a letter of intent to attend Arizona last fall, is averaging 25 points and 10 rebounds.

The Cardinals have been the top-ranked team in the Southern Section’s major division poll for most of the season, ahead of such perennial powers Santa Ana Mater Dei and Long Beach Poly. Not bad for a school that less than a decade ago was happy to reach the second round of the smaller 2-A Division playoffs.

“You just don’t want to be the one to let the streak end,” Marlon Smith said. “It makes you feel special to know that you’re a player for San Bernardino High School.”

Even if they play before less-than sellout crowds.