Holiday Classic basketball: Back at (almost) full-force

J.J. Bartelloni (23), who hit six

three-pointers, inbounds the ball

to Torrey Pines teammate Marcos

Delgado (12) in the Falcons'

68-67 loss to St. John Bosco

Tues., Dec. 27. Bosco is the 12th-

ranked team in the state.

(Photo by Ed Piper)

 

By Ed Piper

The Holiday Classic at Torrey Pines High is nearly back to full strength as we sluggishly move away from the COVID era of 2020-2021.

But Coach John Olive's obstacles didn't have to do with the pandemic this year. As his Falcons basketball team helped start off the 2022 edition of the Holiday Classic at Torrey Pines High Tues., Dec. 27, with a morning game against powerhouse St. John Bosco of Bellflower, tournament directors had to fill several gaps in the brackets across five playing sites that were the result of winter storms and the meltdown at Southwest Airlines.

The Falcons were nipped 68-67 on a last-second jumper by Amiri Meadows of St. John Bosco, the number-12-ranked team in California. Bosco had originally been scheduled for a tournament in Arkansas. Instead, they called up Olive's staff and got a late slot in the San Diego tourney. Olive said he felt obliged as the tournament host to face off against the L.A. recruiting power, thereby getting a quick exit from the championship bracket to the consolation bracket.

Other sites playing long days, from 9:30 a.m. to 9:45 p.m., concurrently with the National Division action on the Torrey Pines campus included Rancho Buena Vista in Vista, St. Augustine, Carlsbad High, and Santa Fe Christian High.

Torrey Pines, behind J.J. Bartelloni's sharp three-point shooting, led Bosco at the half, 38-31. It was heady stuff for the Falcons, but not totally out of character. In Olive's long career--including the 32nd edition of the Holiday Classic this week--he has parlayed a playing career at Villanova and coaching under Villanova legend Rollie Massimino into a big-time, successful run in the preps. No other high school in San Diego County has been able to draw the teams and stars that have populated the tourney over the years.

Jims: Thorpe and Kaat

By Ed Piper

I've been reading two books the last several nights, an autobiography and a biography, and they are quite a contrast.

In David Maraniss' recent biography of Jim Thorpe, called "the greatest athlete of all time" after he won the Olympic gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon in the same Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912, we find a gritty picture of the way Indians/Native Americans (the author uses the term "Indians") have been treated. 

But, new to me, we gain a picture of the way an elite athlete like Jim Thorpe is paraded before the white American public as both an incredible achiever in sports, and an odd specimen who can't really be human and isn't presented as more than a strange novelty who doesn't put on his pants one leg at a time.

Thorpe said he used sports at the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania, where he gained his fame, as a way to get back at his white teachers/administrators who couldn't accept people of his culture and who treated Indians differently than Blacks but in just as degrading a way.

He picked up on the ways of American football when it was at its most violent, after major rule changes in 1905 when 18 athletes in the U.S. died while playing football (that could have been a major undercount), many others were carried off with broken necks and skull fractures. His mentor: the famous Pop Warner, whose name now adorns youth football in the U.S. Warner was an innovator and inventor of equipment to protect his players. He also used Thorpe and his other Indian students at Carlisle (which, though an industrial school, played major colleges in football) to further his success and renown, already at quite a high after previously coaching at Carlisle, then Cornell Unversity, before returning to the Pennsylvania school after three years and major hassles at the New York institution.

The portrait of Pop Warner shows all the warts, and the innovations, of the man. No flattery here. Thorpe smiled and engaged with others, even though his father, who had multiple wives, common on the reservation, not infrequently beat him to a pulp and wasn't an angel in that arena.

Way at the other extreme of the cultural spectrum, Jim Kaat is quite a storyteller and calls everyone his "friend", which gets a little overdone at times. Watch out, because the people he doesn't call his friends get thrown under the bus, and it's bye-bye for them in his account.

I'm not a homer, but I'm also not a jock, so Kaat's portrayal of himself as an objective insider who analyzed Major League baseball games until recently is fun for the stories of my era watching baseball. But his inability to get outside baseball and look at it from that outsider perspective is not going to happen. He's got too many friends in the game, and he is too closely associated with MLB to take a position on bigger issues affecting the sport.

My connection with Kaat, nicknamed "Kitty" because of those who incorrectly pronounce his last name "Cat" instead of "Cot", goes back to the 1965 World Series when my father brought home a pennant of my favorite team, the Dodgers (we lived in Dodger territory, Los Angeles and Ventura counties), from the fifth game of the Series that Sandy Koufax pitched a complete-game victory in over Kaat's Twins. The pennant sits above my computer, where I write my sports articles, in our third bedroom/actually the workroom.

LJ b rugby: More photos 12/17

Photos by Ed Piper

Vikings get into partial scrum (with ball going out the

back) near end of the first game against Carlsbad.

Leed Smoole (14, left) tries to evade

a Carlsbad defender.

Vikings' Frank Occhialini (7, right) on the hunt

on defense against San Marcos in game 2.

LJ rugby: More photos of 'Scrum Down'

Photos by Ed Piper

#1 Alex Weisiger

#2 Leighlan Ramirez

Soph

#5 Noah Colpitts

Soph

#6 Haiden Uhrig

#9 Renner Smith

#10 Marc Oriol

Jr./Vice Captain

#11 Jaret Swerdlow

Sr.

#12 Jack Connor

#14 Leed Smoole

#15 Wyn Smoole

Sr./Captain

Marc Oriol (10) laterals during first

game vs. Carlsbad JV's.

Alex Weisiger (1, background), Renner Smith (2nd

from left), and Sebastian Snodgrass (13, far left)

with Coach Ian Denham at halftime.

Back Wyn Smoole (15) makes a good run

during first half vs. Carlsbad.

Ethan Willis (center), Viking head coach, in pregame

preparations with his players.

LJ rugby 'Scrum Down' 12/17

A good run by Viking back (with ball) before

being tackled by two San Marcos Knights

in the nightcap. (Photos by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

For a neophyte rugby sportswriter, it was a night of merely watching, being in the environment, and learning what the heck rugby is.

Referee Jeff Nolan recommended, "Go watch 'Rugby for Dummies' on Youtube," and that will get me up to speed.

This reporter hasn't done that yet, what with getting inside after the chilly 50-degree night and recovering overnight with a restful sleep and visions of lineouts (in which two teammates lift a third into the air to try to snag a throw-in from the sideline) and scrums (both teams go shoulder-to-shoulder after a legal tackle and one team pushes the odd-shaped ball out the back for a running back to carry it).

Behold, Ethan Willis and Ian Denham oversaw another edition of "rugby incubator", in which they are actively teaching basic rugby formations and techniques to new and newer recruits who are still learning the game--as the Vikings are warming up, preparing for the game. It's a live test-tube experience for a spectator, watching newbies alongside veterans Wyn Smoole and his brother, Leed Smoole, get training and instruction in fundamental moves they'll try to carry out during the game.

Real games start in January.

Late in the Vikings' second game, back Kellen

Tinsley (4) attempts a pass in a lineout

by the Vikings near the far sideline.

Viking rugby: Round-robin Sat., 12/17

By Ed Piper

The '22-'23 Viking rugby'ers run into the Carlsbad JV's, then an hour later San Marcos in the first action of the new season Sat., Dec. 17 at Edwards Stadium.

Ethan Willis's unhelmeted crushers clash with the Carlsbad contingent at 4:30 p.m. Then, in the Vikings' main event of the early evening, as the darkness deepens, they confront San Marcos at 5:50 p.m.

The LJ-Carlsbad JV match is scheduled for two 15-minute halves. Then the pure-varsity match-up against San Marcos, likewise, will play out over a pair of 15-minute periods.

LJ wrestling 57, Madison 18

Photos by Ed Piper

Daniel Pena (top) gets the ball rolling with the first pin

of the day on the way to the Vikings' 57-18 win.

Senior Charlie Long (152 pounds) follows that

by making his opponent submit. Here Long tries

a move that forces his opponent (in blue) on his back

with Charlie enveloping him in a dominant hold.

Gus Rinaldi (160, red singlet) pinned his opponent

to make the LJ advantage 48-6 (largely on forfeits,

in addition to pins).

LJ g water polo 20, Scripps Ranch 0

Photos by Ed Piper

Stella Tezcan (12)

Sophia Soltero (10) defending

Michelle Ballesteros (6) moving the ball up-pool

Kaylin Kammerer (5) vying for the dropball

Junior Tayler Stewart (9) in action

Katy Westphal (7) and Stewart totally dominate

the Falcons' 2-meter player (submerged

under Westphal)

Soph Daria Tvrdisic (11) gets off a shot.

LJ head coach Amy Jennings (far left)

Goalie Lucia Vega (1)

LJ g soccer 1, Temescal Canyon 0 - Late in first half - Tournament game 12/13

Photos by Ed Piper