LJ b BB: Glue

By Ed Piper

Karen Davis said Maggie Ohara was the mom to look to in the future.

Karen, mother of Taylor Davis, who helped lead La Jolla's boys basketball team to three straight trips to the CIF Division 3 finals in 2007-08, 2008-09, and 2009-10, with the first two resulting in championships, was the unofficial "team mom" who helped me out with changed game times and general information about the team when Kamal Assaf was coach.

Maggie's son Zac was up-and-coming in the LJHS basketball program at the time. Zac went on to enjoy successful junior and senior seasons as a starting guard for the Vikings.

Fast forward to 2016. Jacob Ohara, Zac's younger brother, is now earning his way onto Paul Baranowski's squad this summer.

Between the Vikings' games Sat., July 9, at the Point Loma Nazarene University Team Camp, I went over to say hi and chat with Mrs. Ohara and the circle of La Jolla parents who were at the games.

"How's the Wild Bunch doing?" I asked Maggie. "We're not the Wild Bunch," she said. She was chatting with the father of another young player, Jacob Duffy, who is a year younger than Jacob in school.

Jacob's dad was situated a short distance over, talking with Charlie Gal's father intently. Another family showed up. Maggie called to the husband and wife and waved them over. "Come sit with us," she told them. They sidled down the cement aisles high up in the PLNU bleachers. Some of the parents had yellow flexible plastic pieces that clip onto the bleacher seat and afford some back support for spectators.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Ohara shared her friendly, amiable conversation with me and a mom who newly arrived. It was positive, peaceful, relaxed, and enjoyable.

In this section, there were no wildcat parents threatening the refs. Baranowski, the head coach, doesn't direct his comments to the refs, either. He's too busy coaching up his young players, giving them the teaching and support they need to grow and develop as student athletes.

Quite a contrast to a coach at the Canyon Crest Academy camp a short time earlier, where I attended the La Jolla girls game against University City. There, unrelated to the La Jolla game, on another court, a coach ripped into a referee with more than the usual jockeying, getting pretty nasty from the part I heard as I just arrived in the CCA gym. As a result, he rightfully earned his ticket out of the gym when the referees ejected him. Were his words really the purpose of summer league to mold his new players for next season?

"I love summer league," Maggie told me as if right on cue, though she knew nothing of the earlier incident across town at CCA. "They're all new players, working things out." A great model for her son, who is one of the newcomers to Baranowski's varsity and has to show his stuff. He's not big or tall, so he's got to rely on his quickness and basketball know-how if he's going to share time in the Viking backcourt with veteran guards Reed Farley (who was away with his travel squad), Nick Hammel, and Quinn Rawdin, besides the other JV grads, including Behzad Hashemi.

As I later took a break before the Vikings' 6:50 p.m. game, the second of a doubleheader, I looked across the cavernous arena--with a Quonset hut roof, arching over the rudimentary cement bleachers--and saw Maggie, the Queen Bee, with her hive across the way. She quietly, unobtrusively invites people in, makes them feel welcome, thanks them for helping out. Now, this is what high school sports can be.

I thought back to Karen Davis. Karen is the same kind of person. Karen and Maggie make it easy for everyone else. Without an official title or role, they watch over people, make sure they're doing okay, acting like they're not doing anything special when in actuality they serve a very important role in connecting, forming relationships, making a disparate group of parents--and photographer/reporter--feel like they belong.

It's a special quality.

You look at Jacob Ohara, and you see this hard-working young player who doesn't say a word. He just listens to his coach and plays hard. Maybe he'll talk a little as he becomes established on the varsity, as he is quickly doing this summer with his ability to drive to the basket and score on contested layups. You can't help but see the influence his nurturing mother--as well as his capable father--has on the young man.

We people are like flowers. Just shower us with a little water and praise and words of friendship, and we bloom and grow.