Prep BB: Mas Silva

By Ed Piper

Manny Silva (see separate article) says he wants to write the story of his life, "Growing Up in Tunaville." Silva, now an assistant boys basketball coach at Hilltop High, is the retired long-time coach at Marian Catholic (now Mater Dei), Monte Vista, and Valhalla.

I'm going to preview a few tidbits that he shared while we sat alongside each other watching the early part of La Jolla's win over Eastlake Dec. 6. "I spent six summers on a fishing boat," said Silva, who grew up in the Portuguese tuna-fishing community of Point Loma. "I first went out when I was 13 years old, working for 12 grown men. I spent 90 days out on my first trip."

"I need to get the software that lets me talk into a microphone," said the basketball veteran, musing over getting his autobiography published. He also coached present Hilltop head coach Luke Kelley, JV coach Brian Pike, and Kevin Pike, Brian's brother and present coach at Hilltop Middle School, while they all attended St. Rose of Lima School in Chula Vista in the late 1980's. Kelley ended up being the league Player of the Year and All-CIF Second Team at his alma mater where he now is in his second year of coaching, Hilltop.

"I've been down to Chile, and  up to the Canadian border doing commercial fishing," continued Silva, as the Vikings seesawed back and forth with Eastlake in the first quarter. "In Panama City, we went ashore. Everybody said, 'Don't speak English.' There was a lot of anti-American sentiment because of an uprising. This was the summer of 1957."

I told him that my father taught military brats in the Panama Canal Zone only five years before that, 1950-52. He was interested. My sister was born there.

The former Saint of St. Augustine said he and others are trying to get Tunaville recognized as a historical neighborhood for its Portuguese fishing heritage. It sounds kind of like what Little Italy benefactors have done in establishing Piazza John Basilone and so forth downtown.

He is a fount of information about San Diego sports history. "Jock's is an organization of coaches and athletes who get together once a year," he said. "Art 'Hambone' Williams of the Celtics and Bill McColl from Hoover (who went on to play for the Chicago Bears) came." McColl's name came up because I mentioned that his grandson Daniel played at La Jolla (basketball, football, and volleyball) and graduated last June.

Hambone Williams, Silva informed me, starred at San Diego High and City College. He said the annual dinner is held at Tom Ham's Lighthouse on Harbor Island.

We talked about the heat in the upper reaches of the gym. I told him sitting upstairs in the old La Jolla High gym can get pretty warm. Silva: "Point Loma, Hoover, and La Jolla all have the same gym (layout) (with the upper level). Point Loma used to have the biggest gym in the area. The Harlem Globetrotters played there."

Silva, unlike the current trend of high school coaches, was a campus teacher as well. At Marian Catholic, he taught Physical Science (for ninth-graders), U.S. History, and P.E. At Valhalla he taught Math, U.S. History, and P.E.