Wiry Jamaal "Silk" Wilkes, who went
by "Keith" in high school and college.
(Photo of online image)
By Ed Piper
Now I know what being on the other side of David and Goliath might be like, from covering the latest edition of Coach Amanda Combs Warford's field hockey team at La Jolla.
Cathedral Catholic, a big institution with a heralded sports tradition itself, sent forth its Dons team against the Viking visitors. The host school held a detailed, lengthy (as is their right) Senior Night celebration just before the game--including "testimonials" from parents played on the big electronic board at the west end of the football field. (The sound couldn't be adjusted--a little hard to hear.)
Trailing 1-0, then 2-0 to La Jolla, Cathedral enjoyed the treat of having the varsity football team (in between parts of Thursday night practice Oct. 22) join the crowd with 3:50 left in the third quarter. First, the referee kicked the players out from sitting right behind the western goal. Then, when they went up into the stands, there were faint attempts at coordinated (but unplanned) cheers, like "DE-fense", "Roll, Dons", and others, which died out.
I was fascinated at the effect having the dominant football team, a power in San Diego County, watching and contributing might have on their field hockey team. The score only got worse, with the Vikings scoring a third goal, then a fourth, after the football players had had enough and reassembled at the end of the field for part two of practice.
I remember all this all too well from my own prep days, playing against the Goliaths of Santa Barbara High School, whose basketball team featured Keith (later Jamaal) Wilkes, a senior, and Don Ford, a 6'8" forward during my junior year at Camarillo High. We were the impotent David's (we left our courage and our slingshots at home) who got smoked by 30 points before an adoring home crowd at Santa Barbara, with (pre-NIL days, no transfer portal) representatives from UCLA (the dominant school at that time, under John Wooden) and other schools among the spectators.
We were intimidated, and got completely blown out in a Channel League encounter. Wilkes, 6'6", whose father was a pastor, was known to be gracious. After the game, in a thoroughly believable moment, he came over to our bench and shook each one of our hands with a double "soul" shake (my interpretation), before going back to his bench.
Interestingly, with transfers at a minimum in those days (1970-71), the pastors of Santa Barbara reputedly put together a "call" for Rev. Wilkes to occupy a pulpit in their town, thereby robbing Ventura High of its gem of a basketball player, Keith, an All-CIF performer, in a bald-faced move to take him away from that other community.
Wilkes and Ford, then a junior who averaged 28 points a game the next year, both played for the Lakers after starring in college. Jamaal Wilkes is a member of the Lakers' Hall of Fame for his long and distinguished career as a smooth-moving ("Silk") passer/shooter/team player--not a ball hog by any means.
His older sister attended one game, and she looked like his identical twin, which she may have been: tall (though not 6'6"), slender, with a small Afro.
