LJ g golf: Sutton family at tryouts

By Ed Piper

Freshman Natalie Sutton showed up to tryouts for the La Jolla High girls golf team at Balboa Golf Course Wed., Aug. 13.

Asked if she played golf, Natalie said, "I started at seven years old. Then I didn't play much. Last year, I started playing again."

Her father, Dustin, brought her to tryouts. He was an assistant to Coach Kamal Assaf at La Jolla in 2008-09, and for four years in total, during the "golden age" of Vikings boys basketball.

He had a story. "Let me tell you about Kamal," said Dustin, noting that Assaf is now middle school coach at Bishop's as he continues to teach history there.

"During one practice, players were going through the motions. It was slap-dap, the kids weren't taking it seriously. It wasn't going well.

"Kamal stopped the whole thing. He addressed the players: 'Your parents and friends could be going to a movie, or going out to dinner. But they're coming to watch you.

'You have to know your lines. This is like a play where you play a part. It is has to go well.'

"Kamal started practice again, and the whole atmosphere changed. The team members took it seriously. They were playing hard.

"The whole thing changed after that."

Dustin Sutton was addressing the fact that Kamal Assaf took coaching basketball seriously, and he was able to transmit that to his players.

The Vikings won the CIF Division 3 title in 2007-08, 2008-09, and narrowly missed a three-peat in 2009-10 on a foul call at the buzzer on a three-point attempt that could have gone either direction.

Coach Sutton came "after the first title", he said. So he was there for the 2008-09 campaign, and then the near-miss against Mount Miguel the next year.

This reporter had another another Kamal Assaf story. This one was about Kamal's near-obsession with coaching. Every possible moment, when he was single, was spent coaching basketball, learning more about coaching, or investing his time in some other endeavor that had to do with coaching his favorite sport. (He played it at Bishop's when he was a student there.)

One time Mike Haupt, a close friend who continues to coach at St. Augustine, called Kamal. They were chatting and talking about what was going on lately. On an off-day from school, Haupt asked him what he was doing.

"I'm at a coaching clinic," Mike related that Assaf told him. He was floored, that on a free day when he could be resting up from teaching and coaching, he was at another basketball event. Haupt couldn't believe it.