Orange County Prep Review : Kerhoulas Takes Scenic Route to San Clemente’s Basketball Program

Dion Kerhoulas was captain of the University of San Francisco’s basketball team, served as a player-coach for a club team in Greece and spent 10 years as a teaching tennis pro in Northern California.

Dick Edwards and Stan Morrison, who later became Division I college coaches, were his high school basketball coaches in Sacramento. He earned a scholarship as a point guard to USF, where he played three seasons for one of the West Coast’s premier basketball programs.

Nowadays, Kerhoulas is in charge of a struggling basketball program at San Clemente High School. The Tritons are 4-10, but Kerhoulas claims that coaching basketball is all he’s ever wanted to do.

“I like the way the gym smells,” he said. “I love the crowds, the competitiveness and the team aspect of the game. It’s fun to be back.”

Kerhoulas was hired by Jim Krembas, newly appointed San Clemente principal, last August, which meant he missed the summer basketball schedule. When practice opened on Nov. 10, Kerhoulas had to introduce himself to several of his players.

“The late start put us way behind everybody else, but we’re playing better all the time,” Kerhoulas said. “We have a good freshman class that I’ve spread out on the freshman and sophomore levels. That will be the focal point for us in a couple of years.”

Basketball has always been a focal point for Kerhoulas. After graduating from USF, Kerhoulas continued playing for an AAU team in San Francisco while he worked on earning a teaching credential.

He was invited to become a player-coach for AO Sporting in Athens in 1971, and spent one season playing basketball overseas.

“It wasn’t a big-bucks deal like the one Kevin Magee has,” Kerhoulas said. “They basically paid my living expenses and got me a car. I worked with a lot of younger players, teaching them the game, and then played in a 14-team league.

“The game was a very basic run-and-shoot style of play. But it was very, very physical under international rules.”

Kerhoulas had problems finding a teaching job when he returned to California, so he became a tennis instructor in Palo Alto. He spent 10 years at clubs in Palo Alto and Santa Clara.

“I burned out playing tennis, so I decided to move down to Southern California and see if I could find a job coaching basketball,” Kerhoulas said. “I was hired at Savanna after my first interview.”

Kerhoulas was an assistant under Coach Tom Gregory for two seasons before being hired at San Clemente. He inherited a team with no returning starters and only one player--Justin Burrows--with varsity experience.

“It’s going to take time to build the program,” Kerhoulas said. “But we expect 300 to 400 new students in the next couple of years and that’s encouraging.”

Here’s the Score: Ocean View High is scheduled to unveil its new $10,700 basketball scoreboards Friday night when the Seahawks play host to Huntington Beach in Sunset League play.

The two scoreboards, which are 20-feet by 5-feet and weigh 600 pounds each, will be installed today and Tuesday in the Seahawks’ gymnasium. Installation cost is $2,000, bringing the total price to $12,700.

Coach Jim Harris raised the money with the help of the school’s athletic budget, student government funds, senior class funds and a $4,000 donation from a soft-drink firm. But it wasn’t easy.

“I decided I wanted big-time scoreboards and got a price figure,” Harris said. “Then I went to our principal (John Myers) and asked him, if I got to within $2,000 of the total, could I order the scoreboards? He said OK.”

Harris received $1,000 each from the boys’ and girls’ athletic departments. He got another $1,000 from the boys’ basketball program and $500 from the girls’ basketball program. He also got $2,000 from the $38,000 the school received from the State of California for performing well on tests.

“I had enough to order one scoreboard, but I wanted two,” Harris said. “So I went to the soft-drink vending firm that serves our school and sold the insignia space on our scoreboard for $4,000.”

When the scoreboards arrived on Dec. 9, Harris was still short of the necessary funds. He persuaded the senior class to donate $1,500 as a senior gift, and the Huntington Beach Union High School District agreed to pay the $2,000 installation fee.

“I learned one thing about this whole project,” Harris said. “If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself. We raised $14,000 to go to Hawaii, and now $13,000 for new scoreboards, so it can be done.”

Tribute to O’Hara: Nearly $1,000 in donations has been received by Westminster High School for a scholarship fund in honor of former Lion football Coach Jim O’Hara, who suffered a fatal heart attack last month after jogging on the school’s track.

The Jim O’Hara Memorial Scholar-Athlete Scholarship will be awarded to a senior boy and girl who letter in two sports and accumulate the highest grade-point average, said Robert Boehme, Westminster principal.

“We thought this would be a great way of honoring a great coach who really cared about the students at Westminster High,” Boehme said.

O’Hara, 51, was a guidance counselor at Westminster and was instrumental in forming study halls for student-athletes. Co-coach Jack Bowman said 29 members of Westminster’s football team had grade-point averages of 3.0 or better in the first semester.

Prep Notes

Dave Zirkle, Orange High School athletic director, donated $1,000 to the Providence Speech and Hearing Clinic in Orange as part of the gate receipts from the recent Orange Holiday Basketball Tournament. . . . Recruiting trips: Esperanza offensive lineman James Rae will visit UCLA, Arizona State and Colorado, and probably also USC and Cal. El Toro wide receiver Scott Miller will visit Utah and Utah State and probably Colorado State. El Toro All-American lineman Scott Spalding will visit Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State, Nebraska and USC. High school athletes are allowed five visits under NCAA rules. The first day for signing a national letter of intent is Feb. 11. . . . Pacifica’s 3-0 victory over the Esperanza boys’ soccer team last Friday snapped the Aztecs’ 44-game winning streak in the Empire League.