Weeks seeks another CIF ring

Deep down, Costa Mesa High girls’ basketball coach Jim Weeks always believes in his team.

There were times this year when few other people did, like when Costa Mesa got off to a 4-8 start. But Weeks, in his 15th year with the Mustangs, never lost faith.

The longtime math teacher also believes in geometry, so maybe he knew his team could perform a 180.

“I tell my girls, ‘I’ll either explain [plays] to you geometry-wise or you just trust me,’” Weeks said. “And they say, ‘We’ll trust you.’”

That trust has been returned all season long. Other people hoped the Mustangs would get far, but Weeks kept on believing they would.

“We knew we were good, but we never thought we’d be here,” senior center Jennifer Courtney said. “I still can’t believe it. He’s a big part of that. He’s the only one who believed.”

So it’s a sweet moment for Weeks today, when third-seeded Costa Mesa plays No. 1 St. Mary’s Academy of Inglewood at 4:45 p.m. in the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA championship game at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach.

Weeks is no stranger to section championship games. He was the Mustangs’ coach in 1989-90, when the Mustangs won the Division III-A crown. A year later, he again led Costa Mesa to the title game.

“When I did it before, it was so fast and there was so much going on,” said Weeks, 58, an Irvine resident. “And, the team wasn’t the same kind of team. These girls are just fun to be around.”

The Mustangs did enjoy a late-night trip to IHOP after their semifinal win over Arrowhead Christian on Saturday. But one thing Costa Mesa hasn’t enjoyed the privilege of having is a high scorer.

Point guard Michelle Figueroa leads the team with 10 points per game. Quite different from the Olivia DiCamilli-led teams of the early ‘90s, when the Mustangs guard was an All-CIF performer all four years and scored 2,220 career points.

Then, in 1992, Weeks stepped away from coaching Mesa to pursue his master’s degree in math at Cal State Fullerton. He watched Costa Mesa, in DiCamilli’s senior year, win the ’93 Division III-A title and advance all the way to the state championships.

In the meantime, Weeks served as an assistant at Tustin High for three years. But, still on campus at Mesa as a math teacher, he said he knew he would come back to coach the Mustangs.

He did just that in 1997, and hasn’t looked back. Costa Mesa girls’ basketball has now made the playoffs 17 of the last 18 seasons.

It’s a pride thing. Weeks has it in his school, and he demands the same of his players. Many girls’ basketball coaches are calm during the game, but Weeks will openly yell at his players if they make a mistake. His voice is loud not out of meanness, but out of necessity, he said.

“I don’t have a lot of time to explain things during the game,” Weeks said. “The game goes fast. When they’re on the court, I need to yell at them to correct something. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I think all of my players know that I care deeply about the team and about the school.”

As point guard, Figueroa has grown accustomed to the in-game coaching.

“When he does it, he says it’s to make us play harder,” Figueroa said. “When we’re not playing good, he tells us that we’re scared, and that pumps me up sometimes. People criticize him a lot because he yells at us and they think he’s mean. But he’s a great guy.”

A great guy who remarried in 2003, and now enjoys playing golf and tennis with his wife, Lorraine. Which isn’t surprising, considering Weeks has coached both sports while with the Mustangs.

“I spend a lot more time with my wife now, so that’s kind of neat,” he said. “When I was single and I came back, it was basketball, math and that was about it.”

There may be more time for golf in the near future. There have been talks that this would be Weeks’ last year at the helm, but he said Wednesday that he plans to stay for one more year.

When he’s done, he said he plans to hand the reins to current assistant coach and Mesa basketball alumna Evelyn Johnson (formerly Powers). Then there is Nancy Hatsushi, a standout guard for the Mustangs in the late ‘90s who went on to be team MVP on OCC’s state-championship team of 2003 and also played at Vanguard.

Weeks said Hatsushi is also planning to come back and work with the team this summer, and could stay on next season.

“If everything works out right, I’ll do one more and Evelyn and Nancy will take over,” he said. “They grew up in this program, so they understand the sense of pride and what it takes to get there.”

Then, things will have come full circle, and the geometry teacher wouldn’t want it any other way.