SGV/Whittier Prep Sports Zone: Escarcega on Preps - A Title Worth the Wait: Simonds, Condors Make History
Cal High Condors make school history with a 63-47 win over Citrus Hill to win a CIFSS Division 4A title.
(Escarcega)
“Even if everyone is telling you that what you do until March doesn’t matter, don’t believe it. Those people, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, aren’t you. We only get to live the 2015-2016 once in our careers, so let’s savor each step along the way.” – Jay Wright, National Championship Basketball Coach, “Attitude.”
HUNTINGTON BEACH—Joel Simonds is a coaching lifer. He lives, eats, and breathes basketball. He’s coached in Orange County and is currently coaching in the Whittier area at California High School. You must love what you are doing if you’ve been coaching for 28 years like Simonds.
There is no such thing as a gray area when you are around Simonds. It doesn’t matter if you are in a gym or walking through campus on your way to a baseball game. He’s going to make you feel a bit uncomfortable.
But behind his demanding demeanor, Simonds has a compassionate side. When he says that he loves his players, he means it. It doesn’t matter how long ago he coached you—once you are in his secular world, you are there for life. Need an example?
“I remember getting a call from one of my former players recently, and he said that he needed to talk,” Simonds said in our podcast we produced earlier this week. “So, I got to the side, and he says his girlfriend was about to have a kid. I was blown away. This kid is not talking to me about playing time and other stuff; he was now going to become a father and wanted someone to talk to. It’s why I’m there for my players all the time.”
It should not be surprising that another of his players needs some “tender loving care” during the season.
That player was Kenny Renfrow.
The star guard for the Condors team suffered a tragedy that only few could comprehend. He recently lost both of his grandmothers in two months. Grandmothers hold a special place in the heart. They spoil the grandkids, telling them family stories from the way back machine. And let's be honest, most of them can cook up a dinner that we can only dream of making and give their grandkids unconditional love.
When someone is lost, a piece of our soul goes with them. When this happens to a player like Renfrow, the need to find someone they can go to for help and compassion is paramount.
Enter Simonds.
“I take the role of being a coach very seriously,” Simonds said. “I’m not here to replace anyone’s father. Kenny’s family is good people. I coached Kenny very hard this year, and sometimes I can get frustrated. I know that Kenny’s gone through a lot the last two months. I‘ve asked a lot of him, but to say father figure, that’s the biggest compliment that a player can give a coach, and I don’t take that lightly. I’m speechless, to be honest. He’s in my class; we get to see each other every day outside of practice. Whenever this ride is over, he’ll still be in my room. We talk about our grandmothers; I know what it feels like what he is feeling. We talked about the relationship he had with his grandmother and about appreciating the memories. His mind is in a lot of different places sometimes at practice, and we talk about letting basketball being a refuge. A place where you can go get rest. Thankfully, he didn’t rest tonight.”
Unfortunately for Citrus Hill, they found out the hard way.
The scene at Edison High School was radically different from the one at the Toyota Center, where many other sectional finals were taking place. The environment can be disastrous—ask the San Dimas boys basketball team, which lost earlier in the day in Ontario. The background is nothing like a high school team seems regularly.
Edison High School is the polar opposite. It’s a regular basketball gym. The surroundings were almost the same for the Condors basketball team as at home. The only difference was the branding blankets that covered the tables along media row. You do not see MaxPreps or Gatorade signage during regular season games in a basketball gym.
Other than that, you can see in pregame warmups that the Condors team felt at home inside a school gymnasium that is a good driver and four iron away from the Pacific Ocean (OK, I’m exaggerating, but you get the point).
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Another great sign that the Condors felt like they were at home was the support from the fans, family, and alums in the stands. Amongst the crowd that came for the 4:00 p.m. tipoff were alums who had not attended a game in decades, students, and family members.
Finding the Navy Blue and Gold sweatshirts and t-shirts in the stands was not hard. It wasn’t the first time the Condor faithful came strong for a CIF Southern Section final. Ten months earlier, many of the same fans came to Deanna Manning Stadium in Irvine for the Division 2 Softball final.
The story of Jason Ramirez’s inspirational attempt to coach a team to a CIFSS title caught the imagination of the high school sporting scene in So Cal. In Hollywood, the usual script calls for the Condors to win and Ramirez to hold the gold championship plaque with tears streaming down the cheeks of his players.
Gahr had different plans and ended up winning dramatically.
Now it was Simonds’ turn, and the best part about it was that he was doing it in Orange County. Simonds calls Huntington Beach home. He had previously coached in Orange County, and many of his old friends were in attendance. Among those included Jim Perry, the athletic director for the Huntington Beach Unified School District and Past President of the CIF Southern Section Council. Simonds calls Perry a dear friend, so you can understand why he wanted to win badly.
But there was another reason why Simonds's playoff run was a bit different this year. His wife, Jennfier, can only attend his games a few times during the year, as they’ve been married 31 years, which is an accomplishment in itself. Geography is not a friend to the Simonds family. Spending quality time is necessary – unless you are a coach like Simonds, who throws everything into his profession.
During this playoff run, she attended each game. Like his players, she found a way to make it happen.
“My wife has allowed me to this,” Simonds said with a tinge of emotion in his throat. “She spends a lot of lonely nights at home. To go from our home (in Huntington Beach) to Whittier is a challenge. She teaches in Capistrano, so for her to come to a game, it’s an hour and a half ride. She has allowed me to do this for 25 years.
“We’ve had talks and times where she, without telling me, 'I don’t want you to do this anymore.’ She has said, ‘I don’t want you to do this anymore,’” Simonds continued. “I don’t know what I would be doing with my afternoons or evenings. The sacrifice that she makes staying at home, waiting for me to get home, I couldn’t be more thankful for that.”
During the season, Simonds has told his team that their journey was like a major motion picture. Each person has a role, and he wants them to excel. For Jennifer, she sees her role in much the same way.
“His dedication is admirable, and so on those days where it's hard, you just remember that this gives him life,” Jennifer said. “It gives him joy. There have been the frustrating days. It brings him purpose, and that’s what I want for him. I want him to feel that sense of purpose and accomplishment, and doing this is what does that for him.”
With all this surrounding this team, it’s no wonder why emotions were running high before tipoff. A coach leading a team to their biggest game of the program’s career, with background stories similar to the one that Renfrow was dealing with.
There is one word to describe what this team felt during this playoff run…
Life.
This was Cal’s first appearance in the finals. They can be forgiven if they made a mistake or two. Before the game started, they prematurely lined up across the free-throw line. They were reminded by a CIFSS official that they had to be at their benches and could come out after their name was announced in pregame ceremonies.
As it turned out, it was the only mistake the Condors would make on this night.
In the coaching profession, the axiom is that you can’t win a game with a fast start, but you can lose one. That’s precisely what happened to Citrus Hill at the beginning of the Division 4A title game.
To say that Cal came out fast was an understatement. They decided to take the fight to the Hawks early—much like a fighter does in a championship bout. Instead of going for the big blow, Cal decided to go for the body blows, which left Citrus Hill in a state of bewilderment.
Uncontested baskets from Darius Cabrera, Edgar Beltran, Renfrow, and Jair Linares gave the Condors a 14-0 lead. This was like a quarter horse outrunning his competition early at nearby Los Alamitos Race Course.
Being the coach that he is, Simonds refused to take the cheese and relax.
“We have a saying that we’ve been saying for the last two years, it’s fools gold,” Simonds said. “We don’t want to get too high, and we don’t want to freak out when it happens to us. In the second round against Laguna Beach, we were down 10-3, and it’s cool – we’ve been there before. It was a great start, but after the second timeout, the message was, ‘Hey, we're only three minutes into this game. Let’s keep going.”
And keep it going, they did. Cal’s relentless court press forced Citrus Hill into making mistakes you only see in freshman basketball games—ten-second backcourt violations and allowing Cal players an open lane to the basket. Cal’s full-court press is akin to Rio Hondo Prep’s vaunted football rushing attack.
“Most teams have no idea how to handle our press,” California assistant coach Brian Dayton said. “The reason why many teams have a tough time is because it’s hard to replicate during practice. Unless you see it every day, it’s tough to handle. We pride ourselves on making you work for every basket.”
Sound familiar, Rio Hondo Prep football fans?
Throw in Linares scoring from the perimeter like the basket was the nearby Pacific Ocean (10 points in the first quarter), and you can quickly understand why the Condors led 23-6 at the end of the first quarter. One stat said it all: Cal had made 9 of 12 field goal attempts for a 75% success rate. Citrus Hill was 2 of 11 for 18%.
You talk about crushing high school basketball version of a semester final?
Ironically, when the rooter bus arrived with the Citrus Hill at the end of the first quarter, their play started to improve… sightly.
They attempted to make a run early in the second quarter, but the mistakes continued. Ill-advised crosscourt passes and players getting frustrated with Cal's physical style of play only added to the growing list of mistakes that the Hawks were committing.
The Hawks showed everyone the blueprint in the “How Not to Win a CIF Southern Section Title Game” manual. Condor forward Andy Rodriguez did a nice job rebounding for Cal, which led to a 36-18 halftime lead.
The Cal cheering section gave their team a standing ovation going into the locker room, but you could understand their anxiety—they had been there before. After all, the softball team had a 3-0 lead against Gahr in that Div. 2 softball final, and we all know how that finished.
The answer was only 16 minutes away.
For many, it felt like 16 hours.
The third quarter started the same way the first quarter did. Aham Nwosu decided to become the presence that Simonds knew he could become (“And he’s only a sophomore,” Simonds said) by scoring the first two baskets of the third quarter. Jeremy Payton added another bucket for a 43-18 lead.
In today’s language, the probability levels for Citrus Hill to come away with the gold plaque were dropping dramatically. Their body language said it all.
They looked defeated. The only thing missing was Roberto Duran's arrival on the scene and throwing in the white towel.
The Hawks did try and make a game of it in the fourth quarter, trimming the lead to 50-39, but Nwosu put the game “In the Refrigerator” (late Chick Hearn line) by hitting two clutch baskets that gave the Condors a 54-39 lead with four minutes to go.
And with that, the party was underway in the Condors' bench and cheering section.
The game clock, which sometimes seemed to be moving in slow motion, was now moving at hyper speed. With 15 seconds left, Simonds started to hug his players and jumped up and down like a kid opening his presents on Christmas day.
And when the buzzer rang, signaling the end of the game, the crowd of about 300 Condor fans, which felt like 30,000, hugged each other in pure joy. The Condors had finally won a CIF Southern Section title with a 63-47 win.
The players hugged each other wildly, almost forming the mosh pit that Simonds would love to see in several weeks in Sacramento at the state final. Historians will note that Nwosu was the leading scorer for the Condors with 17 points.
As for Simonds, after giving people violent high-fives, including one reporter who thought his hand was broken (thankfully, it wasn’t), he immediately went to the stands to find his wife Jennifer.
As you can imagine, 31 years of marriage and countless nights wondering if this was worth it were compressed into one extraordinarily tight hug and a kiss that neither will ever forget.
Joel and Jennifer Simonds (Escarcega)
“For him to find me in that moment, it brings all together,” Jennifer said. “It gives meaning and validates everything we’ve done together.”
“For me, to win it, it justifies the sacrifices she has made and continues to do so,” Joel said. “To have that moment to run up into the stands, it was a good time.”
For Renfrow, who finished the game as the second leading scorer for the Condors with 15 points (3 of 7 from behind the 3-point arc), the normally stoic senior turned his thoughts to his late grandmother and Simonds.
“As a coach, (Simonds) has taught me more about basketball that I ever knew,” Renfrow said. “Besides being a coach, he’s a good dude – a good guy. He helped me through the death of my grandmother.”
It was at this point that his thoughts turned to his grandmother, who made such an impact on his life that he has tattooed the date of her death on his arm. “If she were here, she would tell me that she is proud of me and that I’m her sunshine.”
Moments later, after getting his championship patch and T-shirt, his backcourt partner Edgar Beltran gave him a hug that lasted three seconds, which felt like three days. Beltran wasn’t about to let his brother leave the gym alone in such moments.
“We’ve been battling each other since we’ve been at Cal High,” Beltran said. “Every day at practice, it means a lot to us – hard work pays off.”
Two players pushing each other to their limits were feeling the “Fruits of Victory” that the late Los Angeles Dodgers' manager Tommy Lasorda loved to say after winning a World Series.
“To win this thing, I told these guys, we were here for a lot of people,” Simonds said. “We’re here for those that came to Cal, who played the game and never got to this position. They are playing in honor of them. We played for the people that can’t do it. We had people come to tryouts, and it was obvious that they couldn’t do it. We owe it to them to play the right way. I think we did that for the last four and a half weeks. I’m here honoring all the guys I’ve coached for 28 years. It means everything.”
With that, the post-game presser was over, but the party was only beginning in a town that Simonds calls home.
(Escarcega)
The Condor fans had formed a tunnel from the back of the gym to the locker room, where the Cal players convened. Students chanted, “Simonds, Simonds, Simonds,” and he high-fived everyone along the tunnel.
Simonds would have won in a landslide if he had been running for mayor this night.
Once he got into the locker room, about the size of a standard house kitchen, it was time to impart his words of wisdom to his team. As you can imagine, emotions ran high.
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“It’s been a long road, and we’ve spent a lot of time together,” Simonds said with a tingle of emotion. “For now, just enjoy it. There are people here at the game who haven’t been to a Cal game in decades. You made them proud.”
At this point, Simonds shared his conversation with Perry, which made him proud.
“He told me that he couldn’t be more proud of watching old-school, hard-nosed basketball. Guys playing the game the way it should be played, and he’s sitting there watching it with another old-school coach saying, ‘Why don’t more people play this way?’ It’s hard to do because it involves so much effort. You guys bought in and shown that it can be successful. You guys made me look good.”
California HS boys basketball coaching staff. (Escarcega)
At this moment, Simonds allowed his assistant coaches to say a few words to the players. For Chuck Robles, who played for Cal in the 1980s, the words were hard to come by. All he could say was, “I’m so proud.”
That’s what happens when you get the top of high school basketball version of Mt. Everett. The view leaves you speechless.
“I played here in 1984, and this is a long time coming,” Robles said. “They put so much work in and bought into the system. Our first goal is to win to win league, but this is better than winning league. You never prepare for this. It’s a great feeling. To put a banner up and have them see it when they come back in five or ten years, and for me to be part of this team is special.”
Moments later, the players and coaches departed the locker room, and the tunnel of Cal fans got longer and louder. This win not only represented everyone from the high school but was also a win for the Del Rio League—in much the same way La Serna High School’s football team won a state title. It represented the city of Whittier, which is quickly becoming the high school’s version of “Titletown.”
After their semifinal win last week against Alhambra, when the gym was quiet, Simonds got his team together and looked at the wall where the league and CIFSS champion banners were hanging. One sport was missing: boys' basketball.
At 5:20 p.m. on Saturday, the Condors earned the right to hang a banner in their gym. They could rightfully be called “CIF Southern Section Champions.”
Even if it had a bit of an “old-school” feel to it.
However, as assistant coach Brian Dayton said, leaving Edison HS, “I haven’t gotten past the first round in state.”
The journey continues.
