Basketball Life After Aaron Gordon

Aaron Gordon’s extensive reign over the WCAL is over. So what happens next?

  By DAVID KIEFER | Contributor

Opponents wavered between awe and determined intensity when facing now-graduated Archbishop Mitty High basketball superstar Aaron Gordon last season.

Serra guard Sean Watkins, like many others, had watched Gordon YouTube highlight videos before ever playing against him. And, finally on the court together, Watkins caught himself marveling at a pair of Gordon slams.

“Playing against Gordon was a humbling experience,” Watkins said.

However, awe has its limits in the West Catholic Athletic League.

For all of Gordon’s achievements — three-time WCAL Player of the Year, two-time state champion, McDonald’s All-America Game MVP, Under-19 World Championship MVP, and unofficial title of greatest player in Central Coast Section history — WCAL opponents gave no quarter.

In the same game in which Watkins caught himself watching, he also helped the Padres beat Gordon and the Monarchs, 65-59.

The Serra gym was packed that night, in every conceivable inch of space, in front of doorways, in the corners, and along the baselines. The game ended not with courtstorming — that was not allowed at Serra — but rather with the Padre players leaping into the stands.

The 6-foot-9 Gordon is now a freshman at University of Arizona and Mitty’s run of three consecutive league titles is in jeopardy. What’s left is chaos, in the best possible sense.

Despite Mitty’s dominance during a 13-1 league season, six WCAL teams reached the Northern California playoffs, five reached the NorCal semifinals, four reached the CCS Open semifinals, three won CCS titles, and three played for state championships.

Can any other league in California claim that five of its schools have won state championships? Or that seven have played in state championship games?

Given the floor to tout the strength of the league, Sacred Heart Cathedral coach Darrell Barbour declined.

“I don’t think we have to say anything,” he said. “It stands on its own merits.”

The WCAL was created in 1967 out of circumstance.

St. Ignatius was bullied out of the San Francisco’s Academic Athletic Association because the league made a stand against S.I.’s non-San Francisco residents taking part in league competition.

Sacred Heart left soon after for the same reasons. Meanwhile, the East Bay-centered Catholic Athletic League was growing too large and the WCAL splintered as a subset of the now-defunct league.

S.I. and Sacred Heart combined for seven AAA titles in the 1960s and arrived as the infant league’s hoops powers.

However, for the first few years, there was little that truly distinguished it from other leagues, when future NBA players such as Kurt Rambis and Mark McNamara starred for area public schools.

In 1978, California voters passed Proposition 13, which resulted in reduced funding for public schools, which accelerated the growth and popularity of private schools, especially in affluent areas such as the Peninsula and South Bay, which enjoyed the fruits of the Silicon Valley high-tech boom. Each WCAL school also began to cast a wider geographical net.

The organization and competitiveness of Catholic grammar school basketball gave the WCAL a ready-made farm system. And as public schools were dropping ‘C’ and ‘D’ basketball and laying off on-campus coaches, WCAL schools were building full-scale programs with varsity, junior varsity, and two freshman teams — all matched to each school’s style and playing philosophy.

The growing private-public differences came to a head in 1979 when a committee selected the at-large teams to the 16-team single-division CCS tournament. St. Francis and Riordan were clearly the best teams in the section. Their only losses were to each other, with St. Francis earning the WCAL’s automatic playoff bid by beating the Crusaders to win the league tournament.

However, Riordan was shockingly passed over for the Peninsula region’s only at-large berth, by Aragon, the Mid-Peninsula League runner-up that would lose in the first round of the section tournament.

Politics clearly were at play, but simmering resentfulness could not stop the WCAL’s momentum. St. Francis won the CCS title that season and beat Los Angeles champion Crenshaw on the way to the title game of the Tournament of Champions (the precursor to the state championships) before losing to Castlemont of Oakland at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

“The establishment of the WCAL mystique compounds itself year after year,” said CCS assistant commissioner Steve Filios, a Serra graduate who coached St. Francis to the 1995 state Division II title. “The value is that the players know they are competing at the highest level. There are no “off” nights against a poor team. Nor did we want “off” nights.”

The league’s postseason success has a direct correlation. In 2004, WCAL schools won the CCS’s top four divisions. Nine times since 1998 has the WCAL won at least three.

“The league does that for us,” St. Francis coach Mike Motil said. “When we get to a CCS final or play at a NorCal No. 2 seed in front of a full house, I don’t think our kids are really bothered by that.”

Heading into the new season, there is no Gordon, but there remain no “off” nights. Almost every team has a strong backcourt and a core of 2-3 veteran starters — with S.I.’s Trevor Dunbar, SHC’s DeOndre Otis, Mitty’s Connor Peterson, and Riordan cousins Chiefy and Jiday Ugbaja the biggest names.

“Everyone’s going to be good,” Bellarmine coach Patrick Schneider said. “The question is: Who’s going to be special?”

“It’s going to be like the wild wild west,” St. Ignatius coach Tim Reardon said. “Everybody has a shot.”

Gordon-era single-team dominance seems to be over, but the Gordon legacy promises to live on.

When recalling his memories of playing against Gordon and Mitty, Serra’s Watkins flashed back to the Open Division final at Santa Clara University’s Leavey Center.

“I took a charge against Gordon in the CCS championship game,” Watkins said. “I got up and he patted me on the back and said, ‘Nice charge.’ That’s the one thing I’ll take out of playing against him.”

Yes, the WCAL’s post-Gordon landscape looks different, but the big crowds and high stakes undoubtedly will remain the same. And, as Watkins learned, respect will be earned and given. That will not change.