Denny Crum and Joe Kapp were local standouts before extraordinary athletic careers. (Associated Press photos)
Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday, May 10, 2023, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning. News of the deaths of basketball’s Denny Crum and football’s Joe Kapp is a reminder that Southern California has been a hotbed for young athletes and coaches since long before it was the nation’s hottest market for pro and college sports.
In other headlines:
Kapp, who died Monday in San Jose at age 85 after struggling with dementia, is best known as the 1959 Rose Bowl and 1970 Super Bowl quarterback for Cal and the Minnesota Vikings and coach at Cal.
Crum, who died Tuesday in Louisville at 86, will be remembered mostly as a John Wooden protege who coached the University of Louisville to the 1980 and 1986 NCAA championships.
They’re so identified with other parts of the country that it’s easy for many fans to lose sight of the fact both are L.A.-area products, Crum a star player at San Fernando High and Pierce College (Woodland Hills) before playing and coaching at UCLA under Wooden, Kapp a multi-sport star at Hart High (Santa Clarita) before going to Cal.
But their local roots won’t have escaped the attention of longtime readers of the Los Angeles Daily News, which has told Kapp’s and Crum’s stories over the years.
In 2010, before Crum was made one of 12 inaugural inductees into the Pierce College Athletic Hall of Fame, he spoke with the Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth about the role that the community college played in his career. His success was hardly pre-ordained.
Crum’s two seasons playing at Pierce, including a 27.1-point average as a freshman in 1954-55, earned him a scholarship to UCLA. He returned to Pierce after graduation to coach for five years before going back to UCLA as Wooden’s assistant on three national-title teams.
“I really wanted to go to UCLA (straight from San Fernando High), but they didn’t think I was good enough, and they didn’t recruit me. But I didn’t want to give up on my dream. I knew I had to go to a junior college to prove something to them,” Crum told Hoffarth.
At the urging of a Pierce school president who went to the same church as Wooden, the coach, came to see Crum play. Pierce didn’t have its own gym yet. The game was at Canoga Park High
“I guess (Wooden) liked me, because he invited me to their practice and training table, and called to set me up with some tickets to watch the Bruins play over at the Pan Pacific Auditorium,” Crum said.
“I had offers from Washington and Arizona State, but I still wanted to go to UCLA. And it was funny, we were at training table – I was there with Coach Wooden and (trainer) Ducky Drake and after the meal, Coach Wooden just says, ‘Well, are you coming or not?’ He didn’t say anything about a scholarship covering this or that or anything else. And I just said, ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’ “
Later, as Pierce basketball coach, Crum had to teach health education in the summer and run the gymnasium too, but the job allowed him to combine Wooden’s teachings with his own ideas into the coaching philosophy that would win at Louisville.
“I really grew up there (at Pierce),” Crum said. “It was a stepping stone for me, the real jumping off point in my coaching career. I didn’t know I’d end up at Louisville for 30 years. … But I have no regrets about staying (in Louisville). Just as I have no regrets about Pierce. I loved it there.”
Kapp talked with the Daily News’ Vincent Bonsignore in 1999 about his humble beginnings at Hart High, which he attended after his family moved from Salinas to the San Fernando Valley and then to Santa Clarita in the early 1950s.
“We went from sleepy San Fernando to sleepy Newhall,” Kapp said.
Like Crum, he had to prove himself. Kapp loved football but was a better basketball player. Cal recruited him first for basketball.
“He’d throw that darn (foot)ball end over end and every which way,” George Harris, a former Hart principal and coach, told Bonsignore. “But darned if the ball didn’t get there. It didn’t always look good, but Joe got the job done.”
Quiet and reserved in high school, Kapp was only starting to develop his personality and famously physical style of quarterback play
He told Bonsignore that his fondest memory at Hart was leading the Indians to a 47-46 upset victory over powerful Ventura High in 1955.
“That was my greatest claim to fame at the time,” Kapp said. “It was at their field, and they had a tremendous team and, as I recall, we ended up tying them for the championship. It wasn’t too bad for a school with about 300 kids.”
Kapp and Crum always honored their beginnings in L.A.-area youth sports.
Fans here should too.
TODAY
- Lakers are 2-3 on the road in the playoffs, Warriors 3-2 at home going into Game 5 (7 p.m., TNT).
- Dodgers finish their trip with a good matchup, Clayton Kershaw vs. Wade Miley in Milwaukee (10:40 a.m., SNLA).
- Angels go for two out of three against Houston and try to avoid their first losing homestand (1:07 p.m., BSW).
- Galaxy hosts Seattle in the U.S. Open Cup round of 32 (7:30 p.m., CBS Sports Golazo Network). Galaxy update.
BETWEEN THE LINES
Clayton Kershaw’s record as a betting proposition is much like Shohei Ohtani’s, discussed yesterday. The Dodgers have been profitable bets in Kershaw’s starts in six of the past eight seasons, according to StatFox.com numbers. Kershaw is a -164 favorite vs. the Brewers today.
280 CHARACTERS
“Another black eye for a sport so many of us love. Transparency, folks. It’s the only way to go.” — Horse racing writer Art Wilson (@Sham73) after a New York Times report that Forte, the Kentucky Derby favorite before he was scratched, failed a drug test in September, a case that still hasn’t been adjudicated.
1,000 WORDS
All out: Matt Moreno of South Hills HIgh (West Covina) is tagged by third baseman Josiah Martinez of Charter Oak (Covina) in the third inning of South Hills’ 8-2 victory in a CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoff game yesterday in Covina. Photo is by Keith Birmingham of the Pasadena Star-News and SCNG.
YOUR TURN
Thanks for reading. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at kmodesti@scng.com and via Twitter @KevinModesti.
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