Our community lost one of its greatest athletes of all-time a couple of weeks ago with the passing of Henry Bergman.
Before Karch Kiraly’s domination of beach volleyball, Bergman was the king of East Beach. His ball control and defensive skills were impeccable, but it was his crushing spikes that drew most of the attention. At Open tournaments up and down the coast, fans would rush to the court where he was playing just to watch him warm-up.
Bergman possessed an incredible arm swing — some people described it like a whip. His spikes would just explode on the sand.
Although his career was relatively short — eight years — he won 15 tournament titles, including the Santa Barbara Open four times. He was most successful with Larry Rundle and Ron Von Hagen, earning seven tournament titles with each player. He also won an event with Ron Lang.
Bergman was a participant in what many longtime beach volleyball followers call the greatest match every played.
He and Rundle beat Von Hagen and Lang in a marathon Manhattan Beach Open final in 1968 that finished in the dark. Car headlights were used to keep the match going after the sun went down.
Playing in the old side-out scoring format, Von Hagen-Lang beat Bergman-Rundle in a three-hour winner’s bracket final. Playing best-of-three games to 11 points, the scores were 19-17, 19-21, 20-18.
They would meet in the final, with Bergman-Rundle prevailing 19-21, 11-9, 11-7 in another exhausting three-hour slugfest. Since it was the first loss by Von Hagen-Lang in the double-elimination tournament, a deciding game to 15 points was needed to determine a champion.
The sun had set and tournament director Charlie Saikley was ready to call the final a draw. But the players said no. They played on but struggled to see the ball. It was after 8 p.m.
Rundle pulled out the skyball serve and that proved to be a difference-maker.
Bergman and Rundle prevailed 15-13, cementing a spot in the walk-of-fame on the Manhattan Beach Pier.
Bergmann, who was 65, was one of those gifted athletes that could have played in any era…
— Bishop Diego and Carpinteria may never have to play Oaks Christian in football again if a vote is passed Thursday at releaguing meeting at the CIF office in Long Beach.
Nine Northern Area league representatives will decide the makeup of leagues for 2010-14. One of four proposals to be voted on is Oaks Christian trading places with Calabasas in the Marmonte League for all sports. Calabasas would go into the Tri-Valley League.
Five votes are needed to pass a proposal.
Two other proposals on the table involve St. Bonaventure and Oaks Christian. In one, St. Bonaventure would have all its sports teams play in the Channel League. Right now, the school plays only football in the league, while its other teams play in the Tri-Valley League. The Channel League schools have been lobbying to get rid of St. Bonaventure, which has never lost a league game.
The other proposal is forming a football-only league with St. Bonaventure, Oaks Christian, Santa Clara and Grace Brethren. The Marmonte League, however, has made it known that it will vote no on that proposal. A majority of no votes on that idea would leave things wide open.
Stay tuned …
— Carpinteria plays host to Oaks Christian on Friday. Coach Ben Hallock said that while it’s great to play against guys that will be playing at Division I schools like Notre Dame, Arizona, UCLA and USC, “it’s absurd to play the game.”
You can be sure the Warriors will show up and play their tails off.
— Can you believe college basketball season is less than two weeks away?
UCSB women’s coach Lindsay Gottlieb said that last Friday was a holiday for her because it was the first day of basketball practice.
“It’s such a neat time of year because we’re all turning the page of a story that hasn’t been written yet,” Gottlieb said during a joint tip-off media event with Gaucho men’s coach Bob Williams and Cal Poly’s coaches Faith Mimnaugh and Joe Callero at the Thunderdome.
The event was organized to promote the Blue-Green Rivalry between the Central Coast schools.
When UCSB and Cal Poly teams face each other in any sport, recycling and sustainability efforts will be encouraged by the schools.
Gottlieb will have a lot of new faces in her second year at the helm, but she is excited about the challenge of guiding this group to great heights.
“I’m particularly excited to be able to go through the journey with the group I get to do it with this year,” she said. “We lost a lot of experience and lots of points… It’s a chance for us to reinvent ourselves a little bit.”
For Williams, he’s got one of his most versatile teams in his 12 years at UCSB, and he welcomes all the high expectations from other coaches and the media.
“When we look at this group, there are expectations, no doubt, and we aren’t dodging expectations. We’re embracing them,” he said. “We’ve been in position where we’ve been picked to win this league, but it doesn’t mean anything. You have to go out and produce. What I like is we have a nice balance of players.”
The Gaucho men return 10 players, including three starters, from the team that rebounded from a 2-7 conference start to finish 8-8 in the Big West and 16-15 overall.
“I was never prouder of a team that went 8-8. Our group did a nice job of fighting their way out of it,” Williams said. “Were we satisfied at being 16-15. No, we hated it.”
Williams is really excited about his sophomore class of James Nunnally, Will Brew, Jaime Serna, Greg Smogyi and LMU transfer Orlando Johnson.
“It has a player in every position and that’s a nice thing as you look down the road, to have a class that’s deep in talent and provide something that’s key in this league, big wings. When we’ve had our most success here, we’ve had big wings,” said Williams
He calls the group his most talented class in his 12 years at UCSB.
Gottlieb is looking forward to adding Wake Forest transfer Mekia Valentine to the mix of her talented players.
“I don’t know who’s more excited, she or I, that she actually gets to be in a uniform,” Gottlieb said. “I think she’s going to be a Gaucho that our fans are going to have a lot of fun watching play.”
The women open Wednesday, Nov. 4 against Westmont at the Thunderdome. The men tip off against Sonoma State in their home and season opener on Saturday, Nov. 7.
— Laguna Blanca senior Bryson Alef was named to the 2008-09 Scholastic All-American team by USA Swimming.
A high school swimmer had to carry a grade-point average of 3.50 or higher to be eligible for the team. Alef will received a special commendation for having a GPA of 4.0 or above.
In the pool, he met the time standard in the 100-meter breaststroke with a mark of 1:09.78. He set the time at the CC LC Senior Championships in Clovis.
