Nado Natterings
A weekly column by David Axelson

12 August 2009 Issue #30

Last week we discussed the fast-approaching beginning of the Coronado High School fall sports season. Well this week, it all begins. Once again for your reference, here are the tryout dates, times and points of contact for each CHS fall sport:
Boys and Girls Cross Country – Practice officially starts Tuesday, August 25th at the CHS track at 3 pm. Workouts have already begun for most of the returning runners. Go to www.islandertrack.com for additional details or contact Head Coach George Green at 619-435-3633.
Football –The first official day of practice is August 12 at 8 am, at the football field. For more information, contact Head Coach Bud Mayfield at 522-8907 Ext. 2807.
Girls Golf – According to Head Coach Hanna Cohan, tryouts will be held August 17 and 18 from 3-5 pm at the Coronado Municipal Golf Course. Coach Cohan can be reached at 619-990-8755 for questions.
Girls Tennis – Head Coach Rob LeBuhn will hold tryouts starting Wednesday, August 12 from 7-9 am at the CHS Tennis Courts. A second practice that day will be held from 4:30-6:30 pm. Contact Coach LeBuhn at 619-546-6467.
Girls Volleyball – New varsity Head Coach Leilani Au Hoon will hold tryouts for all teams Thursday, August 13 from 7-8:30 am. That afternoon from 4:30-6:30 pm, varsity candidates will return for another practice, with junior varsity and freshman players holding their second tryout session from 6:30-8:30 pm. Coach Au Hoon can be reached at 858-717-9757.
Boys Water Polo – Tryouts will be held at 8 am on Tuesday, August 18 at the Brian Bent Memorial Aquatics Complex. Please contact Head Coach Randy Burgess at 619-851-9733 for additional information.
Athletic Physicals Part II
Last week the Islander Sports Foundation, aided considerably by a small army (OK Navy, I know we’re in Coronado) of volunteers, helped supply athletic physical examinations to almost 250 CHS and CMS students. In the process, $3,370 was raised for supplies to equip the CHS athletic training room. Thanks to all the folks who helped make the evening a success.
For those of you who missed Part I last Wednesday, Dr. Patrick Yassini has agreed to supply make-up physicals Thursday, August 13 from 2-5 pm. Drs. Yassini’s office is located at 230 Prospect Place, on the third floor of the Sharp Coronado Hospital Campus. Only a limited number of physicals can be provided.
To reserve your time, please send an E-mail to Denise in Dr. Yassini’s office. Her E-mail address is dlloyd@coronadomd.com. Physicals are $15 each, with payment in the form of a check made payable to the Islander Sports Foundation. As before, 100 per cent of the collected fees will directed toward the purchase of supplies for the athletic training room.
The Quintessential Coronado Gathering
Sunday the Natter Wife and yours truly were a small part of a really unusual, but fun gathering at the Coronado Tennis Center. The center’s staff under Head Tennis Pro Phil Hopkins and including Mike Axelson (Natter Son), John Caswall, Rodney Nakamoto and Nick Shultz, held an end of season event which combined the elements of jazz and tennis.
A rare opening in the Sunday summer calendar was identified earlier in the week and jazz guitarist Jose Molina, who is also a former teaching tennis pro and frequent Coronado Tennis Center player, provided the music.
Many Tennis Center regulars were in attendance and the afternoon started off with doubles matches played on several courts. One of the more interesting pairings featured wooden rackets in the hands of all four players, which was a throwback to a simpler time. Mixed doubles games broke out, food soon arrived, and all of that was followed later by guacamole, chips and other condiments.
One of the more interesting elements was provided by Molina, who it turns out, has known native San Diegan, former UCLA and NBA great Bill Walton for a number of years. Walton arrived after a lengthy and circuitous bike ride from his home in Hillcrest.
This was a bit of a full-circle moment for Your Natterer, who 34 years before while doing the color on the Kansas City-Omaha Kings radio and television broadcasts, had interviewed Walton during his rookie season in the NBA. At the time, Walton was in full counter-culture mode, complete with long red hair and matching beard, head band, and what could be charitably described as a lumberjack-style shirt.
Fast forward to this past weekend and the 6-11 Walton is six months into his recovery period after undergoing spinal fusion surgery. Six months prior to the operation, Walton said he was in excruciating pain, unable to either stand or sit without his nerves seemingly being on fire. The pain reached and exceeded the point where Walton had to temporarily abandon his on-air work with the NBA and ESPN Television, as he was unable to travel. Walton played during the time that my late father Joe Axelson was the VP of Basketball Operations of the NBA and we traded notes about our respective families.
The conversation inevitably turned to the NBA past and present and I mentioned having seen Walton’s Portland Trailblazers dismantle the Kings in Kansas City during the 1977-78 season, the year following Portland’s NBA championship. The Blazers amassed a 50-10 record before Walton went down the first of a series of foot and ankle injuries that would severely curtail his professional career.
Walton literally made the 1977-78 Portland starting five of Maurice Lucas, Lionel Hollins, Dave Twardzik and Larry Steele better than the sum of their parts, as I was lucky (or unlucky as I was the public address announcer for the loyal opposition) enough to witness  one evening. The Kings, playing at home, were down at halftime to the Blazers by 25 points, and the Kings were actually playing well.  The Portland club was competing at a championship level.
Walton is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and was voted one of the 50 Best NBA players of the first 50 years of the league. Had he been able to remain healthy, he could well have exceeded his two NBA titles (Boston in 1986 was the other) and one NBA MVP award (1978). When he was healthy, blocking shots, rebounding, distributing his long and accurate outlet passes, while hitting the 10-12 foot jump shot off the backboard that he made famous, few in the history of the game were better than William Theodore Walton III.
So the mixture, of tennis stories, basketball stories, jazz, lighthearted doubles matches played with wooden rackets and getting reacquainted with Coronado residents we hadn’t seen in a while, continued on into the late afternoon. A good time was had by all.
NFL Throwbacks
So at this point Sunday had pretty well blown by, so the obvious antidote was to waste more time and watch the annual Hall of Fame Football game from Canton, Ohio. As the game is played near the ancestral home of the Natter Wife (Akron) and it is the opening of the NFL season, the game held a little more allure than most exhibition football games.
Lo and behold the participants in this year’s tilt were the Tennessee Titans in their throwback Houston Oilers uniforms and the Buffalo Bills, resplendent in their old togs, which don’t seem that much different than their modern ones. There was also the funny juxtaposition of old uniforms, that are really new, and modern fashion-forward football shoes that somehow didn’t jive with the throwback look.
The Houston Oiler uniforms always remind me of one of my best friends from high school, a transplanted Texan, who for reasons never fully revealed, was a huge fan of the Oilers running back Hoyle Granger. The latter was a graduate of Mississippi State, who lasted seven seasons in the NFL, including six with the Oilers. What made my friend’s idol worship unusual was that even when we played pickup basketball games, he was always Hoyle Granger.
Loved the Oiler throwbacks, liked the similar effort from the Bills, but the real eye catchers were the retro AFL referee uniforms sported by the zebras Sunday night. They featured orange and white alternating vertical stripes, topped off with a dark orange hat and huge, solid orange numbers. That portion of the evening was an orange-themed nightmare.
During the game, well after the third squad from each team had hit the field, my latest sports-related pledge took shape. Buffalo Bills wide receiver Terrell Owens will be a non-person for 2009-10. As his me-centric approach to the world represents most of what is bad in sports, his highlights, columns related to Owens, and any game involving the Buffalo Bills therefore also don’t exist. That’s just me, making my silent stand against fawning and preening in the media.
In my heart of hearts, it was my hope that with Buffalo, New York as his base of operations, the matter of snowy, cold and unpleasant geography would stifle the media interest in T.O. I had hoped to not have to take this step, but there it is.
Wonders of the Modern Age
Monday began with my usual routine of checking and answering the E-mails piled up from the weekend and my technological world was humming along. Two hours later, the magical yet maniacal fifth button on my modem was no longer lit and trouble ensued. The world-wide web had become just ‘the web.’
No physical movement of the computer, no swearing at the television or the phone and yet my techno world was torn asunder, for just a few hours as it turned out. Four phone calls, four trips through endless recorded and not helpful menu options, four different techies located in at least three different states who tried to help and finally I was reconnected.
Murphy must have written a Law to cover this eventuality. But maybe he didn’t understand the concept either. But in the mean time, this column better hit the E-mail just in case we have a relapse.