September 25, 2007

Coaches' actions critical in saving Burke's life

Frank Burlison

Jane Burke is almost matter-of-fact about it.

"My husband wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for those four coaches," she said Monday afternoon.

Burke's husband is 61-year-old Bob Burke, an advance scout (keeping tabs on other NBA teams) for the Portland Trail Blazers.

He was roughly 15-minutes into a presentation on offense during a coaching clinic at Palm Springs High on Sept. 15 when he dropped his microphone and collapsed, landing on his back on the school's gymnasium floor in front of approximately 75 coaches in the bleachers listening to Burke and watching a presentation he was doing with members of the high school team.

Burke had suffered a heart attack and it didn't take four members of the audience long to react.

Bob Becker (the boys' coach at Gahr), Dennis Zink (the boys' coach at Palm Springs High), Don Brady (the boys' coach at Palm Desert High) and Andrea Picchi (a women's assistant coach at Fullerton College) immediately began administering CPR until paramedics arrived approximately five to eight minutes later.

Paramedics used a defibrillator to get his heart beating and then transported him to Desert Regional Medical Center's intensive care unit.

Burke, who was Portland Head Coach Nate McMillan's coach at Chowan Community College, and lives in Wilson, N.C., about 45 minutes from Raleigh, underwent quadruple bypass surgery Wednesday.

According to his wife, Burke was scheduled to be moved from the ICU Monday evening, but would remain in Southern California for a month or so while recovering.

Jane Burke had called all four coaches by Friday and has talked to each of them several times apiece, to give updates on her husband's condition - and, of course, to express her gratitude.

"I told them `you have new friends for life now,"' she said.

Becker renewed his CPR certification last year.

"I just did what anyone else in the gym would have done," Becker said this past weekend.

"I remember taking that class last year, thinking `am I ever really going to need to remember this stuff?' Now, I'm really looking forward to that next class."

Big football game

The first of the really big Pacific-10 Conference football contests is on tap Saturday afternoon when the Cal plays at Oregon.

I'm not sure that either club has anything even approaching a mediocre defense but each has an offense that can be safely filed in the explosive category.

Truth be told and assuming UCLA's borderline-inept offense doesn't improve (considerably), Oregon, Cal and Arizona State are now shaping up as the only teams seemingly capable of making things interesting for USC.

And none of those three appears to have a defense capable of making scoring difficult for the Trojans.

How bad is the Big Ten Conference?

Wisconsin struggled to win at UNLV, just a week before Hawaii rolled past the Rebels.

And Penn State couldn't do a thing against the same Michigan defense that Oregon rang up 39 points in one half against.

Ohio State pulled away in the second half in Seattle to beat Washington a couple of weeks ago.

But the jury is still out on the Buckeyes, who could be facing a 5-0 Purdue team in Columbus on Oct. 6 if the Boilermakers, as expected, knock off visiting Notre Dame (0-4, in case you hadn't heard) Saturday.

Prep gridders

Moore League action gets underway Friday night and, the most competitive of the three openers will be played at Wilson High.

There you go, Cabrillo (1-3, playing at a 4-0 Compton squad that is averaging 59.5 points per game) and Lakewood (2-2, playing the 3-1 Poly Jackrabbits, who take a 67-game league winning streak with them into Veterans Stadium) - bulletin board motivation!

But no one, with the possible exception of Poly on Nov. 2, within the league is going to bottle up the Tarbabes' running attack.

The Jackrabbits' passing attack has been, surprisingly, next to non-existent during Poly's first four games. But Coach Raul Lara's team will generate enough offense on the ground to push that streak to 68, even against a Lakewood squad that has some skilled players on the offensive side of the line of scrimmage.

If the Lancers can block Jurrell Casey, Vaughn Telemaque, Darryl Johnson & Co., they've got a "reasonable" opportunity to stop the streak.

That, of course, is one of those "easier theorized than accomplished" forecasts.

Anyway, back to the best Moore opener - Millikan (3-0) at Wilson (1-3).

Both have quality offenses but I'm not sure how solid either squad is, defensively.

Yeah, this could be the Moore League version of "Cal at Oregon".

The most multi-dimensional quarterback in Southern California, Clark Evans, will lead Los Alamitos into one of the two best Pac-5 Division matchups this week Friday night at Cal State Fullerton.

Evans, who accounted for 386 yards and six touchdowns in the Griffins' 42-20 win over Wilson at Veterans Stadium Thursday night, and his buddies will take on defending champion (and currently No. 2-ranked behind another Trinity League team, Mater Dei) Orange Lutheran.

The game will be broadcast live (and I'm old enough to remember when "and in color!" was also one of the things hyped about a telecast) by Fox Sports Prime Ticket.

The other groovy Pac-5 matchup pits Mater Dei (my, oh, my . . . that's quite the Matt Barkley-led passing attack you have, Monarchs) against Edison at the Santa Ana Bowl.

The Pac-5 ratings (which will heavily influence the way the 16-team divisional field is seeded and bracketed) got a brisk shakeup after losses by Notre Dame (to the Birmingham team that gave Poly its only loss), Edison (6-zilch to another formidable Pac-5 program, Servite) and Mission Viejo (a 26-14 stunner at Vista).

I'm not necessarily trying to insinuate that folks are skeptical about just how good the Gahr High team is.

But the Gladiators, 3-0 and scoring at a 54-point-per game clip, didn't receive a single vote for inclusion into the Southern Section's Western Division Top 10 ratings.

And fellow San Gabriel Valley members Warren and Downey, even at 2-2 and 1-2, respectively, did. Dominguez, another SGVL member and the division's defending champion, fell to fourth in the ratings after getting bopped around at Redlands West Valley Friday night, 44-14.

OK, I can't fib: That is exactly what I'm insinuating.

Leaving Mission Viejo late Friday night with a win over a pretty good Trabuco Hills team (2-1) should be enough to get the Gladiators into next week's Top 10, though.