On-Court Joy Eases Rancho Santiago’s Pain Off the Court

In the end, the easiest thing Rancho Santiago College did all basketball season was win the state championship.

To clinch was a cinch. That was accomplished in 40 minutes, by way of Saturday night’s 72-65 victory over Chabot College. And all that was required were jump shots and free throws and rebounds and picks and rolls.

Basketball stuff.

Life, however, isn’t mastered with a double-stack offense. It can’t be pressed or zoned. It never fouls out and it never tires and throughout the Dons’ 32-3 run in 1989-90, it proved to be the toughest opponent Rancho Santiago faced.

In November, after the Dons’ first game of the season, Coach Dana Pagett’s father died.

Three months later, his mother died.

In back-to-back games in mid-February, guard Vern Broadnax was involved in two frightening collisions, costing him two front teeth and five stitches in his head, resulting in the football mouthpiece that became his trademark during the playoffs.

And hours before Saturday’s final against Chabot, forward Mike Hunter paid a hospital visit to his mother and his sister, who were injured in an automobile accident Friday night in Costa Mesa.

Hunter’s sister, Hilary, suffered a fractured skull and his mom, Vickie Pattison, sustained several bruises, but they were lucky. “They’re going to be OK,” Hunter says. “But I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

The winners’ celebration was as subdued as they come. Sure, there was the obligatory net-cutting, and high-fives were exchanged, but it seemed more going through the motions than spontaneous emotion.

Pagett spent most of the awards ceremony with his head in his hands, sobbing. He broke off a television interview when the reporter asked him about his parents. Pagett’s eyes welled with tears and his voice disappeared, too overwrought to continue.

“It’s been unbelievably difficult for him,” Rancho Santiago assistant Don Frank said. “In a way, the season’s been good for him. It’s helped him keep his mind off it.

“He was the executor of his father’s will and he had to make almost all of the arrangements for both funerals. But he worked right through it.”

At first inspection, the timing of Rancho Santiago’s first state title in 70 years of basketball would appear nothing if not cruel. The best year of Dana Pagett’s professional life coincided with the worst year of his personal life. Triumph tainted by tragedy.

But Pagett, composing himself long enough to answer a few writers’ questions, could only agree with Frank’s assessment.

“I think probably the best thing for me was to have this team,” Pagett said. “All the players, all the coaches were very supportive. For that time on the practice floor, at least for that time, I was able not to think about it.”

It was a struggle that Pagett, a private man, kept to himself. “The only time we ever talked about it,” Frank said, “was when we went to a Stanford-USC game to see (former Rancho Santiago player) Ken Ammann. We had a real good time and after the game, he opened up. We did a lot of talking, maybe for an hour or so. But that was the only time.”

Until Saturday. As soon as the final buzzer sounded, leaving no more games to be won, the emotions finally caught up with Pagett.

Misty-eyed, he accepted hugs from friends and boosters and rival coaches. One of his biggest, Cypress Coach Don Johnson, offered a handshake and conversation about their respective accomplishments this season. Johnson won the Orange Empire Conference championship--beating Pagett’s Dons twice--and the 500th game of his career, but Pagett scored the biggest victory of the year.

“I’ll give you our little banner if you give us your big one,” Johnson joked.

Gradually, the postgame scene loosened up. One Don supporter walked over to Hunter, thrust out his hand and thanked him. “I’ve been following this team since 1940,” he told Hunter. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

A reporter asked Hunter if Saturday’s game had ever been in doubt.

“Yesterday,” Hunter replied with a grin.

Hindsight is always easy, but Pagett said he saw great things in this team from the beginning. “At the start of the season, we thought we were one of the 10 best teams in the state,” Pagett said. “When you feel you’re in that group, you have a shot.

“So many things have to go your way, but we thought we had a chance.”

On the court, so many things did comply with the Dons’ wishes. And in the end, the championship wasn’t the result of any grand plan or undeniable talent.

It was simply their way of coping.