Neumann recalls 50 years

ROGER CARLSON

There’s a lot of talk, it seems, about 50 years ago ... 1955.

McDonalds and Disneyland arrived during the peaceful lull between

Korea and Viet Nam and Dwight David Eisenhower was in the midst of an

eight-year run as our President.

Somewhat concurrently were the exploits of a Newport Harbor High

graduate named George Yardley, who was playing for the Fort Wayne

Pistons when he took time out to attend the Sailors’ sports awards

banquet for the 1954-55 basketball team.

Up stepped Yardley to the dais and in his inimitable style,

presented the George Yardley Trophy to the Sunset League’s Most

Valuable Player, a senior named Paul Neumann.

Paul Neumann, the little 5-foot-3 eighth-grader who had once met

the 6-5 Yardley at a local basketball camp, who would go on to play

for basketball coach Jules Gage in all four of his high school years.

Paul Neumann, who would follow the footsteps of Yardley with a

brilliant four-year career at Stanford before hooking up with the

Syracuse Nationals in the National Basketball Association. Like

Yardley in 1950, Neumann would be named to Stanford’s Basketball Hall

of Fame in 1959.

Paul Neumann, the son of a minister, who stepped away from a post

as Howie Dallmar’s assistant at Stanford and virtually melted away

locally after joining the “Overseas Crusades,” now called “OC

International.”

“I had really wanted to coach college basketball,” said Neumann

from his home in North Carolina. “But after my senior year in

college, I had gone with a team called ‘Venture for Victory,’ then it

became ‘Sports Ambassadors.’

“That experience started the ball turning and I realized I would

have more influence [in a much larger arena].”

It was a big jump considering he had been Dallmar’s assistant for

two seasons after exiting the NBA when a college coach’s “staff”

consisted of that one assistant coach.

It all began somewhere around 1951 when as an eighth-grader his

friend, Denny Fitzpatrick, introduced him to Rod MacMillian at the

Harbor Area Boys Club. He still fondly remembers MacMillian, “who

drove us everywhere.”

A year later he was a 5-5, 94-pound freshman on the Dee basketball

team at Newport.

What a youth team they must have had at the Boys Club in the early

‘50s considering the starters at Newport in 1954 were Fred Nesbitt,

Bill Inloes, Bill Roush, Bill Wetzel and Neumann. Another standout

was Bill Kelter.

Neumann and Bill Wetzel were joined the next season by Eddie Pope,

Fitzpatrick and Frank Navarro. Also big contributors: Paul Lorentzen

and George Schuit.

The 1953-54 team won the Sunset League and posted a 17-4 overall

record, defeating Redlands, 32-31, before bowing to Mt. Carmel.

“Paul was about the most complete player that I’ve ever seen,”

recalls Wetzel, now retired after a career at Estancia High, first as

the varsity basketball coach and in the long run as assistant

principal.

“He was so explosive to the basket, he controlled the game. You

just won’t find anyone who was more solid than Paul,” said Wetzel.

Fitzpatrick, who would eventually star for California and was the

Bears’ team MVP, remembered Neumann as “Probably the best guard in

the Pacific Coast Conference for 10 years -- either way. He was

really a great player,” in a Daily Pilot article announcing

Fitzpatrick as a Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Famer.

The same Pilot Hall of Fame credentials were applied to Neumann.

Fitzpatrick led Cal to the NCAA championship in 1959, besting

Jerry West and West Virginia in the final.

Also on that Cal squad was former Corona del Mar High and Orange

Coast College Coach Tandy Gillis, whose best moments came a year

later as a senior.

The Sailors’ 1954-55 edition went 13-6 and tied for second in the

Sunset League, failing to make the playoffs when only champions were

invited. Nevertheless, it was Neumann who was named the league’s MVP,

and it was the 6-1 Neumann who was given a grant in aid to Stanford,

where he finished his college education with a bachelor of arts

degree in psychology and followed it up with a master’s in secondary

education.

While he began his career at Newport on the Dee basketball team,

he advanced to the Bees as a sophomore and then spent two years with

the varsity. His sophomore year was split between basketball and

football, but he gave up the latter, recognizing the physical

pounding one takes in football.

“Jules Gage was a very positive influence in my life,” said the

very amicable Neumann.

At Stanford he spent his first year on the Indians’ freshman team.

He was second-team all-conference as a junior and a first-team choice

as a senior.

Drafted by Syracuse in the fourth round, he passed up the NBA

initially, preferring to return to school. He played amateur

basketball in San Francisco for one season and in New York the

following year in an industrial league.

“I figured my basketball career was over,” said Neumann. “But Alex

Hannum of Syracuse [who was involved in the industrial league] said

there was an opening at the guard spot at Syracuse because Dick

Barnett had jumped to the ABA.”

So Neumann, with a wife, Nancy, and two sons, Eric and Mark, spent

the next two years at Syracuse before the team was sold to

Philadelphia, where itbecame the original Philadelphia 76ers. Two

other children would follow, Cynthia and Daniel.

A year earlier, the Philadelphia Warriors with Wilt Chamberlain

moved and became the San Francisco Warriors.

Neumann spent a year and a half in Philadelphia before being

traded to San Francisco where he was a Warrior for the next two and a

half seasons.

His sixth and final year in the NBA (1966-67) found San Francisco

in the playoffs after winning the Western Division. The Warriors

eliminated the Lakers with Elgin Baylor in three and the St. Louis

Hawks with Bob Pettit and Lenny Wilkens in six before bowing to the

76ers in the finals, also a six-game series (4-2).

“I told Nancy if she’d marry me I’d show her the world,” recalled

Neumann. Without a doubt, he’s a man of his word.

They were resident missionaries in Indonesia and the U.S. before

spending eight years in the Philippines, then four years in Argentina

and four more years in Germany. With his basketball programs and

missionary work there has been some 60 countries listed in the

family’s visa over the past 35 years.

“It was very satisfying,” said Neumann from his home in Apex,

where he has been enjoying the last two years in a somewhat

“tentative” retirement.

“I just came back from Kyrgyzstan [just west of China], a very

strong Muslim country where there was a coup,” said Neumann, who has

enough memories to fill a small library.

Learning their customs and languages was an issue in itself and

Neumann recalls making some very quick moves to avoid rocks being

thrown at him in Sumatra.

He coached the first Christian team in China in 1980 with games in

Shanghai and Xian, among other cities.

“In the Philippines, basketball is the No. 1 sport,” said Neumann.

“They would be barefoot and tack up a basket on a palm tree and

they’d love it.”

Once in Colombia the residents made a court and basket, then

measured the basketball and made the rim just big enough for the ball

to squeeze through. “You had to go up and lay it on the rim [before

pushing it through],” said Neumann. “It wasn’t that bad because they

only had it about eight feet high.”

One of Neumann’s best-loved achievements came in 1993 when he

joined the Russian Ministry of Education that was established in

1991.

Neumann came aboard two years later, presenting the Bible

Orientation of the conferences, then taught several plenary sessions.

Today a lot of his time is devoted to keeping track of the kids

... Cynthia in Hershey, Pa., Eric, who is retiring from the Navy at

Camp Lejeune, N.C., Daniel in South Carolina, and Mark in Livermore,

Calif., as well as his nine grandchildren.

And, there is a plan to return to Newport Beach in October when

the ’55 Sailors celebrate their 50th reunion.

“I really hope to be there for that,” said Neumann. “I’ve never

been to one of Newport’s reunions (because of assignments).”

A lot of other people are hoping, too.