Cal-Hi Sports Insider Blog

Quick-hitting, behind-the-scenes news and notes from the CalHiSports.com staff, including previews of upcoming content and events.

Salute to “Big Lou” Cvijanovich

By Mark Tennis | Published November 26, 2018

There’s an exclusive group of high school boys basketball coaches in the history of California who’ve won 600 games or more. It’s a smaller group when you get to 800 and an even smaller group of those who’ve actually been the winningest in state history.

Count Lou Cvijanovich, who coached at Santa Clara of Oxnard from 1958 to 1999, in that smallest category. One of the most legendary coaches in Ventura County history in any sport, Cvijanovich died last Saturday at age 92 in the Oxnard home he shared with his wife, Martha.

The news broke on social media on Saturday afternoon, initially from current St. Bonaventure of Ventura head coach Pat Frank, who is a close friend of the Cvijanovich family.

More Than a Coach, a biography of Lou Cvijanovich, is a book written several years ago by Thomas S. Johnson. Photo: Ebay.com.


A tweet from the school later in the day said: “With heavy hearts, the Santa Clara High School community mourns the passing of legendary coach, Lou Cvijanovich. Coach C was a mentor, teacher and friend to so many.”

Upon his retirement in 1999, Cvijanovich was the winningest boys coach in state history with a total of 829 victories. He also retired with three CIF state titles, 15 CIF Southern Section championships and 30 league titles. In addition to basketball, Cvijanovich coached for several seasons in football and baseball and he won CIFSS crowns once in those other sports as well.

Based on our own Cal-Hi Sports state coaching records (they don’t exist anywhere else), it was sometime in the early 1990s when Cvijanovich surpassed the 650 wins by former Compton and Palm Springs coach Bill Armstrong for the top total in state history. It may have been reported later with a different win total for Armstrong, but additional research revealed there had been some JV wins on Armstrong’s total.

After Cvijanovich retired in 1999, it took four years for Oakland Bishop O’Dowd’s Mike Phelps to move past the 829 total. Phelps’ career ended shortly afterward at 843, and that total was surpassed several years ago by current Santa Ana Mater Dei head coach Gary McKnight, who is now over 1,100 all-time wins.

According to a story in the Ventura County Star, McKnight visited with Cvijanovich on Friday for one hour since his team was playing in Santa Barbara. Pat Frank also visited on Friday.

When Cvijanovich was honored with a Hall of Fame award by the California Coaches Association in 1998, we were lucky to be sitting next to him. On the same night, Cal-Hi Sports founder Nelson Tennis was selected as the first-ever recipient of the Edmond Strelow Media Award. Big Lou gave Nelson a pep talk before Nelson had to get up and say a few words, which was something he wasn’t comfortable with. We all thought Nelson did great.

In the last few years, several others have surpassed the 829 win total that Cvijanovich retired with. Judging from the reaction of the impact he had on his players and community, however, that was just a microscopic slice of the man’s life.

California High School Boys Basketball Coaches
With 800 Or More All-Time Wins

(Before start of current season)
(All according to Cal-Hi Sports)
For the complete Gold Club list of everyone who is above 600 all-time wins, CLICK HERE.
To join our Gold Club to see more state records plus all weekly state rankings, CLICK HERE.

1,107 – Gary McKnight, Santa Ana Mater Dei, 1983-2018 (1,107-105) (current)
906 – Mike LeDuc, La Verne Damien, 1980-86, 2016-18 & Glendora, 1987-1992, 1994-2015 (906-238) (current)
876 – Ed Azzam, Los Angeles Westchester, 1980-2018 (876-271) (current)
852 – Don Lippi, Alameda St. Joseph, 1980, Vallejo St. Patrick-St. Vincent, 1982-86, Oakland Skyline, 1987-1990, San Francisco St. Ignatius, 1991-2003 & Alameda St. Joseph, 2004-2018 (852-265) (current)
843 – Mike Phelps, Alameda St. Joseph, 1971-78 & Oakland Bishop O’Dowd, 1979-1990, 1992-2003 (843-196)
832 – Tom Orlich, South Lake Tahoe, 1976-2000 & Fresno Clovis West, 2003-2016
829 – Lou Cvijanovich, Oxnard Santa Clara, 1959-1999 (829-261)
823 – Harvey Kitani, San Fernando, 1980, & Los Angeles Fairfax, 1982-2016 &
San Pedro Rolling Hills Prep, 2018 (823-271) (current) (+1 win by forfeit)
803 – Willie West, Los Angeles Crenshaw, 1971-2007 (803-140)
802 – Abe Abrami, Emeryville Emery, 1955-1993

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle:

NorCal Tip Off Classic Recap

By Ronnie Flores | Published November 24, 2018

UCLA signee Jake Kyman shined with 23 points as Santa Margarita defeated Modesto Christian on Saturday in matchup of state-ranked teams. Photo: Ronnie Flores.


Here’s the results and recap from the 12th Annual NorCal Tip-Off Classic at Newark Memorial. State No. 7 Modesto Christian battled one-loss and No. 12 Santa Margarita in the marquee matchup. The SoCal club came away with the victory behind a 23-point, 11-rebound effort from UCLA-bound Jake Kyman. State No. 5 Sheldon of Sacramento and Bishop O’Dowd of Oakland also win key games.

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Girls VB State TOYs (1972-2018)

By Mark Tennis | Published November 21, 2018

Here is the official Cal-Hi Sports State Team of the Year list for girls volleyball with Mater Dei of Santa Ana added on for 2018 and going back to 1972. This is the fourth straight year with Monarchs at the top of the state since the previous three years it was the Archbishop Mitty Monarchs of San Jose.

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SF 49ers & California alums

By Mark Tennis | Published November 20, 2018

We’ve compiled lists of players from the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers who are graduates of California high schools. The Rams and Chargers still look like strong playoff contenders in their respective conferences. The state’s other two NFL teams — the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders — will not be in the playoffs. Still, these are NFL rosters so we’re going to start looking at those teams as it relates to California prep alums. We’ll begin with the 49ers, who lost several key players to injuries early in the season, but still seem motivated to pick up some wins at the end of the current season.

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Sac-Joaquin Top 5: Top 5 RB totals

By Mark Tennis | Published November 9, 2018

We are happy to have been involved for the sixth straight year with the CalHiSports.com web site and Cal-Hi Sports as part of the weekly Final Quarter high school football show on Friday nights on the FOX 40 station in Sacramento.
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Boys BB: WEST Region Top 20

By CalHiSports.com Staff | Published November 7, 2018

As a follow up to the boys basketball preseason FAB 50 National Team Rankings compiled by long-time Cal-Hi Sports managing editor Ronnie Flores and as a prelude to our preseason state rankings, we present the West Region’s Top 20 teams. The FAB 50 goes 20 teams deep from five separate regions of the nation. Preseason No. 1 ranked teams by region are Oak Hill Academy (East), Montverde Academy (Southeast), La Lumiere (Midwest), Denton Guyer (Southwest) and Sierra Canyon (West). Look for our preseason rankings by the end of the week, as we begin our 39th consecutive season on weekly boys hoops state rankings. 

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CIF Bowl Update: Only one change

By Mark Tennis | Published November 7, 2018

With many teams on first-round playoff byes and those that did play winning quite easily, there was only one move made on this week’s CIF Bowl Boards. Instead of doing a new feature post, this week we’ll just go over that one change in a blog post and direct people to look at last week’s Gold Club post with all divisions broken down.
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CIF breakthrough in girls vb pairings

By Mark Tennis | Published November 5, 2018

For years, we’ve been putting teams from the CIF Central Section in the north for our state rankings but that hasn’t been the case for the California Interscholastic Federation, which has quite often put Central Section teams in the south. And with the CIF Southern Section’s use of competitive equity playoff divisions, we also have been waiting for the CIFSS to finally have more than four teams from the CIFSS in the eight-team CIF Southern California Open Division playoffs.

Both of those breakthroughs were obvious when Sunday’s CIF girls volleyball pairings were announced.

CIF Central Section D1 champion Buchanan of Clovis wasn’t put in the south, but was in the north and was seeded second behind Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco. The Central Section D1 runner-up, Central of Fresno, which did play in the SoCal Open Division last year when it won the title, also was put in the north and will travel to James Logan of Union City for Wednesday’s first round.

And for the first time that we know of in any CIF regional playoff (at least it has never happened before in boys and girls basketball), the CIF didn’t arbitrarily select an L.A. City Section team or send one or two of the CIF Central Section teams to the south to complete an eight-team Open Division bracket. Instead, that bracket expanded to include CIF Southern Section Division I quarterfinalists for the first time. The two teams brought up were Long Beach Poly and San Juan Hills of San Juan Capistrano. The two CIFSS quarterfinalists that will be in the CIF SoCal D1 playoffs are Foothill of Tustin and Temecula Valley.

Followers of boys basketball and girls basketball in both regions of the state should pay attention to what just happened in girls volleyball. There’s no reason why the CIF shouldn’t do the same thing in both of those sports for its two Open Divisions. In other words, that means the best CIF Central Section teams going to the north and no longer a four-team limit of teams from the CIFSS. Both boys and girls basketball are different than volleyball, of course, since the L.A. City Section in boys hoops tends to be strong and usually has Open Division candidates. There also may be a desire by the CIF on the girls side to keep teams like Clovis West and Archbishop Mitty separated from each other until the state final. Still, we consider what just happened in girls volleyball to be a major breakthrough and we hope it leads to more of the same.

Mater Dei of Santa Ana is the top seed in the CIF SoCal Open Division for girls volleyball after defeating Marymount of Los Angeles for the CIFSS D1 title. Unlike in basketball, the CIFSS doesn’t have an Open Division in volleyball but the best teams from the best leagues (like in football) are all in the D1 bracket. Other than the six CIFSS teams, the other two teams in the CIF SoCal Open Division for volleyball are Torrey Pines of San Diego and Cathedral Catholic of San Diego.

L.A. Chargers & California alums

By Mark Tennis | Published October 31, 2018

We recently compiled a list of players from the Los Angeles Rams who are graduates of California high schools. The Rams are still the only undefeated team in the NFL and are a definite threat to win the franchise’s second Super Bowl championship. The first, of course, came when the Rams were in St. Louis. It’s only fair this week to do the same for L.A.’s other NFL team, the Chargers, who are a playoff-contending team in their own right from the American Football Conference.
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Sac-Joaquin Top 5: Best for decade

By Mark Tennis | Published October 26, 2018

We are happy to say that for the sixth straight year the CalHiSports.com web site and Cal-Hi Sports is part of the weekly Final Quarter high school football show on Friday nights on the FOX 40 station in Sacramento.
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