2013 Steve Fryer Archive Stories

A quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt goes, "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." Bill Boswell cared a great deal about young people he knew and never knew as a coach and athletic director at Westminster High, and as an important leader in the California State Athletic Directors Association. Bosw

CIF-Southern Section baseball coaches have talked for years of creating a best-of-3 playoff system. A viable version of that will be adopted some day. Until then, baseball playoffs will continue to be single elimination. Single elimination is almost cruel. One ball-strike call that does not go your way, one double play not turned

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports ... •A record expected to last a long time did not last long at all. Lauren Chamberlain set the county softball single-season record for home runs with 17 as an El Toro senior in 2010. Mission Viejo sophomore Alyssa Palomino hit her 17th homer of the season Monday.

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller was magnificent for 75 minutes of Anaheim's 3-2 overtime loss in Detroit on Monday. But Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau might be wondering this – where is his goaltender at mentally? •Hiller was in one of those split-second, do-or-die moments w

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •The way the 10-school Coast View Conference works, the five teams perceived to be the better teams are placed in the South Coast League, with membership differing from sport to sport, and the other five are placed in the Sea View League. Craig Hanson, baseball coach of A

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •Hey, Justice Cunningham. You just got picked last in the NFL draft, so what are you going to do now? "I'm going to Disneyland ... or is it Disney World?" •That was precisely Cunningham's reply when asked what he knew about Irrelevant Week. When the Indiana Colts made Cunning

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •Cardinal Newman of Santa Rosa football coach Paul Cronin, a 2011 state coach of the year, confirmed that the Internet message board chatter is true, that he was offered the Servite football coaching position that went to Servite alum, administrator and assistant football coach

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •An NFL scout's assessment of quarterback Matt Barkley, as published in a Barkley profile at Yahoo Sports: "He's a real good leader. He's accurate and makes good decisions ... He's not athletic enough to improvise and make plays, and he doesn't have a (Lions') Matt Stafford-type cannon ..

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •Selecting All-County teams and county players of the year is the hardest part of this job, unless we're talking about boys tennis. Gage Brymer of University won his age-group championship at the Easter Bowl ITF Championships at Rancho Mirage last week. He has won everything a t

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •The best athlete in Lakers history is Kobe Bryant. The next-best Lakers athlete would be Elgin Baylor, who, like Bryant, could score in a zillion ways. The injury that ultimately led to Baylor's retirement, early in the 1971-72 season at age 37, was a torn Achilles' tendon. &bull

Somebody misspoke or somebody misunderstood. Either way, the result was a misrepresentation of the impact of transfers in Mater Dei's boys basketball program. Asked about the recent transfer of All-Trinity League sophomore guard Rex Pflueger to Mater Dei from JSerra, Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight was understood to say that the tr

Who knows how they keep it organized, but here it comes. More than 100 schools and 3,100 athletes will compete Friday and Saturday in the Trabuco Hills Distance Carnival and Invitational. In Southern California, only the Arcadia and Mt. SAC track meets are larger in size and prestige. The event, managed by Trabuco Hills' Dennis Kelly and

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •One month's worth of spring training is in the books, and we still have no idea how good the Angels' bullpen will be. •Three unsigned relief pitchers: ex-Angel Francisco Rodriguez; ex-Tiger Jose Valverde; and ex-Giant Brian Wilson. •The Angels were 8-17 in sprin

Orange County leagues in future years probably will look very much like they do now. Underway is the process to create new league alignments for a period of four school years starting with the 2014-15 school year. Principals from the 73 county high schools in the Orange County Area met Wednesday to review proposals for league configurati

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •Who is the best hockey player in Southern California? The Kings' Anze Kopitar is the best passer of the group, the Ducks' Corey Perry is the best shooter. His all-around play makes the Ducks' Ryan Getzlaf the best all-around player here. •One has to wonder if the big contrac

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •It has been wild week on the coaching front, with two of the county's higher-profile jobs having opened – football at Servite, girls basketball at Brea Olinda. •Ed Drzanek is the first man many people familiar with Servite football thought would be a leading

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •Ryan Leaf's horrid, expensive and brief tenure with the San Diego Chargers handicapped the team for a few years. Well, departed General Manager A.J. Smith's crazy dispensing of big contracts to underachievers such as receiver Robert Meacham and tackle Jared Gaither has done similar for t

Touring the sports world, here and there ... •Ryan Leaf's horrid, expensive and brief tenure with the San Diego Chargers handicapped the team for a few years. Well, departed General Manager A.J. Smith's crazy dispensing of big contracts to underachievers such as receiver Robert Meacham and tackle Jared Gaither has done similar for t

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •The younger guys have asserted themselves already for University swimming. Sophomore Daniel Tran won the 100 backstroke and sophomore Matthew Wong won the 100 breaststroke against Tesoro on Tuesday. This team has plenty of that all-important ingredient — dep

•The Angels are underpaying Mike Trout and not playing him at his best position. What else can they do to make their most popular player unhappy? Charge him to park at Angel Stadium? •Trout's $510,000 salary this season represents approximately 0.35 percent of the Angels' salaries for 2013. Vernon Wells' $24.6 million salary is

A look at Orange County boys basketball ... •Villa Park coach Kevin Reynolds has reviewed game video and concluded that a missed free throw was scored as made for J.W. North of Riverside in the first quarter of what would become Villa Park's one-point loss in the CIF-SS Division 2AA championship game Saturday. Said Reynolds i

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •Take a look up and down at this week's schedule for CIF-Southern Section girls basketball championship games and you will see that no Orange County team is playing. The last time that happened was ... never. •The first CIF-SS girls basketball championship game was

Touring the sports world, here and there ... That new ticket pricing system for Angels games is going to make sense when we all get used to it. It is based upon the simple market concept of supply and demand. Looking at the first two Angels home games, April 9 and 10 against Oakland, provides a good example. People think they abs

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports: •It's releaguing season. County schools had their meeting Wednesday to configure leagues for a four-year period that begins with the 2014-15 school year. Western wants out of the Empire League and the Pacific Coast League would like Corona del Mar to be affiliated elsewhere, but

Touring the sports world, here and there ... • The Angels will audition public-address announcers during their first several Cactus League games as the ballclub finds a replacement for David Courtney, who passed away in November. Courtney had been the Angels' PA guy for 18 seasons. Angels vice-president Tim Mead indicated there coul