Tribute venue fitting for longtime coach

No cathedral on Earth could provide a better setting than La Habra's gym for a memorial service for Tex Wallis.

Wallis, who passed away last week at 83, coached La Habra boys basketball to 658 victories, the second-most in county history, from 1958 to 1984. The Highlanders won 13 league championships under Wallis, who also coached girls basketball, football, cross country and softball at the school. He has been inducted into every high school sports hall of fame in the area.

He was a no-nonsense looking man, broad-shouldered, solid-set jaw and always sported a flattop haircut. His teams' play matched his appearance. Wallis's Highlanders always excelled at the fundamentals of team basketball, aspects that sometimes are forgotten like setting solid screens away from the ball, staying alert on defense and plain old hustle.

When this writer broke into the business working for the old Brea-La Habra Daily Star-Progress in the late 1970s, Tex Wallis was kind and helpful. He patiently put up with the kid's dumb questions, and with a smile, too. I saw him coach average teams to plenty of victories over teams that had superior talent.

A portrait of Wallis is displayed in the La Habra gym, where the memorial service will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. All of Wallis' many ex-players, friends and admirers might not be able to fit in the smallish gym. But it's the only place that fits.

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

The No. 1 coach on the county career boys basketball victories list is, of course, Gary McKnight of Mater Dei, with 828. McKnight will add plenty more to that total with this year's team, which is starting to pop up on preseason national rankings. One called the National Prep Poll, based in Iowa, has Mater Dei at No. 8 in the nation.

•Another longtime, great county coach who passed away last week: Ken Millard, who was Estancia's baseball head coach in the 1980s/early '90s and was an assistant elsewhere, including Woodbridge. Millard was widely respected as a great teacher of the game. Services have been held.

•The city of Placentia's high schools might not be up to the high standards of the coastal and south-county communities in girls tennis, but they are still very good. Valencia is ranked No. 2 in CIF-Southern Section Division III, and El Dorado is No. 7 in Division II.

•Orange Lutheran's football team, 3-0 in the Trinity League as it takes on Servite, also 3-0 in league, Friday at Cerritos College, has an assistant coach who is a very special part of the program: Ken Augustine. He is a mentally challenged adult who has been around the school and its football program for a long time. Augustine is in charge of motivation for the team, which has benefitted from his commitment and his example (I checked the CIF rule book, but having a secret weapon like Augustine is not a violation).

•Valencia coach Mike Marrujo might be having his finest year, and that is saying a lot for a man who always gets the most out of his roster and whose 240 career victories trails only the county-record of 279 recorded by Los Alamitos coach John Barnes. Valencia was not loaded with talent to begin the year, and key injuries have made 2009 a struggle at times. But last week, Valencia beat Kennedy and remains very much in the running for what would be a 14th consecutive playoff appearance if Valencia can finish among the top three teams in the Empire League.

•There are all sorts of trophies and such that go to the winners of big football games, or to a city's football champions. There is the Fence Post in Irvine, for example, and the bell in Anaheim that Anaheim won by beating Western last week. A new one – the Whistle Stop Championship, which is the city of Fullerton's football championship award, organized by Roscoe's Deli and fullertonfirst.com, a city networking Web site, was awarded to Fullerton High.

•The Fullerton football program's "Tackle Cancer" project raised $2,250, and gave a check for that amount to St. Jude's Medical Center in Fullerton.

•CIF-SS football championship games in the Southwest and Pac-5 divisions will be at Angel Stadium on Dec. 12, with the Southwest game at 2 p.m. and the Pac-5 game at 7:30 p.m. The Southwest is an all-O.C. division composed of the Century, Empire, Freeway, Orange and Sea View leagues. The Pac-5, formally called Division I, has the South Coast, Sunset and Trinity leagues, and also the Moore and Serra leagues.

•Playoff at-large teams, seedings and first-round pairings for 11-man football will be released Nov. 15, a Sunday, and can be found at ocvarsity.com.

•You can follow me, and get plenty of updates, at twitter.com/stevefryer.