Rich Forslund, for a guy who only played freshman basketball at Riordan, has become quite the teacher of basketball - or "Doctor of Hoopology" as the message board mavens like to call him.
Forslund's Half Moon Bay team (20-2, 10-0) has already clinched the PAL-North title and will next eye Central Coast Section and state Division IV basketball glory during what it hopes will be an extended post-season run. He already has a state title and nearly 200 victories as the coach at Riordan (2002) to his credit, having stepped down as the Crusaders coach following the 2007 season.
"Moreau is probably the No. 1 team (in NorCal) in Division IV," said Forslund, an insurance broker. "There are some good teams, but it's not like you have to play against Aaron Gordon. It's wide open and a number of teams could get on a run and win it."
That includes the Cougars, from the sleepy little coastline town of Half Moon Bay that's so beloved by day-trippers.
HMB as recently as 2006-2007 went 1-21 in basketball until coach John Williams Parsons breathed live into the program after that, setting the stage for Montara resident Forslund to emerge from his coaching hiatus and really wake the sleeping giant.
Forslund had been coaching at Our Lady of the Pillar parish in Half Moon Bay, as well as Cunha Middle School. All eight of his current seniors played in one or both of those programs, including 6-foot-6 Rico Nuno and guard Corey Cilia. So did 6-7 junior Case DuFrane, with 6-3 sophomore Tommy Nuno (brother if Rico) the only prominent Cougar not to have come up through the system.
Forslund actually still coaches at Our Lady of the Pillar and his eighth grade team will play for the San Francisco CYO title this weekend.
"The San Francisco CYO league is a pretty good league," Forslund said. "A lot of the kids who play at S.I, Sacred Heart Cathedral and Riordan played in it. The kids who I coach who played for me at Cunha and in CYO, I was coaching them four or five times a week."
Led by a suffocating defense and ample scoring, Half Moon Bay has been beating league opponents by an average of 40 points per game. It also defeated Aragon and Burlingame in non-league.
Forslund lists former City College of San Francisco coach Brad Duggan, as well as Bob Burton (West Valley) and Mike Legarza (Canada) as big influences. He has also watched practices at both Stanford and Cal and traveled to Duke with Sacred Heart Cathedral coach Darryl Barbour to observe the Blue Devils and coach Mike Krzyzewski, whom he admires greatly.
A heady type, Forslund graduated at the top of his Riordan class in 1976 after skipping a grade in grammar school. He has a B.A. in Political Science from USF and a J.D. from UC Hastings College of Law. The brainpower hasn't hurt him in accumulating 346 victories in stops at Lowell, Burlingame, Riordan and HMB.
The benefactors of all this knowledge have been area hoop fans. The Cougars have played second fiddle to Terra Nova in football in recent years, but now rule the PAL-North in basketball. The school and community turns out in drove for the games in its cozy gym and Forslund doesn't disappoint, dimming the lights and providing NBA-like player introductions before games.
They've eaten it all up like a plump coastline artichoke and hope to ride the wave of momentum to an eventual NorCal title appearance.
"It's been fun and we're going to stay on this ride as long as possible," Forslund said.
FOUR-STAR RECRUIT TO ST. FRANCIS: First year St. Francis football coach Greg Calcagno got a pleasant surprise when junior defensive lineman and four-star recruit Thomas Toki (6-foot-1, 280 pounds) transferred into the Mountain View school from Juanita High in Kirkland, Wash.
The recruiting service 247 Sports ranks Toki, a Washington State commit, No. 7 among defensive tackles in California and No. 20 nationally.
“I found out from our admissions guy,” Calcagno said Monday morning. “His family moved and I didn’t meet him until one day on campus. That was a good day. I was pretty happy. Our kids were too.”
Toki boasts film highlights that show unusual strength and quickness.
1951 DONS MADE STAND AGAINST RACISM: ESPN has been airing an hour-long story of the unbeaten, untied, uninvited 1951 University of San Francisco Dons football team that included longtime San Bruno resident Bill Henneberry and former St. Ignatius coach Vince Tringali. The remarkable team also had nine players drafted by NFL teams, including three future NFL Hall of Famers.
The Dons went 9-0, but refused to play in bowl games that would not allow its two great African-American players Burl Toler and Ollie Matson to compete.
“We judged a guy on his own merit,” Henneberry said in a film clip. "If a guy was a good guy, he was a good guy. If he wasn’t, we avoided him.”
Henneberry grew up in San Francisco and starred at Sacred Heart before arriving on the hilltop and then later coaching at S.H. Tringali coached Dan Fouts and St. Ignatius to the 1967 West Catholic Athletic League title.
CAN'T MISS GAMES: Leigh (21-1, 12-0) with a one-game lead meets host Piedmont Hills (19-3, 11-1) at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a huge BVAL-Mt. Hamilton basketball showdown. The Longhorns won the first time around, 45-43.
St. Ignatius (18-4, 10-2) is at Serra (16-6, 9-3) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the annual "Jungle Game." According to lore, St. Ignatius coach Bob Drucker remarked after a game at Serra there were so many fans packed into the gym and it was so wild that it was "like a jungle" ... words that succeeding Wildcat coaches no doubt rue.
The Jungle Game is a sellout. Serra star Danny Mahoney took to Twitter on Monday night apologizing in advance to friends for whom he can't get tickets.
Briefly: Archbishop Mitty running back/linebacker Chandler Ramirez will play football at Army.
