The year was 1960, and San Diego’s population reached 573,224. For the first time, the county topped one million people.
Gas sold for 31 cents a gallon, a gallon of milk was 41 cents and a first class stamp was priced at 4 cents. A new house: $16,500.
That year, Point Loma High School’s basketball team tied rival Kearny High for the Western League championship.
But overall, the Pointers had posted a rather mediocre 12-10 record. Then, in the post-season, the team did something that only a few long-time Peninsula residents may recall: They won the Southern California AA championship.
Back then, there was no San Diego Section of CIF. All teams in the lower part of the state were lumped together in one region. (There were no girls sports programs at the time).
No other PLHS boys team has accomplished a feat of this magnitude, and yet their coach has been forgotten by many.
San Diego State graduate Hilbert Crosthwaite served two terms as the Pointers’ head coach, including the 1947-48 to 1951-52 seasons and for five seasons beginning in 1954-55. During those 11 seasons, he won half of his games, finishing with a 116-116 record.
The state championship came in Crosthwaite’s final season at the Pointer helm.
He took his team to Hemet High School for its first playoff game to face Beaumont, hanging a 32-24 loss on the Cougars.
Next up was a trip to Redlands University, where Crosthwaite’s squad soundly defeated Yucaipa’s Thunderbirds by a 55-23 margin.
The Pointers then returned to their home court where they registered a quarterfinal victory over Rosemead’s Bosco Tech Tigers and then ousted Lompoc’s Braves in the semifinal encounter.
The Southern California championship game was played at Los Angeles State College, and crowd of 5,200 showed up to see the maroon-clad Pointers victimize San Marino’s Titans by a 52-36 final.
Crosthwaite was well aware his Pointers likely had the highest enrollment of any AA division team, and was relieved when the final buzzer sounded.
“We had everything to lose,” Crosthwaite said after the game. “We couldn’t have walked out of here unless we won.”
Reports from the game said that Pointer players hoisted both Crosthwaite and 6 foot tall forward Winston Yetta, who scored 22 points in the final, onto their shoulders and carried them on a victory lap around the court.
The next day, veteran San Diego Union reporter Jerry Magee wrote, “Winston Yetta enjoyed his finest basketball hour here tonight, collecting 22 points.”
Yetta’s starting teammates included 6 foot 1 inch tall Don Sada, 6 foot 2 inch tall Larry Moore, 6 foot tall Mike Dolphin and either 6 foot tall Doug Lawrence or 6 foot 6 inch tall Dick Walden.
The following year, Crosthwaite moved on to San Diego City College. His 1962-63 team soared to a 25-5 record and the state championship game before dropping the title game to Fresno City by a close 76-69 score. Unfortunately, Crosthwaite seems lost in the school’s rich history. The school’s venerable main gym is rightly named for legendary girls basketball coach Lee Trepanier, who led his teams to four consecutive state championships from 1984-87 when his teams drew national attention with a 122-1 record. With a career mark of 335-51 from 1977-1990, Trepanier was diagnosed with cancer in 1990 and passed away in 1991 at age 56. However, an annual one-day “shootout” boys basketball tournament (the “Bennie Edens Basketball Classic”), held over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend every January, bears the name of the iconic football coach, who ironically never coached varsity basketball.
It would seem that the only coach in PLHS’s 90-year history to deliver a boys state basketball championship should be prominently honored in some way by the school.
It is certainly well-deserved.