The brotherly ethic of “keep playing, don\u2019t be a crybaby” became standard when Conrad and Zach Tempel, two basketball players at The Bishops School, were playing an indoor game of Nerf ball. The elder Tempel, Conrad, threw the ball at his younger brother, Zach, which resulted in the boy fracturing his finger. “It hurt a little,” remembers Zach, a sophomore in The Bishop\u2019s School basketball program. “He said it shouldn\u2019t hurt, so I kept playing.
\n“I played in a recreation league all-star game the next day without having the finger checked,” said the younger Tempel. Finally, their father, “Big Perry,” nicknamed for his imposing 6-foot-5-inch height and post play during his basketball days, noticed the swelling and said, “Maybe we ought to have it checked,” which resulted in the X-rays showing a break.
\nIt wasn\u2019t about a false machismo on the part of the brothers. They\u2019re both just into sports, thrive on competition, and they live by the “keep playing” attitude. Says Conrad, a junior on the Knights\u2019 varsity team under coach Nick Levine, “I thought he was being a wuss (in saying it hurt a little). We just kept playing.”
\nSo, the moral of the story is go get your hurting finger checked out, which the Tempels did. Another is that as a coach, in Levine\u2019s position, you want as many grinders with hard-working attitudes like the Tempel brothers in your program as you can. You can depend on them for hard-nosed contributions.
\n“The few and the proud” comes to mind when Conrad, 17, and Zach, 15, the latter who is a “swingman” like several of his teammates between the junior varsity and varsity to fill in as needed on a small varsity squad with only two seniors, describe their roles in the basketball program.
\nConrad, who likes science but who is a “math guy” over social sciences by his own admission, plays alongside seniors Justin Woodley, a tried-and-true athlete on both the basketball and football squads and Isaiah Anderson. In baseball as well as basketball, the older Tempel brother fills whatever role is needed, a kind of utility man, which in baseball he literally is.
\nHe plays point guard, bringing the ball up court sometimes, shooting guard, and small forward on the varsity squad, which has played hard this season in his junior year, but which has also entailed its growing experiences.
\nZach is a guard primarily on Bishop\u2019s junior varsity team, who says he can create his own shot, but who also focuses on finding teammates when they\u2019re in position to shoot and who welcomes their feedback if he fails to spot them. “I don\u2019t want to be average,” the dusty-haired sophomore says. One way he can improve is when teammates tell him “I was open,” yet he didn\u2019t find them, so that he can widen his vision and court awareness.
\nBoth seem to be modest, team-oriented young men and Levine wants to have all the tools he can in the program\u2019s arsenal for it to succeed. “When they go at each other in practice, it\u2019s pretty intense,” says Bishop\u2019s head coach. “They push each other. But then they\u2019ll be the first to pick each other up, too.”
\nA moment in the season when practice for the varsity became more than Levine drilling the players came in preparation for the Knights\u2019 opening game in the Coastal League against Francis Parker. The tight-knit unit pushed one another for a matchup that, Conrad says, “we definitely wanted to win.”
\n“When we were preparing for Parker, it was tough physically and mentally,” the redhead recounts. “Then we played well and won. We pushed one another.” Bishop\u2019s won the rivalry game by a big margin, 51-31, at home. It was a satisfying victory.
\nOutside the basketball season, Conrad plays for Ron Witmeyer\u2019s baseball team. As a sophomore, appearing in 14 of the Knights\u2019 31 games last spring, Tempel played every infield position except shortstop, caught and pitched, garnering a 2-0 record on the mound with a good 2.33 ERA in five appearances.
\nSays Witmeyer, “I have a son (Clay) who\u2019s also a junior, so I know Conrad pretty well. It\u2019s a pleasure to coach him. He will do whatever the team needs. He practiced being a backup catcher, even though he knew there wasn\u2019t going to be a lot of opportunity.
\n“This season we\u2019re planning on Conrad pitching a lot of innings for us. He doesn\u2019t really have a position on the field. He\u2019s a utility player. He probably could even fill in in the outfield.”
\nThe younger brother\u2014the Tempels also have a younger sister, Margo, who is a fifth-grader at La Jolla Elementary\u2014follows in their mother Kim\u2019s competitive footsteps in playing tennis. Kim played Division III tennis for Pomona College. Also as a result, both brothers are interested in the Claremont-Scripps schools for college.
\n“She (Kim) is always really positive,” says Zach. “She is probably the other person (besides me) who doesn\u2019t want me to be average.”
\nDad, who Coach Levine calls “Big Perry,” encourages his sons, too. “He\u2019s an old-fashioned person,” says his middle child. “He definitely motivates me. He doesn\u2019t want me to say anything negative (in molding him as a person).”
\n“I\u2019m pretty interested in the science field,” says Conrad of his academic interests. “I\u2019m taking a computer science class this year. It\u2019s challenging but interesting. I could see going into (something related to) that.”
\nThe 17-year-old, besides his two main sports of basketball and baseball, also played football as a freshman on the junior varsity. He has a “big” voice, which an observer mentioned he might use to pursue radio work or something else in broadcasting. With two school grades on his brother, he\u2019s the bigger specimen physically at this point, with a self-assured presence.
\nOff-campus, Conrad uses his voice to sing in the choir at First United Methodist Church. “I go to church every Sunday to rehearse songs, and then one time every month we sing in the congregation,” he says.
\nHow did he get into that activity? “I wasn\u2019t really involved much in the church until ninth grade. My mom thought it would be a good idea if I joined because I hadn\u2019t done many church activities before then.”
\nZach (“I don\u2019t go by Zachary at all”) seems to be carving out his own role as the middle “sandwich” child of three. “Definitely, I like history and economics. (His father is a financial planner). I just like business in general. I kind of want to get into law, also.”
\nSays the younger brother of his non-sports activities, “I have done speech and debate, and I am in the Young Republicans Club at school.”
\nThe Tempels definitely favor chocolate ice cream: Conrad with Kit Kats or pieces of Oreo cookie, Zach with peanut butter cups.
\nThe elder opts for carne asada burritos, or a California burrito made up of beef, French fries, and guacamole. The younger brother is into wings, a little bit spicy being suitable to his palate.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The brotherly ethic of “keep playing, don\u2019t be a crybaby” became standard when Conrad and Zach Tempel, two basketball players at The Bishops School, were playing an indoor game of Nerf ball. The elder Tempel, Conrad, threw the ball at his younger brother, Zach, which resulted in the boy fracturing his finger. “It hurt a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":284193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Conrad and Zach Tempel, Bishop\u2019s School basketball brothers","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}