“You can eat breakfast on the European side of Istanbul, then drive to the Asian side and have lunch,” says Huseyin Demiral, second-year assistant basketball coach at La Jolla High School. The muscular, slender 6’ 9″ Turkey native doesn’t show the effects of spending inordinate amounts of time at the feasting table. But he keeps coming back to the cuisine of his country. Turks, of course, love their coffee. But their culture also offers a palette of dishes, including kebabs, eggplant, fish, yogurt, baklava and bulgur. Demiral, a veteran European League player, is quick to credit La Jolla boys head coach Paul Baranowski with the opportunity to coach. Baranowski, who hasn’t “yet” visited the land of his assistant’s origin, would seem to be an appropriate tutor, considering his general awareness of other cultures and their affairs. Huseyin says he didn’t grow up aware of how cosmopolitan his country really is. That came when he began traveling. At 9, he decided to enter Turkey’s national basketball program, which was quite a commitment – think East Germany’s sports machine back in Cold War days – and ended up playing for both the country’s national team and pro teams in the European League, including Tuborg Pilsener SC. “I call Turkish people as Mediterranean,” says the gentle 37-year-old, who supports his family in private business when he’s not coaching. “I call them ‘warm-blooded.’ They are friendly. If you go to Turkey and you have a question, you have not one person but 10 who are there. They may not know the answer, but they will stay and talk with you and try to help you.” Demiral and his wife Candan have two sons, Jon, 11, and Demir, 9. Demiral describes Istanbul, his capital city, in glowing terms. “You have 2,000 years of history,” he says. He and Baranowski mention Turkey as a cradle of civilization. It definitely is a crossroads and flashpoint for international issues, with all the good and the difficult that that represents with the implosion of neighboring Syria in a five-year civil conflict. On the bench at varsity games, the demeanor of “Coach D” is very low key. During timeouts, after team huddles, he may counsel Viking big man Alex Pitrofsky on getting to the low post position before Tommy Rutherford of Grossmont can get there in a preseason scrimmage to gain a defensive position. But Demiral doesn’t confine himself to working with the La Jolla big men. In his active career in Europe, he played outside and at the post, so he is knowledgeable on these aspects as well.
This season, he’ll bear different responsibilities by serving as head freshman boys coach in the Viking basketball program.
“I’ve been in their position. I was a player,” says Demiral. “I want to show them a way they can get out of a situation” or to do something more effectively.
“Since I was a player too, I want to put myself in my players’ shoes and do what’s best for them.”
As far as advising his players on life, he says, “I’ve always been a reader. You can be really good at anything. But if you’re not filling yourself up with knowledge, something will be missing. You need to research and find out more” about the particular area of expertise. “You need to read. You need to travel and observe different cultures and different ways of doing things. You have to be curious and experience different things.”
He and Candan married in Turkey, but he said he chose to bring his family here so that his sons would have opportunities they wouldn’t have had back home.
He describes his experience growing up in the national basketball program in his country. “You can be a good player,” he says, “or you can be a great player. There is a fine line. When I committed to the national program, I took it seriously. I practiced every day. That includes weekends. Then it went to two practices a day. When I was 11 or 12, I knew I had a future as a basketball player.” Demiral thus redoubled his commitment.
“The biggest difference between Europe and here,” Demiral says, “is that there you play basketball all the time. You’re going to school meanwhile. If you have an exam at school at the same time as a basketball commitment, you don’t take the exam.”