Mira Costa's McIver Shows He Can Do It All

By Eric Sondheimer

Feb. 28, 2003 12 AM PT

Someone should present Gregor McIver of Manhattan Beach Mira Costa with a phone booth for his birthday so he’ll be able to change uniforms as fast as Clark Kent.

McIver had nine interceptions as an All-Southern Section free safety for the Mustang football team. He led the soccer team in scoring with 11 goals. Now he’s playing volleyball for the two-time defending Division II champions.

As if playing three sports at Mira Costa wasn’t enough, McIver has a 4.2 grade-point average, scored 1,240 on the SAT and is a walking billboard for the sporting goods industry.

“I’ve got bags piled up with all different kinds of uniforms,” he said. “I’ve got football cleats, soccer cleats, volleyball shoes, sandals and regular shoes.”

He also has skateboards, snowboards, surfboards and every other kind of board.

He’s a rare combination of jock, nerd and surfer dude who gets along with everybody.

“All the football guys call me a communist for playing soccer,” he said. “The soccer players call me meathead. The volleyball players don’t say anything.”

The football, soccer and volleyball coaches at Mira Costa learned to share McIver so he’d be able to play each season. It made for some hectic summers, particularly when club practices were factored in. Friends wondered if he was in over his head.

“They think I’m nuts,” he said. “They don’t see how I do it.”

The question is how much sleep McIver gets between juggling three sports, earning mostly A’s in school and finding time to surf. On a recent day when school was out, McIver was sound asleep at 11 a.m.

“Most of the time, I’ve got to be doing something every minute of the day,” he said. “I just never wanted to quit. I want to do as much as I can because I know once high school is done, you won’t get to do it again.”

Soccer Coach Gary Smith admires the way McIver has approached his teenage years.

“He’s really mellow,” Smith said. “He doesn’t appear to be too stressed about anything.”

McIver, at 6 feet, 165 pounds, used speed and athleticism to help Mira Costa’s soccer team, which was 1-5-1 while he played football, to 10-6-2 with him as a midfielder.

“During games, he turns it on and covers so much ground with his long strides and is so aggressive,” Smith said. “He shields the ball so well.”

McIver was a back-row specialist for the championship volleyball team last season.

“He’s wonderful,” Coach Mike Cook said. “He’s very polite, very energetic.”

Soccer is the sport McIver will probably play in college. He has applied to several schools and will pick the one that makes him happiest.

In reality, it doesn’t matter where he goes to college. If it’s in Colorado, he’ll bring along his snowboard. If it’s in Santa Barbara, his surfboard will get plenty of use. Ditto for the skateboard.

And, if any of his professors want a quick rundown on McIver’s character, all they need to do is check his sports resume.

“I know how to keep a commitment,” he said.

Don’t look for Bob Johnson, the veteran football coach at Mission Viejo, to be fired because his team used a doctored football in the Division II championship game against Newhall Hart in December.

But Johnson and his school have some explaining to do for the apparently brazen attempt to ignore the Southern Section rule requiring use of the Spalding football.

Sixteen other schools violated the section’s ball requirement during the football playoffs but received no punishment after promising not to repeat their error.

What makes Mission Viejo’s violation more serious is that deception was involved. Someone altered the label of a Wilson football to make it look like a Spalding football in the championship game at Edison Field.

“It centers around ethics and the issue of disguising a football,” Commissioner Jim Staunton said.

Principal Marilyn McDowell called the rule violation “regrettable.” She declined to discuss specifics until she completes an investigation and presents her report to the Southern Section’s executive committee in April. She said Johnson has agreed to make sure the violation does not happen again.

The incident is a direct rebuke to the section’s three-year-old “Character Counts” campaign that Mission Viejo and other schools have embraced.

It should be used as a teaching example of what is not acceptable.

Jonny Wilson of Calabasas might be the comeback player of the year in basketball. He had surgery in June to repair three holes in his heart. He sat out all summer and reached peak form in the playoffs, scoring 38 points in the Coyotes’ first-round victory last week.

The surgery improved the 6-foot-4 senior’s endurance and strength.

He averaged 11.7 points this season, and his best days are clearly ahead.

Eric Sondheimer can be reached at [email protected]