‘Center of love is OV’

Before Jim Harris’ eyes gravitate toward the basketball court, he’s looking in the stands prior to a big game.

The pregame preparation and strategy sermons are over, but there’s one last thing to attend to.

Harris wants to make eye contact with his wife, Sandi.

“I’ve had a 30-plus year love affair with this school and basketball, and she is involved in sharing that with me,” Jim Harris said. “Or sharing me with that, however you want to say it. I try to get eye contact with her before a game and give her a signal, just to make sure she knows she’s still foremost on my mind and my heart.”

Even before being a basketball coach, Harris is a family man, but it’s impossible at Ocean View to separate the two.

He wouldn’t have it any other way. Just look at the Seahawks’ coaching staff during a game.

The co-head coach is Jimmy Harris, and no, the name’s not a coincidence. That’s Jim’s son. The associate head coach is Ocean View Athletic Director Tim Walsh, who also played under Harris.

Assistant coach Chris Melton played for Harris. So did the son of assistant coach Dan Johnson. Go to a Ocean View girls’ hoops game and you’ll also see Harris’ influence. The girls’ head coach is his daughter, Kim. His youngest daughter, Kelsey, also played for the Seahawks and was co-Golden West League Player of the Year last year.

“We joke around and say the center of love is OV,” said Shawn Werner, another Ocean View basketball alumnus (class of ’82) who teaches English at Ocean View and coached junior varsity. “It’s like one big family.”

But Jim Harris, in his 31st season at the helm, is the father figure, or maybe grandfather now at 64.

In terms of results, this year also happens to be Harris’ most successful. Ocean View plays Sacred Heart Cathedral in the CIF State Division III championship game at 2:45 p.m. Saturday at Sacramento’s Arco Arena.

Of course, saying this has been the best year would be solely judging his team on wins and losses, and that’s not what Jim Harris is about. Never has been, although his record with the Seahawks is a staggering 618-249.

“Our job is to make them the best team, the best players, with the best values and best character that we can help create,” Harris said. “That’s saying a mouthful, but it’s a huge job. And if you leave out any one of those aspects, it’s a disservice, in my opinion. I see some people who call themselves a coach or a teacher, and I think, ‘What a shame.’ They’re missing out on some great experiences because they don’t think they can give that much.

“It’s like I told the players before the season: ‘Much is expected, and therefore much is required.’ That goes for the coaches, too.”

Ocean View opened in 1976, and the school has never had another basketball coach. Principal Karen Gilden sees what Harris has helped create, not only on the court but in the classroom as a math teacher.

“His influence carries over into building character in young people, and helping kids get connected to the school in whatever way they can,” Gilden said. “He’s a role model and truly a man of character. Just start to finish, he supports kids in what they want to do.”

The team is part of the Harris family — and the Harris family is part of the team. Jim can remember when Jimmy was young, and how he would always hang around the practices. Jimmy has four sisters, but he said he always felt like he had brothers because of his involvement with Ocean View basketball.

Now it’s Jimmy’s son Jackson, 6, who hangs around.

“It’s the greatest thing for me to watch, because he looks just like his dad when he was little,” Jim Harris said. “He’s so happy to be in there where the action is, running around and chasing the ball and being friendly with the players. He only comes up to their kneecap. It just becomes an extended family.”

Before Kim coached the girls’ team, it was Jim who did it for five years in what assistant coach Johnson called a “labor of love.” Jim Harris had to work even harder to coach both teams, on top of teaching. Coaching both the boys’ and girls’ programs is relatively unheard of in high school hoops, but then again not every coach is a Harris.

The family aspect is why so many alumni come back to watch Seahawks games, especially during the playoffs. But, at times, it has caused controversy. In the mid-1980s, Harris invited two players, Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely, to live with him when they needed a place to stay. The CIF ruled that Harris had used undue influence, and Harris was fired as coach. Eventually, though, he was reinstated.

Bill Gibbons remembers the situation well. He’s a history teacher at Ocean View, and the former baseball coach is also the only other teacher besides Harris who has been at the school since it opened.

“You can look at that situation two ways,” Gibbons said. “Without him giving them stability, they probably would have been out on the street. Both of them gave Jim Harris credit for stabilizing their lives. That speaks volumes right there. That’s not a guy who uses kids and who just tosses them out. We talk about a legacy and that’s more important, probably, than wins and losses.”

Fast forward to a different time, this one much more recent. It was after the Seahawks won their second CIF title in the program’s history, besting Inglewood in the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA championship game March 7.

Jim Harris started to tear up as he thought about his father, James, who passed away last July.

“Everybody appreciates a hard worker, and what happens from that,” Jim Harris said. “But also, in this world, if you’re not a server, if you’re not giving, then you’ve got the wrong purpose. You don’t get it if you’re a taker. I think my dad taught us that. I think he would have been — I think he is — just as joyful as we are.

“You don’t have to do any of this, you don’t have to win a state championship to be successful or love what you do. But, I think, it’s not that we deserve it, but it’s kind of like we earned it ... For us to be in the right time and the right place and have the right mix of players, it’s magical and we all should so joyful and thankful. I know he is.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].