On the Rebound : Coaching Basketball Team at Santa Ana Valley Helps Prospero Put His Life Back Together After Father’s Death

SANTA ANA — It was Friday night, game night.

About the last place Rich Prospero wanted to be was in a gymnasium. Any gymnasium really, but especially the one at Santa Ana Valley High School, where he would actually have to coach a basketball team.

That day, his father had been buried. A 14-month ordeal was over. Prospero’s thoughts and emotions were beyond his control.

Why am I here? Was the score really 18-1? Were we losing that bad? Did it really matter?

“I was just sitting there trying to hold my head up,” Prospero said. “You only have one dad and you only lose him once. I didn’t know if I should be there or not. I didn’t know what to think.”

Gradually, the Falcons--who had been at the funeral that day--began to stir. Gradually, Prospero became more and more animated on the sideline, until he was actually coaching.

Santa Ana Valley closed the gap, struggling all the way, and finally won the game.

An emotional frenzy followed. Players hugged, some cried. One even tackled Prospero, yelling, “We did it, coach. We did it, coach.”

Prospero, drained and still confused, managed a small smile.

“Winning that game really helped . . . a lot,” he said.

For Prospero, these things tend to run day-to-day, even minute-to-minute.

There are times when he can lose himself in this sport, set the defense, call the inbound play, just coach--the thing he loves most. Then there are times when life gives him another tap on the solar plexus.

“There is a reason for everything,” Prospero said. “My dad got sick for a reason. I must have heard that 100 times. It didn’t make me cry any less. Why did it happen? I don’t know. But I guess there was a reason. There are reasons why I’m at Valley now.”

The Falcons’ first-year coach has traveled a bumpy road to get to Santa Ana Valley.

Three years ago, he salvaged the Chapman College men’s basketball program, when mutiny was in the air. Kevin Wilson, the head coach, was fired one game into the season and the players threatened to boycott unless Prospero, then a 25-year-old assistant coach, was given the job.

Prospero took over, all right, and took control. He also nearly took the Panthers to the NCAA Division II playoffs. For his reward, school officials took Bob Boyd as coach and Prospero went back to being an assistant.

Hey, he could take that. What followed, he almost couldn’t.

In the past two years, Prospero has been through a divorce, bankruptcy, unemployment and, worst of all, his father’s illness and death. A brain tumor disabled Rich Prospero Sr., who needed daily care for more than a year.

Now, Prospero has another salvage job. Himself.

“I’m trying to get myself together,” Prospero said. “It’s going to take some time, but I love coming here each day. I love coaching. Things will work out.”

Things already have, at least on the basketball court.

Santa Ana Valley is 7-9 this season. It’s not a record that will strike fear in an opponent’s heart. But, considering the Falcons won only seven games in the previous two seasons, people are starting to notice.

“Valley has always had the athletes,” Foothill Coach Jim Reames said. “Rich is making the difference. They are more disciplined now.”

Reames should know. Last week, the Falcons beat Foothill in a Century League game for the first time in eight years. Two nights later, on the same day Prospero’s father was buried, they fell behind, 18-1, to Villa Park, then rallied to win, 47-44.

With its victory Wednesday over Canyon, Santa Ana Valley is in second place. Granted, it’s early, but the Falcons have finished last in the league the past two seasons. So let them live a little.

“We can’t get too high over this,” Prospero said. “But getting over hurdles is what it’s all about at Valley. We beat Foothill, that was a hurdle. Then we fell behind big, but we came back. That was another one. There are a lot of hurdles.”

Prospero knows those well, having cleared a few himself.

“The last 10 months alone have seemed like years,” he said. “There’s been a lot of peaks and a lot of valleys.”

In 1988-89, Prospero was on the rise. An assistant under Wilson for two years, he found himself thrust into the head coaching spot.

Wilson was fired after criticizing the Chapman athletic department. First, the school replaced him with Lindsay Strothers, an assistant coach for the Chapman women’s team. However, when the players threatened to boycott games, Prospero was given the job of interim coach.

The Panthers were written off at that point. But they finished 17-12--their most recent winning season--and reached the championship game of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. They lost to UC Riverside, 86-83, in the title game.

“There was a lot of crazy stuff going on that year,” Chapman forward Rog Middleton said. “Rich stepped in and calmed things down. He brought us together. I don’t think he ever got the recognition he deserved that year.”

Whether he did or didn’t, school officials opted to hire Boyd, a former coach at USC and Mississippi State. Prospero was retained as an assistant coach.

Prospero said he had no problems with the arrangement. After all, he was 25 and had only six years’ experience as a coach, most of it as a lower-level coach at Tustin High School.

“Coach Boyd had years and years of experience as a Division I coach,” Prospero said. “He had been in all those battles with UCLA. I felt I could learn from him.”

Prospero stayed as an assistant, but only until December, 1990.

While he was able to adapt and maintain on the court, his life away from basketball was becoming increasingly difficult. His marriage fell apart because, he said, “I became too obsessed with Chapman basketball.”

Then, in November, 1991, his father, a horse breeder, collapsed at Los Alamitos Race Track. On Dec. 1, he underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Prospero missed nearly two weeks of work and, after discussing his situation with Chapman Athletic Director Dave Currey, decided to resign to take care of his father. At one point, he even moved in with his dad.

“Every day, it got a little worse,” Prospero said.

Unemployed, Prospero filed for bankruptcy. By summer, his father needed special care, so the family sold his house in Fullerton and placed him in a home where he could receive private care.

“At that point, I realized I had to do something with myself,” Prospero said.

He attempted to sell cars for a few weeks. Then Estancia Coach Tim O’Brien, a close friend, coaxed him back to basketball. O’Brien arranged for him to become a walk-on assistant for the Eagles.

“I knew he needed to coach,” O’Brien said. “It’s an outlet for him. I think basketball pulled him through.”

Said Prospero: “Tim O’Brien is a 10.”

Prospero worked at Estancia through the summer. Then, in September, he read that Santa Ana Valley was looking for a coach. He called Athletic Director Larry Arason that day and then had a number of people call the principal on his behalf.

He started on Oct. 3, his 28th birthday. The same day, his father had a stroke.

“There wasn’t a lot to be happy about,” Prospero said.

Still, he was working. Besides coaching, he teaches four English classes. Prospero threw himself into the job, trying to make up for lost time.

“It was chaotic at first, because school had already started,” he said. “The kids were used to taking a role, then going off and playing by themselves. Now they had a coach.”

The work has been uphill, at times. After all, the Falcons’ record during the previous two years was 7-32.

A “quick” 2-2 start began to make believers out of opponents and even the Falcon players.

“We’re a different team now,” senior forward Steve Singleton said. “We believe we can win games. Coach has made us believe.”

Getting back into basketball has helped Prospero cope with his personal problems, but not entirely. Last Tuesday, Prospero was called to the hospital because his father had gone into a coma. He died later that day.

Prospero missed most of the week, coming only to the Foothill game. He planned to miss the Villa Park game because of the funeral.

His team changed his mind.

“They came to the funeral,” Prospero said. “They showed a lot of support by being there. I had to show my support by going to the game.

“I’m a firm believer that you’re lucky if you find what you are born to do. I’m born to coach basketball.”

Sometimes, whether he wants to or not.