Leaving a Legacy

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Looking back on his long and distinguished athletic career, the accomplishment that Chris Marlowe is perhaps most proud of is helping the Palisades High boys basketball team to its first and only City Section championship in 1969 under coach Jerry Marvin. He still remembers the final versus Reseda like it was yesterday.

“That was a major achievement because volleyball wasn’t a sanctioned sport yet, but basketball was,” Marlowe recalled while reminiscing about the good old days before Sunday’s City Hall of Fame Induction ceremony at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Culver City. “We’d lost to them in the regular season when we had three guys out with the flu. I scored my career high of 31 points and we beat them by 27, which was the largest margin of victory in the finals. I played forward. We weren’t blessed with great athletic talent but we were all good friends, we ran our offense, we didn’t turn the ball over and we excelled at grinding teams down. That was the most gratifying win I’ve ever had, maybe because it was my first championship. It was so special.”     

Now the play-by-play announcer for the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, Marlowe grew up near Paul Revere Middle School and was a two-sport star at Palisades, also winning three volleyball titles under Howard Enstedt. As one of four Pali High alums in the 2017 Hall of Fame class—and the only one to attend  Sunday, the 65-year-old paid homage to his mentor in his acceptance speech.

“At that time most people didn’t know a volleyball from a pineapple,” Marlowe joked. “I won volleyball titles in ‘67, ‘68 and ‘69 and I want to thank Howard for getting me started.”     

Marlowe went on to play at San Diego State, where he was the starting setter on the Aztecs’ 1973 NCAA championship team. Twice he was voted USA Volleyball’s MVP and captured eight beach volleyball titles, including two Manhattan Beach Opens. He also captained the USA’s gold-medal men’s volleyball team at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Enshrined along with Marlowe were two other Palisades volleyball players: Tauna Vandeweghe (Class of ‘77) and Ricci Luyties (Class of ‘80).

A native Palisadian, Luyties won seven pro beach volleyball titles. He was City Player of the Year and led the Dolphins to back-to-back City finals before moving on to UCLA, where he helped the Bruins win four straight national titles. He was a member of the USA’s 1988 gold-medal winning indoor team.

Vandeweghe was a backstroker on the 1976 U.S. Olympic team and went on to swim and play volleyball at UCLA. She was an alternate on the silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic volleyball squad in 1984. She played volleyball at Pali High under coach Gayle Van Meter. Her older brother Kiki was a basketball star at Pali High, UCLA and in the NBA from 1980-93.

Video highlights were shown of each inductee, one of whom was Steve Kerr, who grew up in the Palisades, played baseball and basketball at Pali High and continued  his basketball career under Lute Olson at the University of Arizona. He played 15 seasons in the NBA, winning three titles with the Chicago Bulls and two with the San Antonio Spurs, retiring in 2003 as the league’s all-time leader in career three-point shooting percentage (.454). He became a TNT analyst and is now the Golden State Warriors’ head coach.

The most recognizable football inductee was USC and NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson, who remembered playing for Dolphins coach Jack Epstein his junior year before transferring to Dorsey, near his home in South Central LA.

“He was an old-school kind of coach and he had me playing everywhere,” Johnson said. “I was a 170-pound inside linebacker, corner and safety. I only played defense at Pali. For a kid who grew up in the inner city hearing helicopters every night, the Palisades just wasn’t for me.”

Pali High Assistant Principal Russ Howard was then Epstein’s defensive coordinator and shared his best memory of Johnson: “We ran a 4-4, it was the only corner blitz I’ve ever called and … boom! Keyshawn hit the Fairfax quarterback. That was one great sack!”

Also among the 44 inductees Sunday was current Pali High tennis coach Bud Kling, who has piloted the Dolphins to 42 City crowns (25 boys, 17 girls) since taking over the program in 1979.  He is closing in on the state record for career victories and is the winningest coach in any sport in City history. In his acceptance speech the longtime Palisades resident acknowledged his wife Cheryl and kids Ryan and Alex, both of whom played for him at Pali High.

“I want to thank my assistant coaches and all my players, past and present,” Kling said. “My greatest pleasure is seeing them succeed as adults.”

Kling remembered Marlowe sitting in the bleachers in the Pali High gym years after he had graduated, working on his craft with a microphone and tape recorder.   

This year’s honorees join past Pali High inductees Amy Alcott (golf), Kiki Vandeweghe (basketball) Kent Steffes (volleyball) and Randy Stoklos (volleyball).