Despite Losing His Home He Decides to Continue Doing What He Loves
By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
When he sadly lost his home in the Palisades Fire it would have been easy for Bud Kling to call it a career. He has been coaching the Palisades High tennis team for nearly five decades and is already the winningest prep coach in California history, racking up over 1,450 victories and 52 section titles.
Yet, Kling is not quitting just yet, not after nearly all of his most cherished possessions were lost in the blaze, leaving him nothing but memories—and fond ones at that.
“It’s depressing,” he said after driving though his neighborhood and seeing utter devastation. There was not much left of his house on the corner of Oreo Place and Las Lomas, where he and his wife Cheryl had lived since 1982 (that includes two remodels) and raised two kids. “The chimney’s still there, the fountain and front steps made it, but that’s about it. It’s staggering—43 years worth of stuff up in smoke.”
An Olympic pin collector and trader, Kling has been to almost every Olympiad since 1984 and through the years he had acquired thousands of pins and 19 Olympic torches, a number that has been reduced to two—one he ran with from the 2020 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and a replacement friends gave him from the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
“That was one of my hobbies I devoted my time to and when all that disappeared,” he confessed. “I was set to retire in November. I’d decided to coach the boys this spring and the girls in the fall but that was gonna be it. So this happening could end up delaying my retirement a few years.”
Many 77-year-olds have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, but not Kling. He remains as active as ever, playing bocce and feeding balls to his players on the court at practice. In fact, he was playing a game of bocce at Veterans Gardens the morning of January 7 when he looked up to see a billow a smoke in the sky and rushed home.
“By the time I got home there were already three news stations up there filing and we all sat and watched it for awhile. All of a sudden there was a huge wall of flame above Shadow Mountain and then I knew there was a chance it might reach us. Evacuation orders came at 3:10 and I was gone at 3:20.”
“We basically grabbed two or three days’ worth of stuff, t-shirts, shorts, tennis shoes and our dog Leia and left,” said Kling, who did not know how serious the threat was at the time. “I lost the beamer but oh well. We had lots of family pictures on the fridge and I wish I’d taken a few seconds to sweep them into a bag.”
Among the treasure trove of personal items Kling left behind were some of his most prized possessions: all of his tennis trophies, Olympic torches, hats, framed pin sets, signed posters, collectibles, UCLA paraphernalia, art, photo albums, most of his wardrobe and an autographed LA Kings jersey.
While staying overnight at a friend’s place in Marina del Rey, Kling was able to monitor his house via satellite images on CAL FIRE – CA.gov and it was intact.
“The first day the fire burned in the shape of a lowercase ‘n’ so everything was okay, but then the wind changed and blew it over our area. We were holding out hope. A friend took a video the second day (Wednesday) and there’s a fire hydrant in front of our house but there was no water pressure so the people gave up. Had it worked our house may have survived. There are eight houses on our street and all but one of them burned down.”
In addition to losig his hobbies, Kling opted to keep coaching for another reason: he thinks back to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remember how imnportant it was that we keep the program going at that time and I felt this was a similar situation. I don’t want kids to be denied an opportunity to play. We had two boys transfer to other schools but everyone else stayed on the team. Obviously we can’t use the Pali Rec courts so we’ve been practicing at two parks close by on the westside. The parents have been super supportive through this and so has Mike Tomas at the PTC.”
Kling hopes that despite the added challenges the boys squad can continue its dynasty. The Dolphins have captured 15 consecutive section titles—the longest active streak by any team in the City. Since he took over the boys program during the playoffs in 1979, Kling has led Palisades to 31 boys crowns. He started coaching the girls in 1985 and has guided them to 21 titles in two stints.
Kling has received numerous honors in his legendary career, including being named state coach of the year twice. Two and a half years ago he received perhaps his most prestigious accolade yet, being inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony at American Jewish University on Mulholland Drive in Bel Air. He was inducted into the City Section Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017 and many of his players have gone on to play at the college and even professional level. His teams have won four boys national championships and he has won at around a 90 percent clip over his storied career.
Kling started at Palisades as a substitute teacher in January 1977 and became a full-time staff member eight months later. Previously he had been coaching football at nearby University High. He has also coached varsity football, girls basketball and sponsored the cheer and spirit squad. He attended Emerson Junior High in Los Angeles and earnedd his undergraduate and master’s degrees from UCLA in 1969 and 1972, respectively.
The list of All-CIF players he has coached is endless and includes Scott Davis, Danny Westerman, Artin Tafazoli, Jake Sands and now Lorenzo Brunkow, a UC Santa Barbara commit.
In 2014, according to Cal-Hi Sports records, Kling reached a milestone with win No. 1,246—surpassing the career total of Robbin Adair, who coached the Coronado boys for 40 seasons and the girls for 33 before retiring in 2007 with 1,222 dual match victories and 1,245 overall. The state mark for wins in all sports (1,666) is held by water polo/swim coach Brent Bohlender of Modesto.
For perspective, Kling owns more City titles than all but eight schools in the section.
Kling’s adult children Alex and Ryan, both of whom played for him at Pali High, have set up a GoFundMe page for their parents, who are now living in a condo in the Marina Peninsula, having just signed a one-year lease.
Kling ran into several people he knew retrieving his mail at the post office branch in Rancho Park and missed the close-knit feel of the Palisades.
“This is uncharted water for us but we’re learning along with everyone else,” Kling said. “I try to keep a positive attitude and do whatever I can to help others. Who knows how long it’ll be before we can rebuild… two and a half, three years? We’ll see. I like where we’re living, it’s close to a Costco and a Trader Joe’s , but I miss the Palisades already. I have so many friends there and I’d never have to leave town. Everything I needed was there. We haven’t decided whether to rebuild, then sell it and buy something smaller but we’re going to rebuild and it’s highly unlikely that we wouldn’t live in it.”
