David Gadelha may have stumbled upon his career by accident but the way he has been promoted up the ranks ever since has not. He was recently appointed Senior Recreation Director at the Palisades Recreation Center’a promotion he almost didn’t accept. ‘I had been working at Barrington Rec Center for four years and I was very happy there,’ Gadelha says. ‘We accomplished some great things there and started some very successful programs. In fact, about 20 or 25 percent of my basketball coaches lived in the Palisades and they all encouraged me to come over here when the opportunity came up. This is a real sports-oriented town with a lot of community support. The new gym and new fields are proof of that.’ Since he replaced Cheryl Gray in mid-June, Gadelha has devoted most of his time and energy to organizing and initiating Pali’s upcoming fall programs. One thing he has added already is a 5 & 6-year-old basketball league.’I only started full-time at Pali last week,’ he says. ‘Before that, I was back and forth between there and Barrington. I can take a lot of what worked at Barrington and implement it here because the communities are very similar. We had a great 5/6 league at Barrington last winter. We had 17 teams.’ Gadelha moved from Venice to Redondo Beach two years ago. He grew up in Santa Monica, played baseball at St. Monica High and went on to attend UCLA. It was while earning a degree there in sociology that he got his first job with the City. ‘At the mid-point of my freshman year I was broke so I looked at the job board and saw a part-time position available at Westwood Park so I took it.’ A year in computer sales did not satisfy Gadelha’s sports fix, so he went through civil service to find a job as Recreation Coordinator at Rustic Canyon in 1997. ‘I come from a single-parent family,’ Gadelha says. ‘I was raised by my mother and sports really filled the void I felt. I played football, baseball and basketball growing up. I even remember playing Corpus Christi in our school league. I was a pretty good catcher but I tore my ACL my freshman year so after that I had to play first base and outfield.’ A big-time Lakers, Dodgers and Bruins fan, Gadelha says one of the coaches he admires most is UCLA’s legendary basketball coach John Wooden. ‘I use his ‘Woodenisms’ all the time and I can quote many of the poems out of his book on a dime.’ Regarding the Lakers’ plight, he says: ‘I like [General Manager] Mitch Kupchak. His son played at Barrington Park when I was there. I’m more of a Shaquille [O’Neal] fan than a Kobe [Bryant] fan but it’s clear to me that Jerry Buss thinks Kobe is the future.’ Gadelha says the large gym at the Rec Center is supposed to reopen October 19. While overseeing that is his immediate goal, he also plans to get more local schools involved in programs at the park, implement a basketball skills challenge, increase numbers in the T-ball, five-pitch baseball and minor/major junior basketball leagues.
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