Simi Valley Has No Right to Whine

Coach Dean Bradshaw has the nerve to whine about only one of his Simi Valley High basketball players being named first-team All-Marmonte League? Pulleesse! Is this the coach of the same Pioneer basketball team that was the “heir apparent” to Harvard-Westlake’s dominance of a year ago? The same team that enrolled more blue-chip transfers than UCLA? The same team that received more preseason press, adulation and praise than the L.A. Clippers only to soar to a second-place finish in the Marmonte League? Is this guy lobbying to coach the next U.S. hockey team or what?

Ahhh, maybe he’s right. After all, the poor Pioneers have been getting mistreated all year. First a player transfers to Simi Valley on a hardship, is restricted from play by the Southern Section, and then is reinstated after the ruling is overturned by appeal. Then the Pioneers get defeated not once, not twice, but three times--twice by Newbury Park--in league play.

Then comes the ultimate slap in the face: Simi Valley is the only team from the Marmonte League given a seeding in the playoffs. Imagine that. The Southern Section had the audacity to further insult the Pioneers by seeding them ahead of Marmonte League champion Newbury Park.

The horror of it all.

--TIM HEYNE

Thousand Oaks