RD Classic Memory for March 2005

This one I'm sure is remembered by anyone who attended Eldorado High School in Las Vegas during 1985.

The Sundevils' basketball team, led by veteran Las Vegas football and basketball coach Sherrill Stephens, had its best basketball season in school history (which I think still stands to this day...I will research and see if there was a better team than 85). In any event, the Sundevils won the Sunrise Division championship (when there were just ten high schools), and qualified for the Southern Nevada basketball tournament.

Now this may sound a bit weird, but this is how the tournament was played 20 years ago. The final four teams of the tournament qualify for an automatic berth to the state basketball championships. Eldorado was among those teams to qualify. They did lose in a semi-final game to Clark (the memory is a bit fuzzy on which team beat them), but their season was not over.

Eldorado, Clark, Chaparral and I believe Bishop Gorman participated in the state basketball championship at the Las Vegas Convention Center, along with four other teams from Northern Nevada. All four Northern Nevada teams lost, and when the championship game came around, its combatants were two schools that opened at the same time; and plays a football game every year for the Merlin Olsen Cleat (in which Eldorado still possesses today).

Eldorado and Chaparral.

The Cowboys jumped to an early lead, but Eldorado came right back and at one point had a 10-point lead in the game. It was a close game nonetheless, and with about a minute to play in the game, the Sundevils still had a good double-digit lead, and it was known that the game was put in the refrigerator, as the late great Chick Hearn would say. Once the final buzzer sounded, the Convention Center went wild. Sherrill Stephens was in tears, as were some of the Sundevil cheerleaders. Eldorado won its first major sports championship with a 69 to 64 win over the Cowboys, on March 1, 1985.

I often wonder where all of the former Sundevil players are these days. Shawn Herman, the tallest one who could go across the floor and slam dunk anyone, went to Northern Arizona University after high school... I think Shawn could have done well with a Pac-10 school such as USC, UCLA or maybe Arizona State... but he went to NAU instead.

I do know that Coach Stephens, who is 68, is in Arizona now and is a principal of a high school out in Coolidge. I have great respect for Sherrill Stephens... he made winners out of everyone in any sport that he coached, and I will tell you this from first-hand experience: he was a true disciplinarian who expected the best out of anyone, talented or otherwise.

And to those of you who attend High School at Coolidge, I will say this: you have a very good principal in Coach Stephens (yes, I still call him Coach Stephens and always will). He is a very strict principal, but let me tell you one thing: he is approachable, and if you are ever in doubt about anything, he is always there to help.