About that columnist job ...

Hellllo Santa Cruz!

My name is Pete Cafone, we're retired and living in the Lower Ocean neighborhood and heard The Patch was looking for a Santa Cruz Warriors sports columnist. We heard the pay was non-existent but the chance to go to games free was quite a reward. We don't know if they want a cheerleader, an objective observer or a combination of both, but we thought we'd give it the old college try with this introductory offer.

Saturday night while being on "vacation" in landlocked Green Valley, Arizona -- some 855 miles or 12 1/2 hours driving time from Santa Cruz-by-the-Shore -- we were flipping back-and-forth from watching the Sharks-Coyotes and the Cal-LSU NCAA women's basketball games when we decided to see what else we could find on Direct-TV. Lo and behold, up popped an NBA D-League game. We flipped to the channel and there before our very own eyes were the locals playing the Los Angeles D-Fenders in El Segunda.

While we missed most of the game in which Jeremy Tyler came off the bench to score a game-high 31 points, we did see him make his final shot -- a short bank shot that turned a 100-99 deficit into a 101-100 victory (D-Fenders Mike Taylor missed a game-winning attempt from the corner at the end). The win enabled the Warriors to up their record to 32-15 with just three games remaining before the playoffs and left them in the running for top seed in the Western Division. The W's trail the first-place Bakersfield Jam (33-14 after a loss to the Idaho Stampede on Saturday) by just one game with back-to-back games against each other to end the regular season this coming weekend -- Friday in Bakersfield, Saturday back home in the Kaiser Permanente Arena. Last-place Reno (15-31) may actually hold the key because the top two teams visit the Nevada city before the weekend finale -- the Jam on Monday night and the W's on Tuesday night.

Before we went away, we saw eight games in the Arena just by walking over the Broadway bridge from our Clay Street address for a night of fine entertainment. We became enamored with the Warriors from the time Santa Cruz officials started talking back in the fall about joining forces with the Golden State Warriors, re-locating the D-League team here from Bismarck, N.D., and then building an arena in just three months. It brought this 67-year-young ex-journalist back to his youth.

A 44-year newspaper career that ended in 2009 after 27 years with first the "good" San Francisco Examiner, then the San Francisco Chronicle -- they gave us an offer we couldn't refuse: Take a buyout or say bye bye -- had it seeds sown in 1960. That's when Pete Cafone was a 15-year-old high school sophomore and went to see his first NBA game at Convention Hall in Philadelphia -- Warriors rookie Wilt Chamberlain against the Celtics second-year center Bill Russell of University of San Francisco fame. Yes the same Philadelphia Warriors that are now the Golden State Warriors, the parent company of the Santa Cruz Warriors (now that's a mouthful).

For the final three years of high school, we went to an NBA game now and then, but on weekends we went to see the Eastern Basketball League -- the granddaddy of pro basketball minor leagues -- almost every Saturday and Sunday night to either Trenton, N.J., to watch the Colonials or to Camden, N.J., to watch the Bullets, who were across the Delaware River (the one George Washington use to cross) from the Philadelphia Warriors and their farm team. There were plenty of good players in the league including NBA Hall of Famer Paul Arizin, who refused to go West when the Warriors moved to San Francisco following the 1962 season (the year Chamberlain had his 100-point game -- but that's a story for another day). So when the minor-league Warriors and the D-League came to Santa Cruz, it was only natural we would find an interest.

Throughout high school we were a sports correspondent and writer for a weekly newspaper, then went off to Rutgers University in New Brunswick in 1963 for a two-year stint. Jimmy Valvano was a classmate, one of the Scarlet Knights basketball stars, a good interview and a tough opponnent in 2-on-2 games in which we got to participate during interview sessions at the gym. The highlight of 1965 was when Princeton and Bill Bradley (later a Rhodes Scholar, NBA star with the Knicks and U.S. Senator from New Jersey) came to Rutgers for their lone visit and scored 35 points to send the Knights down to defeat. (Incidentally, that was the last time before this year Wichita State made a Final Four appearance. Against the Shockers, Bradley scored an NCAA Final Four single-game record 58 points and the Tigers won the then 3rd-place game 118-82. Despite not winning the championship, Bradley took MVP honors with a two-game record 87 points with 29 in a loss to Michigan, which won 80-78 on Cazzie Russell's last-second shot in the semifinals).

We left Rutgers after two years and started our permanent newspaper career with the Burlington (N.J.) County Times. At 19 years old and four years after seeing Chamberlain play for the first time, we became the beat writer covering the Philadelphia 76ers, whose star was now Wilt. The Sixers had been the Nationals in Syracuse and moved to Philly in 1963 to replace the departed Warriors; Chamberlain had been traded to them from the Warriors. After a brief stay at the Burlington County paper, we moved to a bigger paper in early 1967 -- the Camden (N.J.) Courier-Post. Once again we became the 76ers beat writer when the sportswriter covering the team left the Courier and we got the job by default because no one else on the staff liked the NBA or pro basketball.

We got to cover the team for five years at the Courier, including the 76ers championship run in 1966-67. Although we got to go on several road trips, San Francisco was too far away and a trip too costly, and we didn't get to see the 76ers beat the Warriors 123-122 in Game 6 to win the championship at the Cow Palace. Then 21, it would take me 15 more years to get to the elusive Left Coast at the age of 36, and here we have stayed the past 31 years (except for a three-year journey).

After six years at the Courier-Post as a sports writer, copy editor and designer (term now used -- in those days: layout man or makeup man), we moved to the big leagues -- to the Philadelphia Bulletin as a high school and auto racing writer, designer and copy editor and stayed there for nine years until it folded in 1982 and I wound up in San Francisco at The Examiner. My 15 seconds of fame came as a copy editor at the Bulletin when I read Jack Chevalier's "Bullies of Broad Street" in his copy on a Flyers' victory and put it in a headline for the first time: "Broad Street Bullies outmuscle Atlanta". The nickname has stuck ever since. We remain a Flyers fan and our greatest moment in sports came when the Flyers beat the Boston Bruins 1-0 to win their first Stanley Cup in 1974. But we have adopted the San Jose Sharks as our second favorite hockey team, following them from their inception just as we are doing with the SC W's. It's the same with all the Bay Area's teams -- they are our second (and third when it comes to Oakland) favorite teams in each sport. You can leave Philly, but you can't take leave of the Philly teams as No. 1. Of course, the Santa Cruz Warriors are a different story although one might say their roots started in Philadelphia.

In 1996 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the league, the NBA picked the 50 Greatest Players of all-time. We are happy to say we have personally seen 49 of the 50 play in a game, the last Shaquille O'Neal. The only one we missed was Joe Fulks, who retired from the Warriors in 1954, six years before we made our "NBA debut." Other highlights included seeing George McGinnis and Julius "Dr. J" Erving move from the ABA and make their 76ers debuts in back-to-back years, and Lakers rookie Magic Johnson replace an injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center in Game 6 of the 1980 Finals and have one of the greatest games of all time. He played center, forward and guard at different times during the game in Philadelphia and became the only rookie ever to win NBA Finals MVP. Magic scored 42 points, pulled down 15 rebounds, got 7 assists and had 3 steals in a 123–107 victory over the 76ers in the game that won the title.

After our retirement, we drove across country six times in three years (2009-2011) visiting many baseball ballparks, other sports venues, national parks, friends and relatives throughout the United States. Much of the time on the road was once again spent at the Jersey Shore, where we spent many of our Philly summers in Wildwood or -- as a boy -- Surf City and Ship Bottom, where Ron Jon Surf Shop got its start in 1959 in a small one-room building. So it was only fitting that when we decided to settle down last May, we picked Surf City on the Left Coast -- Santa Cruz -- a Jersey Shore-like town with no winter and no hot, humid summer. A perfect place all year round.

Although we never knew personally either Santa Cruz police detectives Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker or Elizabeth Butler, both of whom the Warriors recently honored by hanging jerseys at Kaiser Permanente Arena with their retired badge numbers, we were saddened by the tragedy as much as longtime residents.

We feel about Santa Cruz the way Elizabeth once said (from an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel):

"I enjoy living ... in Santa Cruz because one can enjoy the ocean, the mountains, interesting people, and a healthy lifestyle all in one spot."

Two of the things we would add to her description is that there is a lovely non-commercial river walk, and that those mountains are covered with redwood forests, something you certainly don't see back East. Three of the things she enjoyed are three of the things we enjoy as well -- hiking, walking on the beach and the view at night of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. We may have come to Santa Cruz later in life, but it's the place we want to be.

And the Santa Cruz Warriors are just another benefit. We hope to land this new gig and provide you with insightful and entertaining "stuff" -- if not in the near future, then next season.