Girls BB: Ventura vs Buena: The Ultimate Rivalry

By Erik Woods

How "hot " can a true rivalry get? Maybe legendary Laker James Worthy said it best when describing his battles against his dreaded Celtics, "If those guys in Boston were covered in gasoline and I had a match in my hand, well, u know."

That's the Cougars vs Bulldogs rivalry that exists in the small 100,000 person city of San Buena-Ventura. We just call it "The Game" and it's gone on since Buena High opened in 1961.

It's been 28 years since I played boys basketball for Ventura High, since we fought vs Buena my senior year in 1989, and I still wake up occasionally in a cold sweat wondering, "How we could I've found a way to beat Buena more often?"

You can laugh, I don't blame you, but rivalry wins you feel and they exhilarate you, your losses just stay with you more.

Jamaal Wilkes, UCLA and Laker legend, is Ventura Cougar royalty to me. Jamaal and I were hanging out watching his boy play one day and I asked him how bad did you want to beat Buena? Jamaal just gave me this look, that everyone who has played in that rivalry has........"the look" doesn't need words.

How bad does a wolf want to escape the trap it's paw is stuck in, how bad does a mama bear want to protect it's young?

All us players from both programs wanted to beat each other's team so bad, hours leading to the game felt like days. Actual travel from Ventura to Buena is only like some 4 odd miles, but the ride seemed to take hours; the sleepless nights leading up to "the game" in anticipation, eternal.

You look over at your frenzied teammates on the bus to that game, them "pounding their fists, they seem like monsters", the embodiment of "wild things" from Maurice Sendek's, Where The Wild Things Are, “And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes."

Back then, our team wasn't even that close knit my senior year, no band of brothers In 1989 for us. I don't think we even liked each other that much but we came together like brothers in a common mission; we had to beat "that other school."

You'd look into the face of your teammate and you'd see an an incarnation of Mike Tyson as he once quipped, "My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children."

Yep, that sums up how bad you want to beat Buena, how bad they wanted to beat us!

It's like every kid before the game had busted open a can of Mountain Dew, Cheery Kickstart, their uniform rips away to see them becoming Russell Westbrook, wearing a green suit, varsity players "gliding across the court" and straight through a wall like from the TV commercial.

Boys become men, girls became women, as they transformed into "Russell Rage", we get superhuman powers coursing through blood, veins bulge out of our neck to show how bad you want "winning time", because you refuse being associated with "losing time."

Bragging rights, that's what it's all about.

Jeff Oliver, the world knows him as this successful head coach of Cal St San Bernardino, I respect him but he'll always be "that guy" who I went to Anacapa Middle school with.

Jeff grew up down the street from me, he was a star at Buena, which made me like him even less. To me he was the evil villain "Bane, our archrival" because we thought our team was Batman. It runs that deep, painfully deep.

Back in 89' I used to help our girls Ventura varsity team get ready for their state playoff run. They were headed to play against Lisa Leslie, who had already scored like more than 100 points in a single half of basketball (before the other team walked out).

Coach Rex Kochel thought I would approximate how Leslie would play against his girls, so he invited me to practice with them, to prep them for the challenge. I asked the girls from Ventura if "They’d rather beat Lisa Leslie and win a state title or beat Buena instead."

They just gave me "the look."

Bragging rights between Ventura and Buena, it gets chippy man. In 1999 I was playing with Buena High senior Kelly Greathouse, best girl I ever played with. Kelly, at six foot three, was as beautiful on the inside as she was in the outside.

In 99', she was a top 10 recruit in the nation, parade All American, fluttery jumper, yet beast inside game if you ever saw her play. Kelly and I were playing "pick up ball" at the local gym when I made a rivalry faux pas, "Don't bring that 'weak Buena stuff in here' Kelly”.

Oh yes she did, elbows flying in my face and all, so I told her, "Watch out on the other end Kelly, I don't normally dunk on girls, but since you're from Buena, I'll make an exception." We could laugh about it now, but it gets chippy bro.

I've learned over the years that you can love and get along with ball players from Buena, it's like you have to, because Ventura isn't that big a town. My brother Keith is from Buena, he played there, I had to clap for him, so I guess I was clapping for Buena.

My wife Marie taught Spanish at Ventura high. Would those two never speak to each other other because they went to rival schools, nah. But they never had to play vs each other in "the game" either.

Us from Ventura, wearing black and gold, those from Buena, wearing white and blue - we had to learn to "coexist" with each other. Good advice is just try not to bring up bad losses, or great wins, lest the knives come out.

One of my best buds is named Roosevelt Bolden. "Roo" starred at Buena in the late 90s. He has "dope game." How dope? His handles are like Rafer "skip to my Lou" Alston. Bolden went to Ventura College like Rafer did.

I did an interview with Rafer when I covered the And One Mix Tape Tour, which Bolden was invited to be a part of. Yep, they both have elite handles, though I wish "Roo" had taken his talents to Ventura High to be honest.

Roosevelt Bolden now helps coach the Camarillo boys varsity because his "heart is with the kids." We play ball at the 24 hr Fitness a lot. I set him a big 6-5 250 lb screen, he shoots lights out and redefines what great dribbling and passing can be.

Roo and I constitute the "yin and the yang" of Ventura and Buena. If two guys from rival programs can play together, than Peace in the Middle East must be possible in the future.

I wanted to relate how great this rivalry is to the reader because one must know just how crazy this rivalry is, it's like "off the charts insane."

I was told that I had to see the Grand Canyon before I die, if you want to see the best blood rivalry, "Hatfield and McCoy style", than make a pilgrimage to see this game, it can't be described, only felt.

As a youngster, before the "big game" there was always a prank, something surreal that one student went over to the other team’s school to do. Like at UCLA vs USC, Tommy the Trojan must be wrapped in tape to protect him.

Our year, it was a Buena Bulldog throwing blue paint on someone's car I think. The pranks were always something outlandish, insane, something to earn school boy legend status.

How much passion was put in me when I was at Ventura? I remember my JV coach, Dave Meyers, showing us inspirational videos of the special-ed kids he serviced as a teacher, that stuck with me for years.

In 2005, I did a story to help Ventura’s Mike Lizzaraga be recruited by Cal St Northridge. Mike was deaf but I told the CSUN coaches how Mike could contribute and become only the 2nd hearing impaired person to play D1 ball.

I saved my last remembrance of those days for something special.

There is a person who supremely inspired me, his name is Rolando Martinez. He graduated from Buena in the class of 1989. Rolando had the heart of a lion. He was tough, yet charismatic like few others.

He has won Masters State tourney as a wrestling champ for Buena and was one of my all time best buds. We dreamed of graduating college together, living a tremendous "full life."

But, this innocent cool soul was violently and senselessly killed in his Cabrillo Village neighborhood as we were about to transfer out of Ventura College together. Much of my 21 year career as a teacher, I've dedicated to him, a great guy that will never be forgotten.

As I cover "this rivalry" game tonight, I'll be wearing a baby powder blue foamposite on my right foot, because Rolando was my right hand man, and a black and gold foamposite shoe on my left foot to rep my Cougar pride.

The "yin and yang" of "the game"as Confucius illustrates in the circle with a both colors represented, inseparable, yet forever in your heart.

Those of us lucky enough will always remember "the game!"

We’ll have a report later on the girls Ventura-Buena game tonight.