Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week: Steve Whittaker - Mr. Downtown

Tony Altobelli

John Wayne said it best when he said, “When you fall off a horse,

pilgrim, you better get right back on.”

So is the life of a three-point shooter in basketball and so is the

life of Costa Mesa High hoopster Steve Whittaker.

“Steve is a very resilient player for us,” Mesa Coach Bob Serven said.

“He does a remarkable job of bouncing back from subpar games.”

In fact, Whittaker, this week’s Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, can

even bounce back from a subpar first half of a basketball game. Just ask

players from Washington’s Sumner High squad.

After missing on 7 of 9 three-point opportunities, Whittaker used some

halftime motivation and turned the game into his own personal shooting

gallery.

“At halftime, Coach Serven was saying how well we were shooting, but,

‘It would be nice to have Steve get into the offense,’ ” Whittaker

recalled. “I just kept shooting in the second half and got hot at just

the right time.”

Hot indeed. Whittaker hit 7 of 9 treys en route to a 28-point

performance. His nine threes tied the Newport-Mesa District record for

most treys in one game set last year by Estancia’s Jon Cantrell and

Mesa’s Ryan Naff.

“He’s our hardest worker on our team,” Serven said. “There are some

players on our team that think they work the hardest, but Steve is our

leader in that department. He’s kind of an old-school type of player. In

an era when some ball players come off arrogant and selfish, Steve does

whatever it takes for our team to be successful.”

Good, old-fashioned hard work was the key to Whittaker’s success. “I

was never really that good at basketball growing up,” he recalled. “I

never started on a team until my freshman year. I was all right as a

shooter so I kept on shooting and the rest of my game started to get

better as I got bigger.”

Following a tough 4-20 season as a sophomore, Serven took over the

Mesa program and Whittaker’s life hasn’t been the same since.

“By far, he’s the best coach I’ve ever played for,” Whittaker said.

“He knows what to say to get the players playing at their best. He knows

when and when not to get on a guy and he’s helped me gain more success

from basketball than I ever thought I would. Now, I’m looking into

playing basketball in college, which is something I never thought would

happen.”

Whittaker got the starting nod in a few games as a junior, while

averaging 8.1 points per game with 50 three-pointers.

“Even when we went to Ryan Weir as our starting guard and brought

Steve in off the bench, he didn’t sulk or complain,” Serven said. “He

contributed the best way he could to help us gain success.”

The Mustangs went 17-10 a year ago and are 9-5 this year heading into

Pacific Coast League play next week. In those 14 games, Whittaker his

scored in double digits 11 times and is averaging 12.6 points per

contest.

“I couldn’t ask for a better kid to coach,” Serven said. “I think he

can play beyond high school, if he gets into the right situation.

Consistent three-point shooters are hard to come by. We’ve been fortunate

to have a few on this team. On my team, you either better be 6-foot-8 or

you better be able to pass, dribble and shoot.”

With more teams trying to neutralize the Mustangs’ long-range success,

Whittaker has been working on more than just draining shots from

downtown.

“I’ve been working hard on my one-dribble and two-dribble jump shots

to keep the defense honest,” Whittaker said. “If the defenders are

charging at me, I’ll throw a head-fake and try to go around him. It’s

easier now that I’m bigger and not as easy to push around.”

Whittaker’s long-range success is even reaching younger generations.

“My two-and-a-half-year-old son likes to shoot hoops and when he’s

shooting from the outside, he tells me to call him Steve,” Serven said.

“I guess being a role model sometimes comes when you don’t expect it to

happen.”