History is expected to happen this weekend for Rolling Hills Prep boys basketball coach Harvey Kitani. The only question is whether it takes place on Friday or Saturday.
Kitani has 999 coaching victories and has two opportunities to reach 1,000 games against Bishop Gorman on Friday at Mater Dei and Hawthorne Math & Science Magnet on Saturday at Harbor College.
Only two other coaches in California history have reached 1,000 wins — Gary McKnight at Mater Dei and Mike LeDuc at Damien, according to statistics compiled by CalHiSports.com.
“You’re kind of trying to understand,” Kitani said. “It’s not something I signed up for. You hear the old coaches say you’ve been training for a long time. It’s just unbelievable to be lucky to be healthy and my home support system has allowed me to do that.”
Most of Kitani’s wins came from coaching for 35 years at Fairfax. He left the City Section after the 2015-16 season to coach at Rolling Hills Prep, where he won four sectional titles. It’s 15 minutes from his home and two of his sons attended Rolling Hills Prep.
One tidbit from Kitani is that he coached at San Fernando for one season – 1979-80. He said he probably never would have left, but he was displaced and left without a teaching job. In 1980-81, he was an assistant coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills and took classes to become a special education teacher. Then he ended up at Fairfax and never left until he retired from teaching.
Former Westchester coach Ed Azzam holds the City Section record for most coaching wins.
This is a daily look at positive events in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
Leave a Reply