Coach Doug Sims was not surprised to learn that his team, the Golden Dukes, had won Best Local Youth Sports Team in the Sun’s annual Best Of poll. Happy? Yes. Surprised? No.
“It’s our parents,” he said, explaining how they got the votes. “We have great parents.”
The Golden Dukes is a basketball team. They play club ball in tournaments all over California, practice twice a week in the summer, and are friends all year long. The kids are friends. The parents are friends. Heck, even the siblings of the players are friends with the other players’ siblings. It’s a basketball team and one big, happy family.
“Not only do the kids hang out, the parents hang out,” Sims said. “We’re extremely tight.”
“We have become good friends, forever friends—the families, the parents, and the kids,” said Kendee McGready, a team parent.
Everyone on the team will remain friends, McGready said, even though the Golden Dukes have reached the end of their run.
Sims and his good friend Ron Regalado created the Golden Dukes six years ago as a team on which their sons could play. The goal was also for the kids to learn the fundamentals of basketball in preparation for high school. Sims and Regalado started the team when their sons Patrick Sims and Ron, Jr. were in third grade.
The boys are in high school now, and that means the purpose of the team has been fulfilled. Because of that, the Golden Dukes disbanded just weeks ago, after their final tournament in Las Vegas.
“You know, the last time I coached them, it was a tight game all the way through, and instead of getting upset, I caught myself with watery eyes just remembering them in third grade,” Ron said. “And now they’re going to high school.”
Each and every player on the Golden Dukes has just started his freshman year. As a bonus, they’ve all made their high school teams, Ron said. Most of them ended up at Righetti High School. Out of 11 players from the Golden Dukes, nine are now Warriors. One Golden Duke is playing for St. Joseph High School, and one more is playing for Nipomo.
That they all made their respective teams was great, Sims said, but once again, he wasn’t surprised.
“I’m completely confident that they’re ready for high school,” he said.
Ron, Jr., 14, agrees that he’s ready to play high school ball. It’s not weird, he said, to be playing for a new team and a new coach. But it has been a little sad to say goodbye to the team he’s been playing for since he was 8.
“It felt like it was hard to let go,” he said. “It was our last year together.”
Ron, Jr. said he’d miss the trips the team used to take, the hard competition that they came up against during those games, and meeting new people. He won’t really miss his teammates, though, because for the most part, he still sees them all the time.
Without the Golden Dukes, Ron, Jr. said, his life would have been different, mainly because he would have had a lot less to do. These players and families didn’t just form a team; they seem to have formed a community based on basketball.
The key to their successful community, according to both coaches, was that they picked a kid’s parents first. If they didn’t think the parents would fit in, they didn’t let the player join the team, no matter how good he was.
Their system worked, because they ended up with a coach’s dream team: no drama, no fighting over playing times, and hardly any turnover.
For a team based on history (Sims’ father played for the Golden Dukes semi-pro team out of Santa Maria), the new Golden Dukes have made their own. The sum total is six years of good times, capped off with winning an award for being the Best Local Youth Sports Team.
It’s been a good run for the Golden Dukes.
“We all grew a bond,” said Ron, Sr. “It’s more than basketball.”
Sports Editor Sarah E. Thien is the best sports writer in town. Contact her at sthien@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 4, 2008.