Dei

David Greenwood, one of the best high school basketball players in Southern California history, will have his jersey retired on Friday night during a ceremony at his alma mater, Verbum Dei.

Greenwood, who died on June 8 at the age of 68 after a bout with cancer, teamed with Roy Hamilton to make Verbum Dei one of the best teams during his high school days in the 1970s. He’d go on to be an All-American at UCLA and played 12 years in the NBA. He came back to coach at Verbum Dei.

Verbum Dei is playing Gardena Serra on Friday at 7 p.m. The ceremony will be held at halftime.

Greenwood was the No. 2 pick in the 1979 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls. Magic Johnson went No. 1 to the Lakers. He’d win an NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons.

He coached Verbum Dei to state championships in 1998 and 1999.

“David was a hero to me,” said Verbum Dei alumnus DeAnthony Langston. “He’s one of the all-time greats in Verbum Dei history.”

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Hardy Nickerson, a Verbum Dei grad who played linebacker at Cal, made the Pro Bowl five times, coached in college and the NFL and did two stints as head coach at Bishop O’Dowd in San Jose, has been named head football coach at JSerra.

Nickerson, 60, becomes the first Black head football coach in the Trinity League since it was formed in 2008.

JSerra is hoping to strike gold like Santa Margarita did in hiring Heisman Trophy winner and 15-year NFL quarterback Carson Palmer, who delivered a Southern Section Division 1 championship and CIF state championship Open Division bowl win this year in his rookie season as head coach. Palmer used his NFL connections to put together a top-notch group of assistant coaches.

Nickerson also has lots of NFL connections and far more coaching experience than Palmer. He once was defensive coordinator at Illinois, served as an NFL assistant with the 49ers, Bears and Buccaneers and and has been head coach at Bishop O’Dowd from 2010-13 and from 2022 through this season, when his team won a state Division 5-AA championship.

He takes over a program that went 3-7 last season and cut ties with former Azusa Pacific head coach Victor Santa Cruz. Nickerson will soon learn that coaching in the Trinity League is similar to college and the NFL, where teams expect to win or there is little assurance of keeping a job for long.