Getting shot at success

ROGER CARLSON

Former Estancia High and Orange Coast College basketball star Ray

Orgill one day found himself admiring one of a series of

inspirational posters that Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer George

Yardley had strewn around his office. He focused on the one

displaying a gym adorned in red with the title, “Opportunity.”

Orgill, who had played under the colors of red at Estancia and

Coast, couldn’t help but admire the poster, and the message: “You’ll

always miss 100% of the shots if you don’t take any.”

Yardley, never known to be bashful when it came to taking his

shots for Newport Harbor High, Stanford University, Stewart Chevrolet

in AAU circles and with the Pistons and Syracuse in the NBA, pounced

on the opportunity to complete the message and a week later,

presented the framed and signed poster to his protege.

“Wow, I just said I liked it, I didn’t say I wanted it,” Orgill

recalled.

Once described as an “unhappy gunner” as he pondered retirement

from the NBA after just seven seasons because of the need to return

home, where normality and a business future awaited, George Yardley

has always seemed to have a partiality toward Orgill, the MVP of the

JC state basketball tournament when the Pirates swept to the title in

1979.

Yardley’s son, Rob, was a teammate of Orgill’s the previous year

and Orgill, a business partner of Rob, recalls the traits which put

the younger Yardley in a class by himself.

“When Rob was a sophomore, he was a second-team player, but he

hustled. It drove us crazy,” said Orgill, who had been a leading

starter on every team he ever played for.

“He would run and fly into the stands while we watched it go out

of bounds,” Orgill continued. “He was always the first guy running

lines [in practice] and we’d tell him, ‘Hey, loosen up, will you?’

“Rob always gave 100%, a super hard worker.”

One might surmise it’s a matter of genes, or DNA, because no one

can remember a shot Rob’s dad, George, didn’t feel was there for the

taking as he broke Hank Luisetti’s single-season scoring record at

Stanford. George Yardley later became the first player to ever score

over 2,000 points in a season when with the Detroit Pistons.

George Yardley is presently battling Lou Gehrig’s Disease and was

known as the original “Bird,” who shot his free throws underhanded

while playing the game in the era of 1946-1961.

Orgill said another nickname applies: Generous George.

“Even at the very beginning [when Orgill and Rob Yardley began a

fire protection business on a major scale], he had no stock in the

[wholesale distribution] company, but he had the authority and made

the decisions,” Orgill said.

“He provided the opportunity and the finances and I did the

blue-collar work.

“He gave you the parameters, then let you go and never looked over

your shoulder.”

Yardley has always insisted a lighter side of life prevail at his

business meetings and, according to Orgill, “Would do anything for a

joke. If anyone could bring to the table a good joke, it was better

than a solution. It would make the day and he would go out of his way

to do it.”

Last fall, when he was scheduled to address a group suffering from

Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he took a joke with him. But, as it turned out,

he was unable to complete the task at the podium because of fatigue.

His joke was typical of the Yardley mind-set, and this is an

abridged version:

This guy walks into a bar and a bully pushes him around and grabs

his drink and gulps it down.

“What a day,” says the forlorn one, who describes in great detail

how he has lost his job, his wife, his children and fortune.

“And now,” he tells the bully, “just when I’ve decided to end it

all, you come in and drink the poison.”

Orgill, who played under Dave Carlisle at Estancia, Tandy Gillis

at Orange Coast and Bill Oates at St. Mary’s College, is very much

aware of Yardley’s direct manner.

“He took his sales staff to Hawaii and included me and my wife

(Allison),” Orgill recalled. “He had done it a couple of times and

everything was great.

“I asked him how he was doing and he said, ‘horrible,’ that he had

never felt worse in his life.

“How could he be doing horrible in Hawaii? You knew something was

up when he said ‘horrible.’ ”

Orgill’s business association with Yardley began in 1995, just

before George was to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in

Springfield, Mass.

“I was not a business major,” said Orgill. “George was my business

professor. He taught me everything.

“On one of the few occasions when it was really a one-on-one, I

asked him what made him do the things he does, taking so many risks,

most of them you wouldn’t touch.

“Once, a contractor talked him into buying his place and he bought

it sight unseen. ‘How can you do that?,’ I asked him, and he said,

‘I’ve never had the fear of failure. And, besides, I like the guy.’

“I think that’s why he invested in me.”

Orgill had started some smaller companies, but was interested in

joining the Yardley boys, Rob and Rich. And, from there, the wheels

began turning.

George Yardley surely must have seen the possibilities while

watching Orgill lead a band of Pirates to the state championship in

1979. That team’s starting unit included Estancia’s Pete Neumann,

Corona del Mar High’s Paul Akin, Newport Harbor High’s Steve Timmons

and a JC sophomore transfer named Brian McCormick. The team operated

under the hand of Gillis, a third-year coach from Corona del Mar.

They all had their roles in the Gillis format and it was Orgill

who filled the “gunner’s” role. A natural tendency to forget fear was

obvious, because when they just keep dropping, what’s fear got to do

with anything?

Gillis always just smiles and shakes his head back and forth when

discussing this combination of local talent taking the best of the

state apart. Most would agree it was a once-in-a-lifetime series of

performances that will never come close to being repeated.

Orgill said Yardley has given him that commodity: the ability not

to fear failure. But he had a good head start as a dead-eye on the

basketball court, although, perhaps, not quite as spectacular as the

Flamboyant One.

Orgill still recalls, and credits, the presence of his coaches,

Bill Wetzel as a freshman at Estancia, Carlisle, Gillis and Oates for

the influence that dictated good decisions in those learning years.

“When you’re young, it’s so easy to make bad decisions,” Orgill

said. “I was really blessed.”

But it was at Coast where everything would jell on the floor and

off the floor with his friendship with Rob Yardley, and the ensuing

relations with the Yardley clan.

“We got married a year apart and now we’re business partners,”

Orgill said of Rob.

Rob moved on after his sophomore season and the ’79 team did its

thing.

That first year at OCC was a typical JC experience with a handful

of fans and sporadic cheers echoing off the walls.

Then it all exploded in ’79 with packed gyms and success at every

turn in a 27-5 run.

It’s amazing how good things can be when you’re surrounded by

winners, as I’m sure Ray Orgill will eventually explain to his

children, Michelle, 13, David, 11, Matthew, 7, and Daniel, 5.

Hey! See you next Sunday!

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

His columnappears on Sundays. He can be reached by e-mail at

[email protected].