Burke and Jones went right into baseball IIRC, so perhaps that is not necessarily a "miss." References to Pondexter and Cartwright (not on your list because listed before) bring back bad memories from when each helped their teams knock my Berkeley High Jackets out of the TOC with superlative performances. Future Cal Bear Gene Ransom lost out in both of those games.SFCityBear said:
This is a list from the Tournament of Champions All-Tournament teams from 1947 to 1972 who haven't been mentioned so far in the thread. It leaves out a lot of good players who played for teams of those years who did not qualify for the tournament. A lot of these players could have started and had success at Cal, IMO.
Russ Lawler, Salinas, Stanford
Ken Sears, Watsonville, Santa Clara, NBA
Clarence Grider, Lowell, Oregon State (lost an eye in a hunting accident, and didn't play)
Bob Dold, St Marys High, St Mary's
Walt Torrance, Grant Tech, UCLA (led PCC in scoring 22ppg in 1959 gave Cal fits
Joe Gardere, McClymonds, St Mary's
Cornell Green, El Cerrito, Utah State, NFL
Gene Womack, Poly High, St Mary's
Bill Simmons, Poly High, Oregon
Ed Thomas, McClymonds, USF
Jim Hadnot, McClymonds, (touted as the next Russell, didn't play college injured?)
Jim Brovelli, St Ignatius, USF
Pete Newell, Jr., St Ignatius, San Jose State
Erwin Mueller, Livermore, USF
Jim Tolliver, McClymonds, played for the pro Harlem Clowns
Russ Gumina, Sacred Heart, USF
Ron Tomsic, Fremont, Stanford
Bob Portman., SI, Creighton, (25 ppg), NBA
Don Griffin, Fremont, Stanford
Nate Williams, McClymonds, NBA (after HS, entered draft as hardship case)
Glenn Burke, Berkeley, MLB
Ruppert Jones, Berkeley, MLB standout
Clifton Pondexter, San Joaquin Memorial, Long Beach State
Francois Wise, Balboa, Long Beach State Hall of Fame
Cliff Robinson, Castlemont, USC, NBA
Mark McNamara, Del Mar, Santa Clara, NBA
Here's Gene v Cartwright:
How do you guard this guy???