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SoCal Prep & High School Report

Riverside News: Riverside
Notre Dame High--(February 11, 1998)

This one also comes to us from the Riverside Press Enterprise and since they don't archive their articles, we're going to reproduce it here in it's entirety. Riverside Notre Dame High plays in the Skyline League. This league features such teams as Banning, Beaumont, Notre Dame/Riverside, San Jacinto, West Valley, and Yucca Valley. It's a very competitive league, and before the season ends and playoffs begin, here's some news about this fine team, and their coach Rob Morrow:

The timing may have been less than perfect, but Rob Morrow could not have asked a better situation to come into when he became the boys' basketball coach at Riverside Notre Dame High before last season.

Despite no varsity coaching experience, Morrow has developed Notre Dame's program into one of Riverside County's best in less than two years. The Titans went 18-9 last season but this year have a chance for their first 20-win season since 1980 and only their second league title in the past 15 seasons. Notre Dame (7-1 in league, 17-5 overall) can win the Skyline League title with a victory against visiting Beaumont. The Titans lead second-place Beaumont by one game with two remaining in the regular season.

The backcourt of Pat Freeman and C.J. Hollingsworth, one of the best in the county, has been the catalyst the Titans' best season since 1979-80, when they went 22-6 and advanced to the California Interscholastic Federation finals.

Morrow, 32, a Riverside La Sierra grad, is quick to point out he took over a talented program. But what he has brought is stability. Morrow, who has been a teacher at Notre Dame for four years, was the Titans' fourth coach in four years when he took the position in September 1996. As happy as Morrow is at Notre Dame, he almost did not take the position. He was set to be John Tibbels' assistant last season, but Tibbels left to become the coach at Riverside Poly. Since Morrow and his wife, Jeanette, were expecting their first child, he hesitated but took the job because of his relationship with the players.

"I don't know if it's the kids that are special or it's my doing," he said. "I just think we're all on the same page."