Kim Elliott was a star baseball player, but it was his accomplishments as a basketball coach that earned him a place in the Coquitlam Sports Hall of Fame (CSHOF).
Elliott, who passed away July 13, was an assistant coach for the Centennial Centaurs senior girls’ basketball team that won consecutive provincial high school championships in 1987 and 1988 and were subsequently honoured by the CSHOF in 2017.
It seemed an unlikely turn for the former hard-throwing right-handed pitcher at the University of California who went on to a brief career as a professional with the old Vancouver Mounties before he became a teacher.
But Elliott’s towering presence and calming demeanour were keys to the Centaurs’ success, said the team’s head coach at the time, Steve Pettifer.
In fact, it was Elliott who recruited Pettifer to take over the girls’ team from assisting Rich Chambers with the senior boys’ squad.
“He convinced me it would be good for the school, that the boys were in good hands with Rich,” recalled Pettifer recently. Not that there was any denying Elliott.
Pettifer said he was new to Centennial and cutting his instructional teeth in the social studies department when he first met Elliott.
“He was really outgoing, a pillar of the school,” Pettier said. “He was at all the events, he was an icon.”
Elliot’s gregarious nature was bolstered by his towering 6’2”, 210-pound physical stature.
That size and his two wins at the 1957 National Collegiate World Series when he was a sophomore at Cal caught the attention of the New York Yankees.
Tony Robello, a scout with the Major League Baseball team, sent Elliott a typed letter encouraging him to finish his schooling.
“You have a chance to develop considerably this next year,” he wrote. “You will no doubt be the ace on the staff.”
It wasn’t the first time Elliott had heard from the Yankees, as the team had also courted the Burnaby resident in 1956 when he graduated from King Edward High School in Vancouver. But he spurned a contract offer after New York hosted a special prospects camp in Parksville.
“He’s in no hurry to make the big leagues,” wrote Barry Hamelin in the Vancouver Sun. “Education comes first. And if he’s good enough, the major leagues will follow,”
The Yankees’ persistence paid off eventually when Elliott signed with the team after he completed his Bachelor of Education degree in 1959. He was promptly assigned to its rookie-league affiliate in Kearney, Neb.
But Elliott hurt his back and was released.
A connection with the supervisor of scouts for the Baltimore Orioles then recommended Elliott to the Mounties of the Pacific Coast League, its AAA affiliate. He debuted for the local side in an exhibition game against the San Diego Padres in Indio, Calif., giving up two hits and no runs in three innings to earn the 9-6 win in front of a crowd of about 1,200 that included Hollywood stars like Eva Gabor — who threw out the first pitch — and Hugh O’Brien.
“Elliott looked sharp,” Mounties’ general manager Bob Freitas said in a subsequent newspaper account. “He was behind the hitters often, but came in there when he had to.”
Later that season, Elliott moved to the Wenatchee Chiefs of the Northwest League, where he struggled.
The next year he was with the Yakima Braves and then he was out of baseball.
Pettifer recalled Elliott’s baseball career exacted a physical toll, as he walked with a noticeable limp from surgery to correct the wear his pitching mechanics had taken on his hip.
“There were times it was painful if he was standing for long periods,” said Pettifer, who took Elliott’s place in the school’s phys-ed department when the former pitcher decided to switch to teaching social studies to ease the strain on his joint.
Of their success on the basketball court, Pettifer said Elliott was the perfect foil for his own fiery coaching style. After a couple of seasons of struggle, the fourth-ranked Centaur girls’ team came together to defeat favoured Salmon Arm, 68-53, in the 1987 provincial final behind the leadership of Chrystal Caldwell.
“She could play every sport,” Pettifer said of the graduating senior. “She was the driving force behind the team.”
Centennial repeated the accomplishment the next season, beating Windsor, 71-59.
Pettifer said it was a special group that ticked along smoothly even as all but five players graduated after the ’87 championship, largely because of Elliott’s calming demeanour.
“He did things the right way,” he said of his assistant. “He just knew the right thing to do in the right situation.”
A celebration of Kim Elliott’s life will be held Sunday, Sept. 12, from 2 to 7 p.m., at 2940 Pinnacle St. in Coquitlam.
