Burlingame Rec

That’s Mike Ciardella (center) with one of his state championship Sacred Heart Prep girls basketball teams. But I knew him when he was just known as “Chubby.”

By John Murphy

Faithful readers of this blog may recall that I majored in Recreation and not Journalism. It was a curious decision on my part, but I stand by it.  

So I attended San Francisco State University and played with the Earth Ball and learned to whittle and gave a demonstration speech to a class on how to make a gin fizz. Once the haze had lifted, I had a diploma.   

Before graduation, though, I had to serve an internship. That’s how I wound up at the Burlingame Recreation Department in 1977-78 with an odd cast of characters.

Everyone had nicknames. They were supplied by either rec supervisor Mike Ciardella, better known as a crack prep basketball coach; or the late Carl Reyna, a colorful neighborhood character with a cognitive disability.

Ciardella achieved fame for coaching the Sacred Heart Prep girls basketball team of Atherton to five state titles. But in 1977 he was simply known as “Chubby” – the nickname Carl Reyna bestowed upon him.

There was also rec director Ray Wagner (“Daddy Wags”), supervisor Brock Riddle (“The Brockster), Steve Picchi (“The Picch-ster) and Clay Rice (“Clayton”). The Brock-ster was sometimes known as “Brock Riddle, Male Model” because he was unusually handsome.

I was given a tiny desk outside of Ciardella’s office. When Mike came in, I strived to waste as much time as I possibly could chatting with him about basketball.

At some point Ciardella would kick me out of his office so he could get some work done. Then I would wait for mid-morning when King Carl and rec leaders Picchi and Rice would come in and we’d all have donuts together.  Carl, bald and rocking his trademark Capuchino High letterman’s jacket, usually had the San Francisco Chronicle Sporting Green. Occasionally he’d emit a loud “Ohhhhhh, yeaaahhhhh!” – his trademark saying.

Gotta say, the internship wasn’t strenuous. I wrote press releases for “Art in the Park.” I trimmed trees for the parks department. And I ran a softball contest for little girls called the “Throw, Hit and Run.”

In the end, I chose newspapers. I landed my first full-time job, in Watsonville, in December of 1978. But I couldn’t completely escape the vaunted Burlingame Rec Department.

That spring I trekked up to Candlestick Park with a few of my buds to watch a Giants’ game. All went well until the trip home when I got a flat tire on the 101 freeway.  

Well, I had “Tom Sawyered” the task of changing the tire to my pals.  So I was standing by my car waiting for them to finish when a vehicle pulled up close and a bald man in a  green letterman’s jacket stuck his head out and yelled,  “HEY MURPHY, GET A HORSE!”

He, of course, was the legendary Carl Reyna. All I could do was laugh.