Team Photo/Season Results and Stats
In 1960 there were more orange groves and Quonset huts than permanent structures on the Fullerton campus grid. The 57 freeway was just a drawing, and Orange County State College was only entering its third year of existence when school President William Langsdorf gave the green light to field the first intercollegiate sports team representing the young college. Titan men's basketball was born.
Local coaching legend, 40-year old Alex Omalev, coming off a year as California JC runner-up, was somehow enticed to jump from a successful career at what was then Fullerton Junior College to an uncertain future at a new senior college with no athletic facilities. The good news was that the commute from his Fullerton home would still be short.
Michigan-born Omalev, a four-year basketball star and second team All-American at USC, graduated just in time to serve in the Navy in WWII. A cinema major, Omalev returned to USC after his military service concluded to obtain his teaching credential. In 1949 he prepared for a long, quiet career teaching Drama at FJC. After just two weeks on campus, the sudden death of Hornet basketball coach, Arthur Nunn changed Omalev's plans, as he was asked to take over the program. There really was no other choice available. For five years Omalev coached basketball and was the Chair of the Drama department.
Omalev's FJC teams were very successful, and often competed in the upper rungs of the state JC tournament. In 1954 the Hornets were state champions. He would leave the Chapman Avenue campus with a 262-77 career record.
Fast forward to what is now Cal State Fullerton. Titan Gym would not be built until 1964, so there was literally no place on campus to practice or play games. What to do? Simple. Return to FJC for all basketball activities and home games. The difference was that the Hornets would have preference on game and practice times, while the brand-new Titans would happily settle for whatever was left available for them.
Fielding a team was an obvious challenge for Omalev. At the time, the Orange County State College student body only consisted of Juniors and Seniors, due to lack of classrooms and facilities, which were still being built.
The solution? Recruit from the local Junior Colleges where Omalev had friends and connections. Enter 6' 3" sharpshooter and leaper, Jon Brettmann, who had wrapped up two standout seasons at Santa Ana College playing for future USC head coach, Bob Boyd.
Although Brettmann, a native of Santa Ana, was recruited by other colleges, he chose to come to the new Fullerton campus "because I wanted my parents to see me play basketball."
Omalev pulled hard-nosed forward Terry Hermann from his own state runner-up squad at FJC. Gary Dougan and Neale Stoner returned to college after playing in previous years for Omalev. Dick Roche would come over from Cerritos JC, and Jim Hatchett, the lone African-American on the squad would be recruited from Oakland.
Don Christensen, and Dan Dannenbring rounded out the original Titan lineup. With only eight players available, scrimmages were impossible, so drills were limited to four-on-four and three-on-three. Scott Iverson and Bill Bogdanoff would later join the team to make it ten players. That surely must have made practices easier.
Speaking of practices, there were no luxury buses or Nike shoe and apparel contracts available for the fledgling Titans. Four or five guys would each pile into a couple of cars or beat-up vans, and that is how they would travel. Omalev would never have more than 2-1/2 scholarships available for his use, so it was important for him to find student jobs for his players. He would later ask them to augment the other Titan sports teams, like cross country and tennis, to help them with their roster numbers and to stay in shape.
"It was interesting because everything was the first," said Terry Hermann. "it was the best experience that I had in basketball."
With everything seemingly against them, the royal blue and orange-clad OCSC Titans produced a remarkably successful inaugural season in 1960-61, finishing with an impressive 16-14 record, which would include wins over some familiar school names like Long Beach State, UC Riverside, and Cal State Northridge (then known as San Fernando Valley State College). Their record might have even been even better if small forward Jon Brettmann had not broken his ankle and missed several games.
Five Titans would finish the season with double-digit scoring averages. Brettmann would lead the way with a 20.4 points per game average. His 45 points against Luke Air Force Base in 1961 would stand on top of the Titan record books for decades. Remember, there was no 3-point shot back then.
The 1961-62 Titans would prove to be even better. Omalev recruited JC stars Leonard Guinn and Edgar Clark from Fullerton Junior College, and they joined forces with Brettmann, Stoner, Hermann, Roche, and Hatchett to finish 24-7, and advance five rounds in the NAIA Basketball Tournament, winning the District 3 championship.
Neale Stoner would go on to become Athletic Director at Cal State Fullerton for seven years. He would lead the Titan transition from Division II to Division I, and would hire legendary Titan Hall of Fame head coaches, Augie Garrido (baseball), and Bobby Dye (men's basketball). Stoner himself would be inducted into the Cal State Fullerton Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.
Alex Omalev would coach the Titans until 1972. He would remain at Cal State Fullerton as a Physical Education instructor until his retirement in 1991. Keeping his hand in basketball through hosting international clinics, Omalev would serve as the language coordinator for basketball at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Fluent in the Serbo-Croatian language, Omalev achieved local fame when he was asked by the Lakers to be Vlade Divac's special basketball translator during the first months of his 1989-90 rookie season in Los Angeles. Omalev would be inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Fullerton College Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
Sadly, Alex Omalev died in 2008 at the age of 88. Jim Hatchett passed away in 2010.
Terry Hermann would sum up his experience: "We had great fun, and we still keep in contact with each other." Hermann and Jon Brettmann have been best friends since that inaugural season.