When Bill Bertka comes up with an idea, it’s worth hearing him out. His ideas about recreation and sports are manifest all over Santa Barbara. His basketball concepts helped create Showtime (the Lakers of the 1980s) in Los Angeles. At 91, he still boomerangs to L.A. as “special assistant and consultant” for the Lakers, but he remains rooted in Santa Barbara, his home for almost six decades.
Bertka wanted to talk the other day about the downtown stretch of State Street, with all its empty storefronts. “You’ve got sports bars; why not have a sports hall of fame?” he asked. He brought three pages of notes, listing various cities that put their athletic heritage on public display. The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in the town square of Virginia Beach comprises exhibits in different offices and lobbies, connected by a pedestrian tour called Walk the Hall.
“All the vacant spaces on State Street, turn it over to nonprofit; you’re going to get a tax write-off on the property,” Bertka said. “Halls of fame stimulate interest in the community. When these boats come to Santa Barbara and bring people up State Street, have something of interest. Put athletes’ stars on State Street like in Hollywood. They’re paying consultants thousands of dollars to get some ideas. These are free.”
Bertka had an official voice in civic projects when he was the city’s recreation director from 1961 to 1972. He promoted a myriad of activities. “We had fitness classes called the Huff and Puff program at Dwight Murphy Field,” he said. “We started volleyball in the afternoon on the beach. We had exercise for mothers at Cabrillo Pavilion; they could bring their babies. We started flag football down at Chase Park; all the elementary schools had teams, and they played on Saturdays. We had the Walk for Life program on the beach in conjunction with the American Heart Association. It was called cardiovascular conditioning.”
Bertka had the recreation department take over an art show in De la Guerra Plaza. “A guy by the name of Robert Eischen originated it,” he said. “We moved it down to the beach because of the space down there. There was all kinds of criticism. ‘You’re ruining the beach!’ Now people think [the Santa Barbara Arts and Crafts Show] is one of the greatest things. It’s not only popular from that standpoint, but it gets people out walking; it promotes activity.”
Another venture was the restoration of the Carrillo Street Gym. “It was a storage facility in 1961,” Bertka said. “I got them to turn it back into a gymnasium.” But there was pressure from City Hall to pull other properties out of recreational use. The most significant casualty was Laguna Park, a downtown baseball park that was a former home of Mets and Dodgers farm clubs. It was demolished in 1970, the site turned into a storage yard.
“The loss of that facility really hurt us,” Bertka said. “It was the home of our youth baseball program. It wasn’t under the rules of Little League baseball. Our city-run baseball program was: Everybody plays. Show up and you get on a team. Even Pearl Chase opposed tearing down Laguna Park.”
With the support of recreation commissioners Jerry Harwin and Caesar Uyesaka, Bertka said “three big things” were accomplished during his tenure: “One, the development of Shoreline Park. Two, they got the dump shut down, and Las Positas was dedicated to be a park in the future. Three, a joint use agreement between the City of S.B., City College, and the Harbor Commission for the use of facilities on the beach: Los Baños del Mar, La Playa Stadium, Pershing Park.”
One of Bertka’s most fruitful ideas was to start a weekly press luncheon conducted by the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table, a nonprofit community sports organization founded by Harwin and Uyesaka. The first luncheon took place at Harry’s Plaza Café in September of 1970, and they still go on to this day.
Bertka grew weary of seeing recreation getting short shrift from city leaders. “It was low man on the totem pole,” he said. “The biggest culprit of all [on the city council] was Gus Chavalas. He was a killer. I saw the handwriting on the wall, how they were treating recreation. I advocated nonprofit foundations. I said that’s the only way recreation’s going to survive. It’s interesting what’s transpired. All the sudden [Las Positas Park] is Elings Park, run by a foundation.”
Bertka made a fast break from his city job to the National Basketball Association. The Lakers hired him as the first full-time scout in league history. It was one of many milestones that he achieved in the sport of hoops, beginning in his Ohio hometown.