The eights were all lined up for Bill Bertka last Saturday. He turned 88 on 8/8. To mark the occasion, here are eight things to know about this 55-year resident of Santa Barbara.
1) Basketball is in his blood: He shot baskets for hours and played against older men at the YMCA in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. He made the high school varsity in his senior year, and after building his strength in the army, he returned to play at Kent State. Willing to take any head-coaching job in the country, he was hired at Midland School in the Santa Ynez Valley in 1952. The small boarding school had no gym and no uniforms when he arrived. After two years, he coached at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, winning a state JC championship in 1957, and had a four-year stint at Kent State.
2) He was a fitness pioneer: Bertka came to Santa Barbara in 1961 as superintendent of recreation for the city. “All I wanted to do was create activity, get people moving,” he said. “We started physical fitness programs for men and women at Dwight Murphy Field and the Carrillo Gym. We brought [famed heart specialist] Paul Dudley White here to talk about cardiovascular conditioning.” Bertka still practices what he preached, speed-walking laps around the La Playa Stadium track and working out in the pool. He held his recreation job for 11 years. “The worst thing that happened was losing Laguna Park,” he said. The downtown ballpark was torn down after the Dodgers removed their minor-league team from Santa Barbara in 1967.