Gary Etcheverry

Gary Etcheverry, defensive coordinator at Occidental College, has been hired as coach at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.

Gary Etcheverry, defensive coordinator at Occidental College, has been hired as coach at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.

Gary Etcheverry, an assistant football coach at Occidental College for seven seasons, has been hired as head coach at Macalester College, a Division III school in St. Paul, Minn. Etcheverry, 33, was the defensive coordinator for Occidental, which has won six Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championships in the past eight years. Etcheverry also has coached at San Francisco State and was an assistant with the Los Angeles Rams in 1988.

Occidental College claimed its third consecutive Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship last year. Ho-hum. That seems to be the pervasive feeling in the Occidental program as the Tigers prepare for their Sept. 8 opener at the University of San Diego. "Our goals are just a tad higher than we've been able to do lately," said Occidental Coach Dale Widolff, who has led his team to the SCIAC title six times in the past eight years.

Jenny Nicholas of Flintridge Sacred Heart High and Jrmirol Duncan of Ribet Christian were honored as The Times' Glendale-area basketball Players of the Year at the Times' annual awards brunch Sunday. Marshall Coach Wendy Triplett and Ribet Christian Coach Michael Miller were named girls' and boys' coaches of the year, respectively. Nicholas, a senior guard, averaged 16.

It was beginning to look like Route 66, a good omen if Brady Dargan ever sensed one. Funny, Dargan thought to himself as the miles and hours whizzed by during his drive from Green Bay, Wis., to Los Angeles last summer. The number 66--which he wore as a defensive lineman for the Occidental College football team--was eerily popping up almost everywhere. "It seemed like the mile marker signs all said '66 miles to . . . ,' somewhere," Dargan recalled.

Of the hundreds of football games he has coached, this one sticks with Don Markham the way you'd remember a haywire cash machine spitting out stacks of twenties. It was 1986, and his Riverside Ramona High Rams were a sloppy bunch. ''We went out there with 19 or 20 kids . . . I had no more linemen. I had to grab a PE student and put him in for a week, and I remember he wore sweats under his pants. We were ragtag and we looked terrible. And we played a real good football team.'