This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.
The most obvious choices for No. 23:
Kirk Gibson: Los Angeles Dodgers
LeBron James: Los Angeles Lakers
David Beckham: Los Angeles Galaxy
Eric Karros: Los Angeles Dodgers
Dustin Brown: Los Angeles Kings
Harold Minor: USC basketball, via Morningside High
The not-so obvious choices for No. 23:
Diana Taurasi: Don Lugo High School girls basketball
Jackie Joyner: UCLA women’s basketball
Jonathan Franklin: UCLA football
Kenny Washington: UCLA basketball
The most interesting story for No. 23:
Ryan Elmquist, Caltech men’s basketball guard (2007-08 to 2010-11)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Pasadena, Whittier, Pomona, LaVerne
Ryan Elmquist scored 36 on his ACT college entrance exam. That surely impressed his classmates at Woodbury High in Minnesota, just East of the Twin Cities. Especially those who came to understand how that was a perfect score.
It gave Elmquist a ticket to dig out of the Midwest snow, head to Pasadena and enroll in California Institute of Technology — better known as Caltech in “The Big Bang Theory” fandom.
His major was to study computer science. His guilty pleasure was to keep playing basketball.
In Caltech lore, Elmquist, a 6-foot-5 forward, is far better remembered for the time when he scored one not-so-lousy free throw on February 22, 2011. The last of his 23 points, with 3.3 seconds left, accounted for the final margin in a 46-45 victory for the Beavers over visiting Occidental College on their home Braun Athletic Center.
His smarter-than-smart peers were as impressed as the school’s Nobel Laureate-rich professorial staff and researchers. For Elmquist not only had the perfect ending to his senior season in the final game he ever played for the school, it also ended Caltech’s streak of 310 consecutive losses in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) competition. That was a streak that began before Elmquist and his teammates were born, in January of 1985.
But who’s counting. Unless you are a campus full of math nerds.
Bazinga.
Continue reading “No. 23: Ryan Elmquist”
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