Game 24: Bill Bertka - Stuffed Peppers
“Bert’s significance to the game cannot be overstated. It’s coaches like him and Tex Winter that have really driven the well-known coaches that we know in history. The Bertkas and Winters are the ones that are really stirring the pot. He deserves way more credit than he’s currently getting, and way more praise than he’s currently getting. - Kobe Bryant”
The unsung heroes of basketball franchises are those who work in scouting and player development. These are the tireless employees who find overlooked players and then teach them how to maximize their innate talent. Especially for teams who lack the gravitas, winning culture, or stimulating home city to attract free agents, scouts are integral to competing in the star-heavy NBA. Despite the Lakers lacking none of the traits, it was this franchise that pioneered this component of success. And the man responsible for that was Bill Bertka.
Born in Akron, OH, Bertka was a star high school player who earned the name Boom Boom for his ability to knock down shots. He played collegiately at Kent State and later became his alma mater’s head coach. But in his 30s, it looked like his career in basketball was over when he and his wife Solveig moved to Santa Barbara where he became the city’s director of community outreach. That Central Coast city, where Bill and Solveig own a 50 acre avocado farm, has remained the Bertka’s home ever since. But it’s from that quiet beachside city 96 miles from The Forum that Bertka revolutionized player development and helped the Lakers become the most dominant franchise in the modern NBA.
In Santa Barbara, the Bertkas started a revolutionary scouting service called Bertka Views. It was radical due to Bill cutting up player footage and meticulously editing it into what are now commonplace scouting reports. In 1968, the Lakers noticed and hired him as the NBA’s first every full time scout. After the Lakers won the 1972 title, he was poached by the expansion New Orleans Jazz in 1974 to become their general manager. After a year, he joined the bench as an assistant coach and then returned to the Lakers in 1981 as Pat Riley’s assistant coach. He stayed on that same bench for 20 years, a period where he also served as interim coach and set the record in 1999 as the oldest NBA coach at 71.
At 92, Bertka is still alive and hasn’t slowed down a bit. Now serving the Lakers under the title of special assistant to the GM, Bertka continues to help develop young Lakers as he’s done from Magic Johnson to Kyle Kuzma. He especially loves to train big men, something that the Lakers have never lacked during his tenure, from Wilt to Kareem to Shaq to Bynum to AD. His devotion to the big guys is so strong that when the Lakers traded Vlade Divacs on draft day to Charlotte for the rights to Kobe Bryant, Bertka stormed out of the room. But that’s one of the few misses by Bertka, who still attends Summer League every year to try and spot diamonds in the rough who could help the Lakers off the bench. Bertka is so active, he still regularly plays in an 80+ senior league where, unsurprisingly, the man who taught Kobe how to play defense doesn’t take shit from his octogenarians and nonagenarians opponents.
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Stuffed Peppers
8 medium green peppers
1 large onion
1 egg
Water
Pepper
Crushed red hot peppers
Vegetable oil
2 pounds ground lean beef
1 cup minute rice
4 cans tomato sauce
Salt
Garlic salt
3 tablespoons sugar
Slowly fry onion in about 2 tablespoons of oil, until lightly brown. Cook rice, uncovered, in one cup water until water is evaporated.
Clean out peppers by cutting a hole around the step at top.
When onions are done, mix with raw meat and rice. Add salt, pepper, garlic salt, and egg. Mix well.
Stuff mixture into peppers and put in a large pan (you may have to use two). Add tomato sauce and equal amounts of water. Sauce should almost cover peppers; add additional cans in necessary. Add salt and red hot peppers to taste.
Bring to boil and then simmer 1 ½ to 2 hours.
Sweeten the sauce with the sugar. To thicken, add a mixture of flour and water.
The Bertkas’ instructions to boil the peppers in tomato sauce seemed a little off. So before making this recipe, I looked up how other amateur chefs made their stuffed peppers. If I can’t picture it in my head, I’m Googling how others have done it. But the final step in every recipe I found was to bake the peppers, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than letting them sit in simmering mixture of tomato sauce and water.
Naturally, the end result was a crunchy, semi-cooked pepper that leaked runny tomato water. At least the filling was tasty. With the peppers being a literal hot mess, I scraped out the filling (made with Beyond Meat instead of ground beef) and saved it for another meal. I hope Bertka isn’t offended. He should just consider my leftovers lunch a diamond in the rough Summer League player.
