CORRECTION: Rodger Brown’s name was misspelled in a story on page A1 Sunday.

It has been 50 years since Larkin Bryant has been in Santa Maria.

Back then, 15,000 people lived in the city, and Highway 101 actually ran down Broadway, which was a beautiful tree-lined road.

Orcutt and Santa Maria were two separate entities, separated by miles of farm land.

“I don't recognize anything,” Bryant said Friday as he returned for the first time since graduating from Hancock College in 1958.

Bryant was in town to visit an old teammate from Hancock basketball's glory days. Dale Hyatt and Bryant both played on the 1957 state championship Bulldog team under legendary coach and basketball guru Bill Bertka.

They were joined by Roger Brown on Friday morning at the Joe White Memorial Gymnasium. Brown was another transplant that Bertka brought from Ohio to Santa Maria - a few years before Bryant - to play sports and get an education.

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Despite the long layoff, the good friends, who have remained in touch over the years, acted like they just returned from a team practice, or perhaps a rabbit hunt.

“Larkin and I were roommates,” explained Hyatt. “We really got along - we roomed together, walked to the high school together and went jackrabbit hunting. These guys almost shot me once.”

One day Hyatt was on one side of a small hill as the friends were hunting along the Santa Maria riverbed.

“Only his head was above it,” laughed Bryant. “It looked like a rabbit.”

“Yeah,” responded Hyatt, “a crew-cut rabbit.”

After leaving Hancock, Bryant played for a short time at the University of the Pacific, then served in the armed forces. He married a Belgian woman and after a year in Boston, they returned to her homeland.

That is where he has been ever since, still participating in the sports that drew him west all those years ago.

“I used to go to games and complain, ‘He can't dribble, he's using the wrong hand, he doesn't have wrist action on his shot,'” Bryant said. “So my friend said if I'm always complaining, why don't I coach.”

So Bryant went to school to get credentialed to coach, and he's been doing it for more than 30 years.

“I love working with kids,” he explained. “I've coached for 23 years where I used to play;

8- to 10-year-olds and now 13 to 14. I've won 12 championships in the 23 years.”

He still loves to work with kids, and there are no signs of slowing down.

“I like doing this,” Bryant said. “When I don't, I'll stop. When I don't see the desire at all, then I'll stop.”

Hyatt and Brown loved their time in Santa Maria, and they have remained. Hyatt left for a short time before returning for good in 1962.

“I went back to Kent (State University) with Bertka, spent a year and three-quarters there, then I went to South America as a player/coach in Chile,” Hyatt explained. “I played on a university team there and coached them. We had a great team - we even beat their Olympic team in a scrimmage.

“I would copy what Bertka taught us - the fast break, fill the lanes, get the ball up.”

But Santa Maria's call was too strong. Hyatt returned to complete his education at Cal Poly, married a local girl and became a teacher. Meanwhile Brown never left, marrying a local girl he met while playing baseball with the Santa Maria Indians before becoming an educator.

Hyatt was a teacher in the Orcutt Union School District, and also served as principal at Nightingale, Alice Shaw and Lakeview schools before retiring in 1991.

Brown taught algebra and physical education, and also served as athletic director at Righetti High before retiring in 1999. He served as the interim athletic director at Pioneer Valley High when it was opening up.

“I think when you are playing sports in school, that's the most fun time you've had,” Brown explained. “I remembered what it felt like, so teaching was an easy transition.”

Bill Bertka has kept the group together - The youthful coach brought so many kids from Ohio to build a powerhouse basketball program at Hancock in the '50s. They have all remained friends with Bertka

“Coach Bertka was a fantastic coach,” said Bryant. “There is no real comparison. I've had all kinds of coaches, but there was no one better.”

After visiting Hancock, the trio headed off to have lunch in Santa Barbara with Bertka, the director of scouting for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Hyatt also remembers how welcome the residents of Santa Maria made the players feel when they were students.

“Everybody would invite you over to the house for dinner,” Hyatt said. “They really took care of us. You have to remember, we were the major entertainment in town.”

Brown talked about a sign that used to be at the intersection of Stowell and Broadway.

It said, “Santa Maria - the biggest little sports town in the U.S.A.”

Bryant will always remember Christmas Day in 1957 when they went to Avila Beach.

“I called my mother and I said, ‘Mom do you know what I did today, I went swimming,'” he explained. “She thought I went to a swimming pool, but I told her I went swimming in the Pacific Ocean.”

It was thrilling for Bryant to see the 1957 championship banner hanging in the Joe White Gym, even though the building was not even a dream when the team won it. All the Hancock games were played in front of a packed house at Wilson Gym on the Santa Maria High campus.

But it meant a lot to him to see old trophies and the progress the school has made.

But even so, it was not the buildings or the floors they remembered the most.

“The thing I remember the most is being with these guys,” Bryant said. ”We came from all around the same area in Ohio and we had great times.

“It's the friendships after all of these years. We are still communicating.”