DAILY PILOT MALE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:Newport’s Caldwell has a style all his own

NEWPORT BEACH —

A 16-year-old wearing Grandpa’s clothes is rare.

The garb isn’t just any Grandpa’s, though. It belonged to George Yardley, a Hall of Fame basketball player and Kyle Caldwell’s grandfather.

Caldwell sports Grandpa’s colorful shirts and worn-out baggy pants at Newport Harbor High. His basketball teammates don’t mock him for it.

“His grandpa was like the same size as him and all of his clothes fit him,” said Weston Dunlap of Caldwell, a 6-foot-8, 220-pounder, whose Grandpa stood three inches shorter. “At last year’s basketball banquet, he wore like red pants.

“He wears khakis shorts, old-school flannel stuff. It’s his style.”

Like Grandpa, Caldwell’s made his presence felt on the court.

Yardley, a six-time NBA All-Star, is no longer around as he succumbed to Lou Gehrig’s disease in Aug. 2004, but Caldwell’s carrying on Grandpa’s legacy.

The man who used to sit in his wheelchair, battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cheered Caldwell and his teammates before passing away at 75. Caldwell’s never forgotten.

“He came all the time even though he had ALS,” said Caldwell of the fatal disease, named after a legendary New York Yankee, which is a degenerative disease of the nervous system that causes muscle weakness and eventual paralysis.

“Even though he was Grandpa, I felt honored, because he was in the NBA and he came to all my games.”

Yardley’s still around, the Newport Harbor court is named after the 1946 graduate. A constant reminder to Caldwell each time he steps on the hardwood. He still points to the spot where Yardley used to watch him play.

“Over there, near the home bench,” Caldwell said. “But it’s just a basketball court.”

That’s how Caldwell goes by his business. He’s not as flamboyant as Grandpa was during his playing days, which included in the 1957-58 season becoming the first NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season.

Caldwell can score, too. He’s averaging more than 23 points and 10 rebounds per game as a junior. During the Bill Reynolds Classic at Newport Harbor, he led the Sailors (5-2) to the championship game. Quite an accomplishment for a team with 11 new faces and only two returnees.

“He’s a pleasure to coach,” said Newport Harbor Coach Larry Hirst of having Caldwell make his transition to guiding a new team easier because of his dominating play.

Caldwell is finding his place in basketball. He’s already an elite volleyball player, with schools like USC, UCLA, Penn State, Long Beach State, Pepperdine and UC Santa Barbara recruiting him for kills.

But he prefers to dunk, because as he said, “a kill, you can get all the time.”

Even at his size, the center is learning he has to create more than space to put one down on the basketball court. Dunks from Caldwell during games aren’t as frequent.

“I’ve gotten more honorary things from volleyball,” said Caldwell, who last summer earned MVP honors while leading the Balboa Bay 16 Quiksilver team to the U.S. Junior Olympic boys’ volleyball championship in the 16-and-under open division. “Volleyball is hard, but there’s not too much to improve on. You’re doing the same thing over and over. Basketball, there’s so much to improve on. There’s dribbling, passing, shooting, blocking, defense.”

Basketball’s piqued Caldwell’s interest more so than volleyball, but he’s not ruling out possibly doing both in college.

He grew up playing hoops, hearing Grandpa’s stories from his All-American years at Stanford and seven-year stint in the NBA with the Fort Wayne and Detroit Pistons, and Syracuse Nationals.

“He was fun,” said Caldwell of Grandpa, who averaged 19.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per game in the NBA. “I always hung out with him.”

Now Grandpa’s clothes hang on Caldwell.