SOUTH-CENTRAL : More Than Game at Stake in Simi Trip

Favio Solares ran across the picnic grounds toward a baseball diamond, where a group of teen-agers were preparing to play softball.

Solares, 13, laughed with friends, but his expression shifted uneasily as he looked toward the Simi Valley Courthouse, where four police officers accused of beating motorist Rodney G. King were tried last year and acquitted.

“When I walked in the courtroom I thought, ‘Oh my God, I never thought I’d be there,’ ” said Solares, an eighth-grader at Foshay Junior High School in South-Central. “You feel something inside. It was kind of scary to think what happened inside that courthouse.”

Solares was among 85 students from Foshay who toured the courthouse and played softball against students from Valley View Junior High last weekend. The outing was arranged by South-Central resident Jan Hardy and Simi Valley resident Susan Davenport, who started a softball game between residents of their communities after last year’s riots.

“This was a spinoff of America’s Game,” said Hardy, referring to their name for the softball game.

The idea for the teen version of America’s Game came after Hardy and Davenport were invited to speak at Moorpark College in April. Hardy invited several students from Foshay to go to the school with her. It was during that visit that some of the teen-agers asked Hardy if she would put together a game for students.

“I started getting notes left on my screen door from kids at the school, saying: ‘When are we going to play Valley View?’ so I started working on it,” Hardy said.

Hardy contacted Earl Perkins, director of Foshay’s after-school programs, and Principal Howard Lappin about the game. Lappin agreed to help because the game provided students a chance to address some of their questions and clear up misperceptions.

“This alone won’t cure anything, but you’ve got to start somewhere,” Lappin said. “People have blown things way out of proportion, just as the media blew the Denny case out of proportion.”

For Valley View Principal Don Guadioso, the game meant “a good opportunity for the kids to meet people from different circumstances in life.”

Zachary Mitchell, a ninth-grader at Valley View, said he came out to the game to “show (the Foshay students that) we’re not mad, because that’s what people keep saying.”

While the focus of the game was simply to let the teen-agers from the two communities meet, the tour of the courtroom seemed to be what captured the attention of most of the South-Central visitors.

“It makes it more real being here,” said Shawnta Jones, 15. “Actually being where Powell was on trial is kind of weird.”

Even Hardy, a veteran of two games between Simi Valley and South-Central residents, said visiting the courthouse was the highlight of the day.

“I’d been there before, but I just couldn’t go in,” she said. “And I felt the same way this time, but this time I said: ‘OK, let me get off the bus and do it.’ I had to set an example. But it was fine once I went in.”

After touring the courthouse, the students walked over to an adjacent park for the softball game. Foshay won, 14-13.