Probation for Three City Programs

The City Section continues to crack down in an attempt to enforce rules that have been paid lip service in recent years.

The latest action occurred last Thursday at a Rules Committee meeting when the Crenshaw and Carson boys’ basketball programs and the Woodland Hills Taft football program were each put on a year’s probation.

The committee ruled that assistant coaches at Crenshaw and Carson had coached players from their schools on teams not connected with the section. Coaches are not allowed to have contact with current or incoming players in competition outside the school.

Ade Kido of Carson and Edmond Flournoy of Crenshaw both coached all-star teams that had players from their schools on the rosters. The volunteer assistants will not be allowed to coach in the section next season. Crenshaw is the two-time defending State Division I champion.

At Taft, football Coach Troy Starr may be fired for allegedly committing recruiting violations by having illegal contact with several potential incoming players. Coaches are not allowed to have contact with players before they enroll or with those outside school boundaries.

Ron Berz, Taft’s principal, said he was “disappointed and embarrassed” by the findings and will meet with Starr this week.

“When you enforce the rules, punishments are going to happen sometimes,” said City commissioner Barbara Fiege. “Cleaning house is not easy, but I’m hoping things will improve as we go along.”

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USA Water Polo, the sport’s amateur governing body, plans to sue the Southern Section in hopes of changing a rule that limits contact between high school players and their coaches during the summer.

“We’ve been enacted by Congress to develop water polo in the United States, and the Southern Section is standing in the way of that,” said Richard Foster, USWP president and an attorney in Irvine. “We leave the kids alone during the school year, and now we’re being told we have to leave them alone for part of the summer as well.”

The Southern Section has a summer “dead period” for all of its sports, a three-week span in which coaches cannot have any contact with players from their team. Water polo and cross-country are the only sports in which schools have a choice of non-contact periods, either in June or August.

Foster said Southland high school coaches have been complaining to him for years that the rule limits participation in summer tournaments, many of which are held in the area.

Dean Crowley, Southern Section commissioner, said the rule was voted on by representatives from every league in the section and that no one has come to him about trying to change it. He said if coaches are unhappy, they should have gone to their league representatives.

Foster said the lawsuit will be filed in two or three weeks.

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John Hattrup has resigned as girls’ basketball coach at Brea-Olinda after one season.

“I think I’ve done everything there that I can do,” Hattrup said last week. “I think it’s time to move on and do something else.”

Brea finished the 1993-94 season 33-0, winning the State Division III championship and finishing as the No. 1 team in USA Today’s national poll.

The announcement caught Brea administrators by surprise. The popular Hattrup was an assistant for seven years to Mark Trakh, and the two helped build the Ladycats into one of the nation’s premier programs. When Trakh resigned last summer to become the women’s coach at Pepperdine, Hattrup was offered the job.

Hattrup was a walk-on coach who taught two physical education classes at Brea. Although he sought a more permanent teaching position, Brea administrators said they could not offer anything more.

No replacement has been named.

Times’ Top 20 Baseball Poll

The Times’ top 20 high school baseball poll, with teams from the City and Southern Sections. Final poll next week.

School Sect. Div. Rec. LW 1. Fountain Valley SS I 27-3 1 2. Chatsworth City 4-A 28-4 2 3. Lakewood SS I 24-7 3 4. La Quinta SS III 28-3 4 5. Bishop Amat SS III 26-1 6 6. Cres. Valley SS I 19-6 7 7. SO Notre Dame SS I 21-6 8 8. Tustin SS III 22-6 9 9. Nogales SS I 21-7 10 10. West Torrance SS III 25-7 11 11. El Camino Real City 4-A 22-7 NR 12. Sylmar City 4-A 25-6 5 13. Brea-Olinda SS II 22-5 13 14. El Dorado SS I 21-8 15 15. JW North SS II 18-11 NR 16. Rio Mesa SS II 21-7 14 17. Hart SS II 21-6 16 18. Corona SS III 22-7 18 19. Simi Valley SS I 20-7 19 20. Gahr SS II 22-9 17