Former Gym Rat Sheds Light on an Old Mystery

Zach Lieberman has solved a 21-year-old mystery while providing insights into what lengths a particular high school athlete took to fulfill his aspiration of receiving a college scholarship.

The tale begins in the fall of 1981, when two 6-foot-10 basketball players suddenly showed up on the Granada Hills Kennedy campus.

They wanted to join a program that had just sent Darren Daye and Stuart Gray to UCLA and was among the best in the City Section.

Scrutiny was being focused on Lieberman, a flamboyant 5-foot-3 point guard who had transferred to Kennedy.

All he cared about was basketball.

“I was never into school at all,” he said. “My entire life was basketball. From the time I was born, I was playing day and night.”

As a freshman, Lieberman played at Van Nuys Montclair Prep, then transferred to Woodland Hills Taft after concluding college scouts wouldn’t come to see him at Montclair Prep.

His father, Jerry, sold their Encino condo and moved to another condo in Woodland Hills.

But Lieberman lasted only one year at Taft after disagreements with Coach John Furlong.

“That’s where my career really went down,” he said. “Me and Furlong didn’t get along. I was flashy and he didn’t want it. I remember sitting on the bench in summer league and thinking of giving up playing.

“I’m walking out of summer league, and Al Lewis walked up to me. He said, ‘You are the second-best point guard in Los Angeles behind Ralph Jackson [of Inglewood] and I want to take over your career. The first thing we have to do is get you out of Taft. You’re rotting there.’ ”

Lewis, an actor who played the role of Grandpa in the 1960s television series “The Munsters,” was a well-connected basketball enthusiast. Lieberman said Lewis recommended transferring to Kennedy.

“He said I needed to go where there’s exposure. Even if I sit on the bench at Kennedy, the scouts will see the back of my head,” he said.

Lewis, who now lives in New York and has run for mayor of the city, could not be reached for comment.

Lieberman’s father leased a condo in Mission Hills so his son could transfer to Kennedy, his third school in three years. He played with the 7-foot Gray, made all-league but wasn’t receiving any scholarship offers.

Lewis got Lieberman an invitation to a prestigious summer camp in Georgia.

“I had an unbelievable showing,” Lieberman said.

That led to Lieberman signing a letter of intent with the University of North Carolina Charlotte before his senior season.

Not bad for someone with a 1.7 grade-point average who admitted cheating on his first Scholastic Assessment Test by copying the exam of a student sitting next to him. He flunked the test because he didn’t realize it was not the same test.

“It was the greatest time of my life,” he said. “When you’re a high school ballplayer and not much into education and basketball is your life, you don’t think about anything else.”

Lieberman said Lewis approached his father about taking in the two 6-10 players.

“Al says to my dad that he knows [one of the players] got kicked out of his home and is living in his car with his girlfriend. Do you want to put him up and have him transfer? My dad said, ‘Fine.’

“While we’re in Georgia, the Pontiac, Michigan, school district disbanded sports. [The other player] wanted to pursue playing. Al said, ‘Do you want to have this guy move in?’ My dad said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Investigations by the City Section and the school were begun to determine the eligibility of the Kennedy players.

Meanwhile, Lieberman, who said at first he didn’t deny the players were living with his family, suddenly changed his story when he learned the section might rule the players ineligible for not living with their legal guardians.

But Zach knew the truth, and so did members of the rival Granada Hills High team.

“My dad got us this huge Cadillac to drive everyone around in,” Lieberman said. “This Cadillac stalled every time you had to make a left turn and it was always in front of Granada Hills High. The basketball players were walking by and they laughed at us. They knew.”

The player from Michigan got homesick and left. The City Section eventually approved the other player’s eligibility after weeks of discussion and appeals. He received a scholarship to Nevada Las Vegas.

Lieberman never made it to Charlotte. He ended up playing at U.S. International University in San Diego and never graduated. He’s 38, lives in San Diego with his wife and two children and runs a travel business.

“I’ve never stolen anything,” he said. “I’ve never been arrested, never tried coke, never tried a puff of smoke. I don’t drink. If the worst thing I did in my life was get bad grades, what’s the big deal?

“I don’t think anybody wanted to become a basketball player more than I did. After I stopped playing, it took me about 10 years to go into a gym because it hurt too much. The smell of it would get me depressed.”

What happened in ’81 wasn’t an aberration in high school basketball. It was a peek into the future.

Club coaches have taken over the role of placing athletes at big-name programs. Manipulating rules, in the name of winning and getting players college scholarships, is more prevalent than ever.

The all-out pursuit of a college scholarship is used to entice players to switch schools even though relatively few ever gain the scholarship they desire.

As for Lieberman, who now volunteers once a week at a homeless shelter, he said he was only trying to help two high school basketball players in difficult situations, but he now understands it wasn’t right.

“I don’t think we should have did what we did,” he said.

Bending the rules will never totally disappear, but it would be inspiring to find a championship high school basketball team that truly plays by them.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.