Notre Dame officials went a little overboard

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Maybe it was the fact that Sherman Oaks Notre Dame was losing, badly, to Serra League rival Crespi.

Maybe it was something I said, although not to the school officials who were giving me a hard time.

Rather, it was something I said to Notre Dame quarterback Dayne Crist -- even though they didn’t really know what it was.

They didn’t want me talking to him at all, even if it was only to inquire about his health after he had been sidelined since the end of the first series of the second quarter, and even if he didn’t seem to be having any difficulty talking to anybody else as he walked the sideline and watched the rest of the game with his teammates.

Crist had suffered a concussion, but school administrators and security personnel apparently didn’t want me to find that out as they interrupted my work once I’d finished a brief exchange with Crist, attempted to intimidate me, and threatened me with ejection from the Knights’ stadium.

This was after they had already subjected me to several stern talkings-to, first by school officials and security personnel, and then by a police officer who threatened to take me to a police station if I didn’t stay behind the sideline rather than walking alongside players as the game proceeded.

In the end, though, they all settled on just providing me with an unwanted police escort everywhere I went during the second half of the Knights’ 23-3 loss to the Celts.

It was, in a hyphenated word, uncalled-for.

Now, Notre Dame -- Notre Dame -- a San Fernando Valley school that I know well and have dealt with often and have always enjoyed covering, has the distinction of being the first school in my almost 20 years of covering prep sports to ever threaten me with ejection from a facility, or to treat me in such a manner.

To say that it was surprising is an understatement. I’m still stunned. And disappointed? Definitely.

I know the Knights had, well, a tough night -- Notre Dame fell, 23-3, in the regular-season finale -- but school officials didn’t need to ruin mine, too.

-- Lauren Peterson