The Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : Ferragamo Fuming Over Fumbles

Fifteen minutes after his team fumbled 11 times and lost eight, and was beaten, 19-10, by Long Beach Poly, Chris Ferragamo’s frustration was showing.

His L.A. Banning team tried to cool off under the bleachers at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach on a humid Saturday afternoon. Ferragamo, with consecutive losses as a coach for the first time since 1974 and the Pilots’ 1-2 start their worst since he took over in 1968, tried to cool his heels. Neither he nor the team had much success.

Then Ferragamo turned the heat up a little more. The 1985 Pilots are an inexperienced group. There are more juniors than seniors on the team for the first time since Ferragamo has been coaching. But he obviously was in no mood to give the old “We’ll get ‘em next time” speech.

When the players finally started walking across the field for the bus ride home, Ferragamo passed them, heading the other way.

“Hey, Coach,” one of the players said. “The bus is over there.”

Muttered Ferragamo: “You guys should walk home.”

Ferragamo was short and to the point with reporters after Saturday’s game, saying: “I just don’t know about our team,” and, “I think everyone looks to our team to have good football players, but I guess we don’t.”

Finally he said: “I’m real depressed right now.”

He promised to have more to say later, and Monday he did.

“This is a very difficult position for me to be in,” he said. “We’re taking our lumps right now because we can’t get our act together on offense.

“The backs are just fumbling too much, and I think it’s because they try too hard, if that’s possible. They’re not satisfied with the five yards when they are going down. They have to go for the extra two or three.

“That leaves them in awkward situations, and they usually don’t have control of the ball. Every single back I have put in so far this season has fumbled.

“A lot of kids are feeling sorry for themselves today around school. ‘Oh, Coach, I’ve got all these bumps and bruises.’ Hey, I don’t care what kind of bruises they have today. We’re going all out in practice. If you want to play at Banning High School, you had better be ready to go all out all the time.

“I feel we do have the players, but we’re not doing the job at all. I am very happy, though, with the play of the defense in the second half, especially Louis Woolridge and Earl Saunders. They did a very good job.”

Ferragamo also announced a major lineup change, moving Saunders, whom he called “one of the best linebackers Banning has ever had” at the start of the season, to tailback.

Ferragamo is hoping that Saunders, who last played running back as a sophomore on the junior varsity team and had a 40-yard interception return Saturday for the Pilots’ only touchdown, will be the sure-handed ball carrier the team so desperately needs.

Saunders will still play middle linebacker, Ferragamo said, but only in spot situations.

Is it time to give the Pilots the last rites, what with the current state of affairs and a game with Carson, the City’s best team, two weeks away?

“Eleven fumbles is going to hurt any team a lot, and they’re a little green in the secondary,” said Jerry Jaso, Long Beach Poly co-coach. “Otherwise, they still got people who can play. I think you’ll be hearing from them, and from Chris Ferragamo, before the season is done.”

Whatever became of . . . When the 20-team National Invitational Volleyball Tournament begins Thursday at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion and Wooden Center, 106 players, representing 16 teams, will be from City or Southern Section high schools.

Only Wyoming, Brigham Young, Lamar and the University of Calgary are without a player from Southern California.

It may only be the freshman team, but check out this lineup at L.A. Loyola: Matt Butkus, son of ex-NFL linebacker Dick, at tight end; Michael Moore, nephew of former Minnesota wide receiver Ahmad Rashad, at split end and safety; Ryan Lefebvre, son of former baseball player Jim, at cornerback; Chris Hesburgh, nephew of Notre Dame President Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, at center; Jimmy Klein, son of former NFL tight end Bob, at defensive back; and Tebb Kusserow, son of the Santa Monica football coach, at quarterback.

“It was a little strange at first,” said Frank Kozakowski, the team’s coach. “I was a little nervous at what all their dads would think of me and things like that.”

He can’t be too worried now since the Cubs are off to a 2-0-1 start.

Prep Notes Running back Eric Bieniemy of La Puente Bishop Amat may miss this week’s rematch against nearby Hacienda Heights Wilson. Last season, in their first meeting, the game ended in a 37-37 tie. “Saturday he was hurting pretty good,” Coach Don Markham said. “He got a bad hip pointer in the game Friday and a pulled muscle in his thigh.” Bieniemy will lose a day of recuperation since the Lancers must play on Thursday this week. . . . Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely were declared eligible for the 1985-86 basketball season at Huntington Beach Ocean View by the Southern Section, and the fate of the two transfers from Lynwood is now up to the Huntington Beach Union School District. With the two players, the Seahawks, now appealing restrictions that will keep them out of the 1986 playoffs, would be one of the favorites to win the 5-A title. Hazely is currently a starting linebacker on the football team. . . . Guard Harvey Mason of Crescenta Valley in La Crescenta, coming back after averaging 27 points a game as a junior, has given an oral commitment to sign with the University of Arizona. He narrowed his list down to Stanford, USC, UC Irvine, Missouri and Minnesota before canceling trips to the latter two and choosing the Wildcats. . . . Randy Austin, linebacker-tight end at Canyon Country Canyon, has UCLA, USC, Washington, Brigham Young, Oklahoma and Colorado, in no particular order, at the top of his list. Part of the selection will depend on his major, which he has not yet picked. . . . The Cerritos football team had to forfeit its first two victories against Cypress and Ontario because it used a 14-year-old on the varsity. CIF rules state that all varsity players must be at least 15.

Times’ Top 10 Through Games of Oct. 6 SOUTHERN SECTION

No. School, League Record 1. LB Poly, Moore 3-0-0 2. Fontana, Citrus Belt 3-1-0 3. Bishop Amat, Angelus 4-0-0 4. Riverside Poly, Citrus Belt 4-0-0 5. El Modena, Century 4-0-0 6. Claremont, Baseline 4-0-0 7. CC Canyon, Golden 4-0-0 8. St. Paul, Angelus 4-0-0 9. Servite, Angelus 4-0-0 10. Edison, Sunset 3-1-0

CITY

No. School, League Record 1. Carson, Pacific 2-1-0 2. Gardena, Pacific 2-1-0 3. Granada Hills, Valley 3-0-0 4. Dorsey, Pacific 3-0-0 5. Banning, Pacific 1-2-0 6. San Fernando, Valley 2-1-0 7. Kennedy, Valley 2-1-0 8. Fairfax, Crosstown 3-0-0 9. Westchester, Pac 8 3-0-0 10. San Pedro, Freeway 2-1-0