Commission Votes Against Hearing Cypress’ Protest

The Commission on Athletics (COA) of the California Assn. of Community Colleges voted Thursday not to hear Cypress College’s protest of the 1985-86 postseason ban placed on the Charger basketball team by the COA’s Southern Appeals Board in August.

The COA, convening for its fall meeting at the Amfac Hotel in Burlingame, voted 10-8 against Cypress in a closed-door session.

“The Committee on Athletics chose not to review the Southern Appeals Board’s decision regarding Cypress. Therefore, the postseason ban of Cypress will stand,” Stu Van Horn, California Assn. of Community Colleges spokesperson, said.

If the COA had voted in favor of Cypress, the Chargers’ protest would have been heard Friday morning. Then, another vote would have been taken to either support or rescind the postseason ban imposed because of a recruiting violation by Don Johnson, the Chargers’ veteran coach.

Johnson and his coaching staff visited the home of Jeff Livesay in May in an effort to recruit the freshman forward from Norco High School, which is in Riverside City’s recruiting district.

According to the State Athletic Code, a coach cannot recruit a athlete who lives outside the school’s community college district. The code also stipulates that a coach cannot meet with an athlete outside of the school’s district for the purpose of recruiting.

The South Coast Conference, notified of the violation by Jim Kross, Riverside City’s athletic director, placed Johnson on probation and put a letter of reprimand in the coach’s permanent file.

But the COA’s Southern Appeals Board, decided to take Johnson’s punishment one step further and voted to prohibit Cypress from playing in the 1986 playoffs and the state championship tournament.

Cypress officials, who admitted the violation, said the penalty was too harsh and planned a protest. But Thursday, the matter was settled for good, much to the dismay of Johnson.

“My reaction is disappointment, anger and confusion,” he said. “We made an illegal home visit, we regret it and are embarrassed by it. But it didn’t give us an unfair recruiting advantage. It probably would have been better for us to have the player visit the school. We could have shown him our nice campus, our gym and all our championship banners.

“It also hurts that they didn’t take into account our past record. For 18 years, we’ve had no violations. But apparently, it didn’t matter to them. They just went ahead and made an arbitrary decision.”

Johnson, who played for John Wooden at UCLA in 1951 and 1952, is one of California’s most successful community college coaches. In 18 years, he has compiled a 386-161 record with two state championships and five conference titles. Last season, Cypress was 14-13 and finished fifth in the South Coast Conference before being eliminated by Cerritos in the first round of the Shaughnessy playoffs.