Court to Decide Soccer Player’s Status : Laguna Hills Senior Wants His Dismissal From Team Overruled

An Orange County Superior Court judge is expected to decide today whether Laguna Hills High School administrators overstepped their bounds when they suspended Matthew J. Richards, the captain of the soccer team, for allegedly using alcohol.

Judge Harmon C. Scoville heard arguments Wednesday from Edwin J. Richards, a Santa Ana attorney who petitioned the court last December to reinstate his son to the team, and representatives from the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. Laguna Hills is a SVUSD member. Scoville postponed his decision until today.

Richards, 18, a senior, was suspended from school for five days and dismissed from the varsity soccer team after school officials discovered beer on his breath at a Laguna Hills football game. Richards was attending the game as a spectator.

Laguna Hills Principal Anthony Ferruzzo, who was named as a respondent in the petition, said: “Throughout the whole situation there has been no real difference between the student, parents, and school as to what happened. Where we disagree is what to do about it.”

Ferruzzo suspended Richards from school and from the team citing the Laguna Hills High School Athletic Code, which forbids the use of alcohol by the school’s athletes.

Edwin Richards, however, argued in court that the rule was “vague, ambiguous and overbroad as it seeks to regulate conduct beyond the jurisdiction of the (school district).”

Scoville said that he wanted to review the transcript of the school district’s Expulsion Board hearing, which did not find sufficient cause to expel Richards from school permanently, before ruling on the dispute.