OCEAN VIEW ON TRIAL : Investigation Claims Many Discrepancies : Complaints Against Harris Date Back to 1983 Illegal Recruiting Charge

In January, 1985, as a result of an accusation by a Huntington Beach High School basketball player, the Huntington Beach Union School District launched an investigation into alleged recruiting violations by Ocean View High School Coach Jim Harris.

Three months later as a result of the investigation, Harris lost his coaching position and his team had to forfeit its 24 victories and the Sunset League championship it had won.

Harris, 41, subsequently was reinstated after admitting that he had unknowingly violated California Interscholastic Federation rules. But additional sanctions, including prohibiting the team from competing in this season’s playoffs, were levied against Ocean View by CIF Southern Section officials after its own review determined Harris had used “undue influence” to keep two players at the school.

A lawsuit filed by Harris seeking to have the sanctions lifted will be heard Monday in Orange County Superior Court .

The school district investigation, ordered by Superintendent Marie Otto, focused on the following:

Huntington Beach resident Martha Apostle said that Harris and sophomore coach Jeff Harshaw tried to recruit her son, John, when he was a seventh- and eighth-grade student at Marine View Elementary School in 1983-’84. John now plays for Huntington Beach High School. Harshaw, 29, is now a junior varsity coach at Irvine High School. The allegations involving Harshaw were never substantiated.

Harris allegedly tried to recruit Steve Pemper, a student at Liberty Christian High in Huntington Beach, in the summer of 1983. Pemper now plays for Huntington Beach.

After a meeting at which Harshaw was present, La Canada landscape architect Laurant Brown allegedly agreed to move into the Ocean View attendance area in 1983 with his son, Derek, and athletes Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely of Lynwood. Brown, who is white, had become the guardian of Butler and Hazely, who are black.

Contradictory sworn statements from individuals interviewed during the investigation have left many charges unproven and cast a shadow over Harris’ program.

The district investigation was conducted by Dr. Charles Hess, then assistant superintendent of the Huntington Beach Union School District, and Bill Boswell, district athletic director. Their findings were delivered to Ocean View Principal John Myers, who confronted Harris and Harshaw after the 1984-85 season.

Neither Hess nor Boswell took notes or recorded most of the interviews, Boswell admitted. Some of those interviewed said in later interviews that they were misquoted, and that much of their testimony was taken out of context.

Hess declined to talk to The Times about the investigation.

Boswell said all interviews were conducted by two district employees, who later wrote a report of their findings.

Boswell and Hess kept Ray Plutko, CIF Southern Section commissioner, apprised of the developments of the investigation. In court documents filed by the CIF in response to Harris’ lawsuit, Plutko said he met with Hess, Boswell and Myers and gave hypothetical illustrations of what constituted undue influence to help determine whether there was a violation of CIF rules.

Harris’ problems began in January, 1985, when Myers presented him with a written statement by Martha Apostle and her son, John, in which they indicated Harris had told John two years earlier he should attend Ocean View.

John Apostle Jr. claimed that on a number of occasions from 1982 to 1984, he was approached by Harshaw and Harris about playing at Ocean View. He said the coaches told him Ocean View had a better program than Huntington Beach.

At the time, Apostle was at Marine View Elementary School, a feeder school for Ocean View and Huntington Beach high schools, although Apostle lived in the Huntington Beach attendance area.

Apostle said that Harshaw told him that in order to eliminate the problem of living in the Huntington Beach attendance area, he could use a false address of someone living in the Ocean View attendance area.

Harshaw denied allegations that he attempted to recruit Apostle to Ocean View and said he had met him only once.

Apostle also said that Harris talked to Martha Apostle during a game at the Ocean View gym while Apostle was participating in the Ocean View School District playoffs and told her that John should go to Ocean View because it was better than Huntington Beach.

According to his lawsuit, Harris said there were only two instances in which any conversations took place between him and the Apostles and that in both, the parents initiated the contact.

Martha Apostle declined to be interviewed for this story but said she stood by her family’s testimony in the investigation.

According to the investigation, Steve Pemper attended Liberty Christian High, a private school located in Huntington Beach, from the sixth to the 10th grade. During July 1983, Pemper, a sophomore, attended the Blessed Sacrament Camp in Westminster.

The investigation also stated that Harris, a counselor at the camp, gave Pemper rides to the camp along with Harris’ son for one week, and that during those trips, Harris allegedly explained the advantages to Pemper of transferring to Ocean View--a violation of CIF regulations.

Harris said in his suit it was actually his nephew, Steve, in the car and not his son. Steve, in an affidavit filed with the suit, claimed that Pemper rode with them to camp for three weeks, not one, and that no mention of Ocean View’s program or Harris’ position as coach was ever made.

The district investigation stated that Brown, Harshaw and Lee Jackson, a youth counselor in Santa Ana, met in a Rosemead restaurant in April 1983, at which time Harshaw “described the basketball program” at Ocean View.

Jackson, who coached with Harshaw in a summer basketball league, and Harshaw have said in interviews with The Times that the meeting was arranged to discuss a traveling all-star team they were putting together to play in Las Vegas. Jackson said that Brown asked to come to the meeting because he “wanted to learn about Ocean View.”

Harshaw has maintained in interviews that he shied away from discussing the Ocean View program with Brown, which would be a clear violation of CIF recruiting rules.

“I thought Laurant was a friend of Lee’s who was interested in basketball, and the subject came up of Ocean View basketball,” Harshaw told The Times. “During the course of the meeting, Lee said, ‘This is Laurant Brown, who has a son interested in going to Ocean View.’

“I said, ‘Wait a minute. You put me in a bind here. This is a violation of CIF rules. I cannot be talking to you. You really should be talking to my principal, not me. I can’t answer anything else,’ ” Harshaw said.

Brown later said he didn’t know where Harshaw coached and that the subject of Ocean View basketball simply “came up at the lunch.”

“I said to him (Harshaw), ‘I’m looking for a place to take some kids,’ and asked him what Orange County was like,” Brown said in an interview, adding that was his only contact with Harshaw.

According to the investigation report, there was a meeting between Brown, his son Derek, Butler, Hazely, Harris and Harshaw at a local pizza parlor, where the coaches allegedly explained the advantages of playing at Ocean View.

Brown, the report continued, allegedly had an arrangement with Harris to move into the Ocean View attendance area with his son and Butler and Hazely, who were living with him. The major points of the arrangement, allegedly agreed to by Harris, were that Brown would be “responsible for the physical well being and physical training of the students and Harris would be responsible for their academic achievement.”

Harris would also give Brown a key to the Seahawks’ gymnasium so that he could use the gym at any time there were not other scheduled activities, the report continued.

Brown denied the alleged arrangement.

“There was no arrangement,” he said. “I met Harris on a bench, in a gym, after we were there (living in the Ocean View attendance area). We had moved into the district in June, around June 6. We were living in an apartment before we went to Ocean View to play basketball.”

Jackson: “Laurant met Harris the same day I did--the first day of summer camp at Ocean View. There is a lot of talk about an arrangement, but it’s hard to believe there was any since they (Harris and Brown) had never spoken before.”

In a recent interview, athletic director Boswell cited the conflicting testimony when he noted: “You read the conflicting evidence. I wouldn’t hang Jim Harris on what’s in the report.

“His (Harris’) lawyers keep throwing up the fact that our investigation was not done in a 0rofessional manner. That collection (of information) was given to the principal.”

Huntington Beach Coach Miller, who said neither he nor anyone else at Huntington Beach had seen the report, said he is disappointed with the district’s handling of the investigation.

“I asked Bill Boswell and my athletic director, ‘What about the investigation?’ ” Miller said. “Are they just going to discard the investigation? I mean, Dr. Hess and Bill Boswell put in countless hours working on this.”

Boswell again cited conflicting testimony:

“Who is telling the truth? It’s a tug of war. John Myers did act on some of the information we did get that did show there was a violation of (the) undue influence (rule).”