4 L.A. All-Stars Will Play in Pittsburgh Games

It may not make much sense geographically, but the West will be going to the East to represent the South later this week as part of the three Dapper Dan all-star basketball games in Pittsburgh.

Coach Harvey Reid from Fike High School in Wilson, N.C., who has the South team, will have four Los Angeles area players on the 10-man South team that will play the North. They will practice together for the first time Thursday and then Reid will begin to set a starting lineup and see where Scott Williams of Hacienda Heights Wilson, Stephen Thompson of Crenshaw, Earl Duncan of Santa Monica St. Monica and Stacey Augmon of Pasadena Muir fit in.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Scott Williams,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about him. But I look forward to all of them. They don’t send us any duds for this type of thing.

“We don’t go in unless we plan to win it. But we’re going to have fun doing it.”

Terry Mills of Romulus, Mich., is the top player on the North team that will also include Chris Munk of San Francisco Riordan, who will be playing for the first time since a knee injury ended his senior season in early January. Pittsburgh, however, will be the second leg of Munk’s trip this week.

The top uncommitted player in California, he was turned down by the Stanford admissions office despite a reported 3.2 grade-point average. USC was his next choice, but the resignation of Stan Morrison and the likely replacement of assistants David Spencer and Stan Stewart by new Coach George Raveling have given Munk reason to re-examine his choice for the April signing.

“I feel very strongly about that,” Munk said about a change of assistant coaches. “Since Coach Morrison is gone, Stan Stewart is the only connection I have with USC. I don’t know anything about the new coach. . . . I’d be hurt to see him (Stewart) leave after all this time.”

But would it be enough to sour him on USC?

“I think it would be a big step in that direction,” he said.

With that in mind, Munk will take a recruiting trip to Oklahoma today and Wednesday before going to Pittsburgh. He will still have one visit left and said he will consider following Tom Davis if Davis leaves as Stanford’s coach to coach at Houston or become Raveling’s replacement at Iowa. Houston reportedly offered Davis the job Monday, but he was meeting with school officials at Iowa.

The 22nd annual Dapper Dan games will also include a meeting between the Pennsylvania all-stars and an East Coast team and two Pittsburgh-area squads. There will be no television coverage.

Add all-stars: Names will be announced some time this week for the South team that will play in the statewide Shrine football game, scheduled for the Rose Bowl in early August. Between 56 and 60 players will be selected, with an additional 60 players on a standby squad.

Selections were made by the three South coaches--Harry Welch of Canyon Country Canyon, Bob Baiz of Claremont and Jim Brownfield of Pasadena Muir--and respected talent evaluator Dick Lascola, with suggestions from all the Pacific 10 schools.

Coaches Bill Paul of Muir and Kye Courtney of Hawthorne are right. But so are Paul Bodenshot and Mark Evans. And that’s where the trouble comes in.

The question: Should Bodenshot and Evans, the co-directors of the Pasadena Games track competition, get as many people and schools involved as possible, or only the best?

Saturday night, the issue put Paul and Courtney very much at-odds with organizers, who chose to take only one or two entrants per event from each school, even if the No. 3 or 4 people from the same team had better marks than other schools’ athletes. Paul and Courtney talked of pulling out of next year’s meet, which would definitely be a blow to what is now considered among the three or four best invitationals in Southern California.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Courtney said. “We had a lot of mixups with the entries coming in and coming out. As of right now, I’d say no.

“I understand that they are trying to spread it around and get as many schools involved to put as many people in the stands. But not at the expense of leaving other talented people in the stands.”

As for the possibility that Muir would not return to a major meet in its own area, Paul said: “There’s a big chance. They should be proud to have us represent the city and yet it doesn’t seem like that at all.

“This is the third year in a row and it’s really got me ticked off. This is the only invitational where this happens to us. The people at Mt. SAC tell us to run two or three relay teams. It sounds like I’m just a complainer, but this happens to us every year. I don’t complain anywhere else.”

Faced with the thought of losing two of the most talented teams in California, Bodenshot stuck to his guns.

“We want as many people involved as possible,” he said. “This isn’t a Hawthorne meet. Somebody is always going to be upset.”