Dumbbells and Running Replace Swells and Sunning

The final ringing of school bells should signal lots of sun and big swells.

But there is little summertime slumming to be done by the best high school athletes. Life is a beach unless you play ball.

Football players spend up to 30 hours a week in passing leagues and weight training, and basketball players are in one league during the week and another on weekends. Baseball players join American Legion teams that play through July, while soccer and volleyball players form traveling all-star teams.

And camps? There’s at least one for every sport.

“Most athletes who have intentions of playing a varsity sport work hard during the summer,” said Dick Whitney, athletic director and baseball coach at Kennedy High.

Simi Valley basketball player Don MacLean said he will play more than 60 games this summer. “I want to stay on top of my game year-round,” he said. “I’ll probably take a week off in August.”

Stuffy basketball gyms might be the last place teen-agers would want to spend warm summer evenings. But between school-organized summer leagues, the L.A. Games and the American Roundball Corp., gyms are packed nearly every night.

“Close to 100% of returning varsity players are on a summer team of some sort,” said Rich Goldberg, president of ARC. “They know that’s when they improve the most.”

In addition to league play every weekend, ARC will send all-star teams to prestigious tournaments at UCLA and Nevada Las Vegas in July.

Seven-on-seven football games aren’t as glamorous as all-star basketball tournaments, but coaches say they are essential. Because football is a fall sport, players use the summer to get into top condition. And although pads are not worn during seven-on-seven games, timing and ball-handling skills are sharpened.

“I’ll be at school 8 to 10 hours a day,” Canyon Coach Harry Welch said. “Our linemen will work out from 8 a.m. until noon four days a week, which isn’t so much. Many teams go five or six days a week. Players in skill positions will put in 20 to 30 hours a week.”

Canyon will play about 30 seven-on-seven games during the summer. Welch noted that while demands on time are severe, games are less intense than during the regular season.

“The time we spend together during the summer is very, very pleasurable,” Welch said. “Kids really enjoy being in a competitive situation where winning and losing is not that significant. If I felt they weren’t enjoying it, we’d cut down on the number of games we play.”

The first seven-on-seven games will be played the last two weekends in June at the L.A. Games (formerly called the L.A. Watts-Summer Games). More than 9,000 athletes from Southern California high schools will participate in 12 sports at 15 locations. Included are 64 football teams, 32 baseball teams and 176 basketball teams.

While competition at the L.A. Games will be a fierce, American Legion baseball is played in a more relaxed atmosphere.

“The legion season is a good time to evaluate next year’s varsity team,” Whitney said. “I’ll move some kids around to different positions and take a look at pitchers who I was reluctant to use during the regular season.”

A few legion teams have combined the best players from several high schools. Adam Grant and Jeff Cirillo, who starred on Providence’s Southern Section Small Schools championship team this season, are playing on a legion team composed mostly of Notre Dame players.

“The competition in legion will actually be stronger than high school,” Grant said. “It’s a chance to hit against better pitchers than Jeff and I see during the regular season.”

Despite the progress made during the summer, Whitney has reservations about demanding so much of players’ time.

“I have mixed emotions,” Whitney said. “Sometimes I think it’s overdone.”

Welch, while emphasizing the necessity of a summer program, said players are encouraged to take vacations.

“Whether it’s a week or a month,” Welch said, “family vacations are wonderful. And if a player wants to miss a day to be with his girlfriend or whatever, that’s fine, too. If that happened during the season, though, he wouldn’t play in the next game. That’s the difference.”

MacLean’s summer travels won’t be vacations. He’ll attend a prestigious camp at Princeton University in late June and a tournament in Las Vegas in late July. And although he admitted to sometimes wishing that he could improve his tan, MacLean said basketball burn-out is not a problem.

“I may get physically tired,” he said, “but never mentally tired. If there weren’t organized leagues and tournaments, I’d go to gyms and find games. You can’t let up if you want to be the best.”