Bobby San Jose’s Burden of Proof : Former Wilson High Quarterback Tries to Put Arrest in Drug ‘Sting’ Behind Him at UCLA

It was the kind of media attention a star high school athlete usually dreams about. Front page headlines and photos in the local newspaper. Reporters calling his house at all hours of the day and night. Coverage from television stations and national exposure from the Associated Press.

But these were not the headlines of a hero. This was not the acclaim sought by a star high school quarterback with a scholarship to play football at UCLA.

Robert David (Bobby) San Jose is one of the most celebrated quarterbacks to come out of Wilson High in Long Beach, but his arrest in May on suspicion of petty theft and offering to sell cocaine threatened to bring an abrupt end to a promising athletic future.

Although prosecutors eventually declined to file charges against San jose, the school district Board of Education refused to let him return to classes at Wilson. The board said it was in San Jose’s “best interests” that he earn his diploma through home study or at another Long Beach campus.

Although the chain of events certainly rocked San Jose and his family, the athlete says he has come out of the arrest a stronger person.

“I think I’ve grown up faster than most high school kids,” San Jose said. “I think I’ve learned from my mistakes.”

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue says that San Jose--whom Donahue calls “a young-looking Joe Montana”--will be on the university campus next fall.

Donahue labeled as “ridiculous” rumors that San Jose would be dropped from UCLA after his freshman year because his situation had become a liability in Westwood.

“We bring athletes to UCLA for four or five years. We don’t give one-year scholarships,” he said.

While Donahue compares San Jose to Montana, Long Beach sports enthusiasts have compared his athletic ability to both Bobby Grich and Dennis Dummit, who 20 years earlier shared the quarterbacking duties at Wilson. Grich is now a second baseman with the California Angels. Dummit was an All-Southern Section choice who went on to become an All-American quarterback at UCLA.

San Jose was a three-year football and basketball starter at Wilson, with the talent to perform with all-star ability in baseball as well. A smart 18-year-old, he served as student body vice president in the fall semester.

At 6-1, 180 pounds, San Jose can sling a football down the field with little effort. He stood out in a program that lost more games than it won in his three years. In his final season, San Jose threw for nearly 1,100 yards and the team finished 6-3 overall, one of its best records.

When he begins practice at UCLA in the fall, San Jose hopes the numbers will speak louder than the words. He said that he fears he will be best remembered by this city’s tightly knit athletic community more for the innuendo surrounding him than for his athletic accomplishments. He says he has become a “paper boy” quarterback, tried in the media in front of the citizenry.

“This is the time I must prove myself,” he said. “If I have it in me now, I know what’s most important.”

A prime goal of the drug sting operation at Wilson, according to Detective Mike Halliday of the Long Beach Police Department, was to “impact thoughts on campus” and in the community about drug abuse.

Said Police Sgt. Mike Hill, who headed the operation: “There was no publicity seeking for some specific arrest within that group of people. The idea . . . of that operation was to bring to the attention of all students and selected people that we don’t tolerate that type of behavior.”

But San Jose and his supporters claim that he was singled out. They say his visibility in the city, and the fact that he was 18 years old--which permitted authorities to legally release his name to the press--made him a prize catch in a police “sting” operation that began in February without the knowledge of school officials.

The May 1 bust at Wilson received ample attention. When San Jose was summoned to the school nurses’ office the Thursday of his arrest, he was greeted by a handful of police officers holding six other students--all juveniles--and a reporter and photographer from the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Hill said he tipped a Press-Telegram reporter a day or so before the arrest that “an investigation” would culminate at Wilson High. He said the reporter and a photographer rode in his squad car to the school to witness the arrests.

Hill says he “doesn’t remember specifically” if he mentioned San Jose by name, or his legal age, when he contacted the reporter. But, he said, in the course of their conversation that information “probably was” mentioned.

On the morning after San Jose’s arrest, both the Press-Telegram and The Times carried stories of the arrest.

“I feel Bobby has been tried in the media and he won’t get a retraction,” Bobby’s mother, Jeanie, said after his arrest.

Bobby San Jose’s arrest concluded a two-month undercover operation at Wilson by Officer Lisa Lopez, 21, a recent graduate of the Long Beach Police Academy. Lopez allegedly purchased drugs from six of those arrested. Lopez said the seventh student, San Jose, had accepted money from her with intent to provide her with cocaine.

San Jose does not dispute that he received money from Lopez. But he claims she pressed him for drugs again and again before he finally accepted $50 that she stuffed inside a textbook during a science class on April 16.

He has steadfastly maintained that Lopez timed her move perfectly so that he would be forced to grab the book out of her hands to avoid being disciplined by the classroom teacher, who was walking toward their seats.

San Jose says he tried to return the money after class, but could not find Lopez, then later that day spent some of it on a pizza and, a few days later, on fast food with friends. When he was arrested two weeks later, San Jose had $1 in his pocket.

Lopez disputes San Jose’s version, calling him a liar. She said she followed his directions as to how to transfer the money to him.

“He told me to put the money in the book. The teacher was in the front of the classroom,” she said.

Lopez said she met Hill later that day and, using photos from a Wilson yearbook, identified San Jose.

She said San Jose indicated to her that he thought doing cocaine was “cool” but that he hadn’t used it in several months because he would have to take a drug test to play at UCLA. (UCLA recently instituted a drug testing policy for all athletes that goes into effect this fall).

San Jose calls Lopez’s version of the events “gutless.” He said he favors mandatory testing of all athletes and even considered taking weekly drug tests during his ordeal to prove his point.

“I never used that stuff. I never used cocaine in a game. That’s ridiculous,” he said.

In any case, he did not return the money until May 7--a week after his arrest, when he sent a $50 money order to the Police Department.

San Jose conceded that spending the money he received from Lopez was a “dumb thing to do.” The school district called it a violation of school regulations. The board told him he could participate in graduation exercises at the school but that he could not attend a senior awards ceremony (which he went to anyway) or the school prom.

San Jose, who completed his studies at home, said he had “senior-itis” throughout his final year at Wilson. “School was boring,” he said, adding that he was anxious to graduate and go on to UCLA.

The San Jose family, a large, close-knit group, found some solace in the final outcome.

“This has brought a closeness here that will never go away,” his mother said.