Coach, Program Caught in Squeeze Play at LACC : District Cutbacks Put Pote, His Baseball Team in Limbo; Decisions on Both Upcoming

As he walked across the Los Angeles City College campus one day last week, Phil Pote was approached by two teen-age boys wearing baseball caps. They had just registered for fall classes and wanted to sign up for the LACC baseball team.

They were in the right place at the wrong time.

Pote, who has been the baseball coach at LACC for the last 10 years, was told by school officials three weeks ago that there would be no baseball team during the 1987 season, pending a decision by the Los Angeles Community College District.

Pote is one of 15 coaches in the nine-school district who, at the moment, are being barred from running teams in the 1986-87 school year because they no longer teach physical education. The district is expected to decide this week whether to allow them to coach.

The practice of hiring a physical education instructor to serve as a head coach for an athletic team and then allowing a non-teacher to serve as an assistant who actually runs the team has been permitted in the past. But legal problems have surfaced in the wake of faculty layoffs in the district this year. Six full-time physical education instructors were laid off and 23 part-time coaches were fired June 30 as part of district-wide staff cutbacks.

Pote is running out of time and patience.

“If they want somebody else to coach, that’s fine,” Pote said. “I just want the program to survive. If it’s gone for one year, I’m afraid it will be gone forever and that a lot of kids will get shorted.”

The matter isn’t that simple, according to district officials.

The district is restricted by a legal process for hiring coaches after layoffs, said Dick Anderson, senior director of personnel for the district. The positions must first be offered to full-time physical education teachers and then to laid-off personnel before anyone from outside the district can be considered.

The district, however, has yet to give its schools permission to use the hiring procedure, Anderson said.

“More time is needed for an administrative decision on what level of program is going to be offered and who is available to run the programs,” Anderson sad. “So many athletic programs require recruiting long in advance of the season. Here it is August, very late in the spectrum, and some things that might be desired might not be feasible at this late date.”

Acting President Dr. Louis Hilleary of Los Angeles City College also conceded that the late timing of the decision makes the prospect of having a baseball team in 1987 unlikely.

“These things take time for recruiting and scheduling,” he said. “At this point, I would have to say that it is too late for us to have a baseball program in 1987.”

The LACC baseball program is the oldest in the district, dating back more than 50 years. The program has produced, among others, major league players Don Buford and Roy Smalley.

Officially, LACC and the eight other Los Angeles district schools have until Sept. 22 to announce their full athletic programs, according to Courtney Borio, athletic director at Trade Tech.

“It should still be an open-ended situation,’ Borio said.

Pote hopes so. He is concerned, however, that LACC might not have a baseball field to play on unless a decision is reached soon. LACC does not have a diamond on campus and therefore plays home games on city fields.

The team’s long-standing agreement with the parks and recreation department expired this summer. Pote has worked out a new deal, but without a team he has no use for a field.

“I’ve surveyed the entire area, and there aren’t many fields suitable for our needs within a reasonable geographic area,” Pote said. “I feel certain that if we are off the field we have been using for a year that someone else will take it over and we will lose it permanently.”

Another concern for Pote is just how good a team he can put together on short notice.

“The damage has already been done,” he said. “But I feel that if we get the green light while there is still time to enroll for classes, I could put together a team. Not necessarily a contender, but a reasonable program.”

The standards for the baseball team at LACC have never been specifically geared toward achievements on the field anyway. Under Pote, the program has earned a reputation for its approach to academics.

Each year, Pote requires his sophomores to write letters to at least five four-year schools, inquiring about admission. Pote himself sends individual scouting reports on each of his players to more than 50 colleges and universities.

All but one of the sophomores from last season’s team went to four-year schools, Pote said.

“I don’t think the fact that we’ve had so many of our players go on to four-year schools is fortune,” he said. “It’s a plan.”

Without baseball at LACC, Pote fears that inner-city youths will be denied educational opportunities.

“Many of the players come in for athletics, but while they’re here they find that they like being in an educational environment, and they’re exposed to opportunities they might not have been previously aware of,” Pote said. “Others are not prepared to go directly to a four-year school and they use the community college as a bridge.

“With athletics displaced, I’m afraid that many athletes will not continue on in school.”

Hilleary finds no fault in Pote’s logic.

“If I was in his place, I’d be saying the same things,” Hilleary said. “But I’m in this office, and I have other demands.”

New USC baseball Coach Mike Gillespie, who coached against Pote while at College of the Canyons in Valencia, is distressed by the clouded future of the LACC program.

“I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it’s nothing less than a tragedy,” Gillespie said. “Phil Pote has accomplished so much in the inner city. He has an amazing rapport with those kids, and he is personally responsible for a large number of kids succeeding in school.”

This is, indeed, a particularly frustrating situation for Pote, who has spent his life in the inner city. He played baseball at LACC in 1952 and 1953 and was a longtime coach at Fremont High before returning to his alma mater.

“My major concern in this situation is that our athletes are predominantly inner-city kids,” Pote said. “We would be the last of the schools that traditionally serve inner-city kids that has baseball. And if we don’t have it, that could be it for the kids in the central-city community.”