Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : High School Sports Show for ESPN

High school sports are coming to national television. ESPN will begin showing “Scholastic Sports America,” a weekly, 30-minute news magazine-style program devoted to high school sports, Sept. 6 at 3:30 p.m. It will continue in that time slot throughout the school year.

“There are some terrific stories in most every town, and the local paper is the only place where people can hear about it,” said Dennis Deninger, the show’s producer. “We want to take the stories from all over to a national level.”

Studio reports will be rare, Deninger said. He, host Chris Fowler and a crew will travel around the country for stories on location. They spent this week in Los Angeles, gathering material. The focus will be on unusual teams and people, with segments on record setters, scholar-athletes and issues of national interest.

Marshall basketball Coach Sandy Greentree, whose Barristers won the City 3-A championship last season, resigned this week after seven years “to see if there is anything else in life besides Marshall basketball.”

Principal Don Hahn is accepting applications for a replacement, although the school does not have any teaching openings.

“I haven’t pursued any other coaching jobs, but I think I did all I can do at Marshall,” Greentree said. “I need either to move up or to do something else. I thought I’d give myself a couple months off (during the summer) to see if my feelings would change, but they haven’t.”

Mr. Popular: Jaime Cardriche, all 6 feet 9 inches and 395 pounds of him, left Long Beach St. Anthony with the class of 1986, but his legend, like his body, continues to grow. Reporters took an immediate liking to him at Oklahoma State’s recent press day. You could say the folks in Stillwater are eating him up.

Reports are that the Cowboys had to use a special scale to weigh him, one capable of holding 500 pounds. He said, though, that he hopes to get down to playing weights of 365 for football and 330 for basketball.

“I’ve got real big bones,” he said. “The doctor told me 330 pounds on my bones would be like a 150-pound man.”

Someone asked: “Then playing at, say, 265 would be out of the question?”

“I couldn’t play at 265,” he said. “I wouldn’t have anything to wear.”

Yes, he certainly is having fun away from home.

“I love college because you can get in that chow line and eat all you want,” he said. “But after practice, I’m too tired to eat. I’ve never been too tired to eat in my life.”

The first mandatory drug testing of high school athletes is on hold in Alliance, Neb., where insurance companies, concerned that such a plan might prompt lawsuits by parents, will not cover the school. Instead, Athletic Director Skip Olds may organize a group of schools to bear joint responsibility for the insurance costs or, as many others have initiated, to begin a voluntary program.

“I figured I’d be up against some brick walls, but I didn’t think insurance would be one of them,” Olds told the Associated Press. “I wish the insurance company wasn’t an issue. This wasn’t the intent. It was to help the kids.”

The original plan called for every athlete in grades 9-12 to take a urinalysis once a year to check for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines.

The University of Notre Dame’s football team, which already lost linebacker John Foley of Chicago, the 1986 USA Today Defensive Player of the Year, to the Proposition 48 blues, will also be without another incoming prep All-American. Defensive lineman Paul Glonek of Burbank, Ill., will be lost to the Irish for the year--or maybe for good.

Glonek, 6-6 and 295, failed to meet the university’s admissions standards, including a summer-school classroom tryout, and promptly took self-paid recruiting visits to Iowa and Texas. He left Austin Thursday, saying he is also considering trips to Missouri, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

Foley, who had a 2.54 grade-point average but twice failed to achieve the necessary test scores, will stay at Notre Dame.

At Colorado, meanwhile, Prop. 48 will cut into a fine Southern California recruiting effort by Buffalo coaches. J.J. Flannigan, an All-Southern Section running back from Pomona, and quarterback Sal Aunese from Vista will be ineligible. The women’s track team will loose Yolanda Johnson of Denver, who holds the national high school record in the 100-meter hurdles at 13.06.

Flannigan, who rushed for 1,539 yards last season, had a 2.9 GPA at Pomona, and a 3.5 as a senior put him on the honor role for the third straight year. But he got a 12 on the American College Test, one below the standard.

The 1930 San Pedro football team, which has about 10 surviving members, will be honored by the Pirate Booster club Sept. 13 at Yugoslav Hall in San Pedro. Tickets are $15 for the dinner and social.

The new assistant coach at Martin County High in Stuart, Fla.: Lou Saban, 64, the former National Football League and college coach and most recently a scout for the New York Yankees.

Martin County Coach Bill Cubit was an assistant at the University of Central Florida, Saban’s last stop in football.