Terri Mann’s Enrollment Under Investigation : San Diego Section Considering Whether Her Coach Used ‘Undue Influence’

Point Loma High School is under investigation by the San Diego Section because its girls’ basketball coach, Lee Trepanier, possibly used “undue influence” in getting 6-foot 2-inch senior Terri Mann to attend the school.

Section Commissioner Kendall Webb has asked Barbara Brooks, Point Loma principal, to conduct the investigation.

Webb said Trepanier, in helping the Mann family find an apartment in the Point Loma area, possibly violated Article 5, Rule 510 of the Section bylaws, which states:

“The use of undue influence by any person or persons to secure or retain a student or to secure or retain one or both parents or guardians of a student as residents may cause the student to be ineligible for high school athletics for a period of one year and shall jeopardize the standing of the high school in the California Interscholastic Federation.”

Brooks will be assisted in the investigation by an unnamed San Diego Unified School District official.

Mann, considered one of the country’s best high school players, has helped Point Loma win three straight state championships.

Should the investigation turn up a violation, Webb is unsure whether the school would be stripped of any titles.

“How any penalty would be enforced on a retroactive basis, I’m not sure,” Webb said. “Does it mean they have to forfeit all their games way back when? Their state championships? I don’t know.

“I’ve never had anything that went back that far that’s been documented. All I can do is say we’d have to pursue the matter as it applies to Rule 510 and then decide if any retroactive or present penalties should be enacted. We’re working on completely untrod ground. There’s no precedent here.”

According to Mrs. Willie Mann, Trepanier visited Mann’s home after Terri’s eighth-grade year. Mrs. Mann says her family was living in the Hoover High School area, but after the meeting with Trepanier she said she gave Terri the choice of attending either Hoover or Point Loma.

Mrs. Mann said Trepanier eventually helped them locate a home in the Point Loma area. At the time, Terri was just finishing her freshman year.

Webb said: “I can tell you unequivocally that it would be the opinion of my office that a visit to an eighth-grader’s home by a coach--especially out of his school’s attendance area--would be a breach of coaching ethics and, in my opinion, a violation that would invite further investigation. . . . So, on the surface anyway, I’d say that’s a violation we’d have to look into.”

Trepanier said that he never told the family to move. Instead, he said, he merely gave them the addresses of four places that were for rent in the Point Loma area.