Franklin Stripped of Title : Football Team Cited for Ineligible Player

The Franklin High School football team has been stripped of the 1986 City 3-A championship for using an ineligible player in a first-round playoff game and will be on probation next season, school officials confirmed Tuesday.

The title will remain vacant.

Since the Panthers forfeited the game in question, a 28-24 victory Nov. 21 against Canoga Park, the reasoning is that they should not have advanced to the title game. There, they beat L.A. Manual Arts, 10-7, on Armando Toscano’s field goal with 19 seconds left.

“It was an improper grade change after the grading period had closed to make a youngster eligible,” said City Commissioner Hal Harkness, a member of the Interscholastic Athletics Committee that handed down the decision last week. “That youngster was scholastically ineligible and should not have participated in any of the three playoff games.”

Franklin Coach Armando Gonzalez said that the player, whom he would identify only as a starter, had received a grade changed from D to C, and not by the teacher who had given the original mark. A grade of D would have pushed the player below the 2.0 grade-point average restrictions to play.

“It wasn’t illegal, just between two teachers who are friends,” Gonzalez said. “One changed it because he thought the other had OK’d it. It wasn’t done by the coaches or any of the players. It turns out that the teacher of the student never had any intention of changing it. He was only thinking about it.”

Added Principal Edward Rosas, who would not name the teachers involved: “A teacher changed a grade. He told the athletic director about it, took the appropriate steps, and sent a notice to the counselors office. But (the teacher) did not fill out a grade-change slip at that time. . . . Everything he did showed the intention.

“It was one technicality, but I guess every infraction is a technicality. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

The players will keep their individual awards from the game and Manual Arts will remain as the 3-A runner-up. There are no future provisions against Franklin, although, by going on probation, the program will closely monitored by City officials.

“The kids worked hard and because of something teachers did, they penalize everybody,” Gonzalez said. “Really, the bottom line is that two teachers had the misinformation. Now we, the football program, get into trouble.”