WRESTLING CHAMPIONS

Lyndon Campbell, Santa Fe High School--He will be defending his state championship in wrestling this season. Campbell, who won the 129-pound Southern Section 2-A Division weight class last weekend, has only lost once this season. Other area champions in the 2-A Division last week included Sheldon Kim (108), Luis Nebel (122) and Alejandro Tirado (157) of Schurr, Allen Trent (135) of Mayfair and Manuel Fregoso (141) of Pioneer. They will compete in the Masters Tournament on Saturday at Fountain Valley High School. El Rancho (116 points), without placing an individual champion, won the 2-A team title, outpointing Santa Fe (94) and Schurr (81). Warren placed eighth and Poly placed 10th in the 3-A Team Division. Whittier Christian placed ninth in the 1-A Division. The state finals are scheduled for March 6 and 7 in Selland Arena in Fresno.

MISSING IN ACTION Gordon Stacer--The defending 142-pound state wrestling champion was noticeably absent from last week’s Southern Section 2-A wrestling finals. He was declared academically ineligible earlier in the year and has left school.

FUMING FALCON Bob Bogdanovich, Cerritos College--The Falcon basketball coach in an interview Monday blasted the seeding process for the upcoming California state men’s tournament as “asinine” and called for the establishment of an independent panel to create the pairings. Despite being a member of this year’s seeding committee, Bogdanovich charged that the group’s actions are governed more by politics than fairness. He said members of the panel, including himself, are “self-serving coaches” whose votes can be “bought.” The seeding committee is responsible for establishing positions for opponents in the first round and for placing teams in one of two brackets that uses a single elimination format to arrive at the championship game. Cerritos, top-ranked in Southern California, received a bye for the first round of the playoffs, but was put in the same bracket as South Coast Conference rival Compton College, which finished a game behind the Falcons. Bogdanovich suggested that the state use independent individuals to do the seeding, in the same manner as the Southern Section CIF and National Collegiate Athletic Assn.

COMMUNITY COLLEGES? California’s two-year community colleges often don’t live up to the community part of their names. It’s especially true in their athletic teams. Often a majority of participants on any team come from areas outside district boundaries. A case in point is the Long Beach City College baseball team. The 25-man roster is composed of 14 players who attended high school somewhere else than Long Beach. Before 1974 prospective athletes could only attend a designated “home” community college. A court decision that year, which involved a football player who crossed district boundaries, wiped out community college residency requirements for athletes. State officials have struggled with eligibility rules ever since. Today many athletes shop around before settling on which school to attend. “Very few coaches would turn down a good walk-on,” said LBCC basketball Coach Bill Fraser, a former president of the state basketball coaching association. Out-of-district recruiting (although outlawed) has also increased among two-year coaches.

LOST FOR THE PLAYOFFS Marlon Marshall, Millikan High School--The starting point guard for the Rams was lost to the Southern Section Big Five playoffs after he broke a knee cap in practice a week ago. . Second-seeded Millikan (22-3) beat St. Paul, 72-56, in the opening round last week and plays Servite (14-11) at Cal State Fullerton on Friday night.

PLAYOFF SITE SWITCHED Tuesday’s second-round playoff game between defending Small Schools Division champion Whitney High School and Gethsemane High was moved from Hamilton Junior High School in Long Beach to Brethren High School in Paramount after Whitney coach and athletic director Bruce Carlisle balked at the facilities. Gethsemane was designated the home team for the game and selected the junior high, but was persuaded by Southern Section administrator Dean Crowley to switch sites after Carlisle’s complaint. “The gym has wooden backboards,” Carlisle said. He added that the seating capacity would “maybe be 300.”

PRACTICE BEGINS THIS WEEK Southern Section--Practices for baseball, badminton, golf, gymnastics, softball, swimming, track and boys tennis and volleyball got under way last Monday, the first day allowed under section rules. With the exception of baseball and softball, all can begin non-league play this Monday. March 6 is the first day baseball or softball games are permitted.

THE CENTER OF ATTENTION Robert Stephens, La Mirada High School--The 6-foot-3, 245-pound center on La Mirada’s basketball team knows his future is on the football field. Although Stephens is a two-time Times All-Southeast choice as a football center and has signed a letter of intent to play football at Brigham Young University, he still plays varsity basketball “for fun.” He drew praise for his basketball performances in a recent 2-A Division wild card playoff game. Laguna Hills Coach Dave King said Stephens was the key in La Mirada’s 60-50 win last week.

SCORING MACHINES Kari Parriott, Valley Christian High School--The 6-foot-3 senior center has been on a scoring tear for the top-ranked Crusaders. In three games before last night’s 1-A Division playoff at Calabasas she totaled 111 points, including 47 points against Whittier Christian. Her “low” was 30 in the regular season finale against Brethren. She ranked second in Southern Section scoring during the regular season.

Derrick Martin, St. Anthony High School--The junior guard also ranked second in Southern Section scoring during the regular season. His 30.2 points per game average has made him the all-time single season scoring leader in the City of Long Beach.

George Koochof, Montebello High School--The 5-foot-7 senior guard scored 37 points in his team’s 84-70 Southern Section 4-A Division playoff loss to top-seeded Rolling Hills last week. According to the Southern Section office in Cerritos, no other individual has ever scored that many points against Rolling Hills.

ALL IN THE FAMILY Pete and Tom Tereschuk--A pair of former Lakewood High School and Long Beach City College quarterbacks are enjoying careers as baseball coaches. Pete is the coach at Long Beach’s Wilson High. His younger brother Tom began his first season at Whittier’s California High this week. Both assisted in football this fall at their respective schools.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK Bill Fraser, Long Beach City College--The veteran basketball coach has responded to recent comments by North Carolina State University Coach Jim Valvano, who was recently quoted as saying that he likely would not recruit another junior college player because they often are more trouble than they are worth. Said Fraser: “We all should send him a poison pen letter. It may be OK to think that but not to say it. Something like that just hurts the good players.”