A Worthy Cause and a Conflict

First, the good news--In the grand scheme of things, it certainly isn’t the basketball game of the year. Or even the week. There aren’t going to be any 360-degree slam dunks, or any in-your-face blocks, or I-saw-it-but-I-don’t-believe-it passes.

The winners aren’t going to get any money or any titles or much glory. Two days later, nobody’s even going to remember who won.

It’s called the Mark Rhodes Memorial Basketball Game and it will be played at Hale Junior High in Woodland Hills next Sunday with the proceeds going to benefit youth programs. The participants will be kids from those programs and their parents.

So that probably leaves you with just two questions: Who is Mark Rhodes and what’s the big deal?

If you didn’t know Rhodes personally, you’ve probably never heard of him. He attended Taft High, but you won’t find him in any team photos or athletic record books.

He was always too busy working to play organized sports in school. While a student at UCLA, he held three jobs simultaneously.

But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in sports. When Mike Walden was a USC football announcer, Rhodes wrote him a letter, asking about his job. The letter was so impressive that Walden called the Rhodes home and invited Mark to come and watch him work.

Rhodes accepted. He was 9 then.

When Rhodes was 11, his Little League team was invited to take part in pregame activities at Dodger Stadium. One of the kids would throw out the ceremonial first pitch and Rhodes was selected to hit it. Hit it he did, a line drive that drew cheers from the crowd of approximately 31,000.

On Christmas Eve, 1982, Rhodes, then 19, was a passenger in a car that smashed into a parked vehicle in Canoga Park. He was killed instantly.

A year later, a consortium of Valley youth programs decided to keep his memory alive by staging a basketball game--his favorite sport--and at the same time helping to raise money for those programs in which he was he was so involved.

That was Mark Rhodes.

As for what makes this a big deal, perhaps we ask that question too much. Perhaps we spend too much time focusing only on those games that are a big deal.

Yes, if the Lakers beat the Celtics, that is a big deal. If the Raiders make it to the Super Bowl, that is a big deal.

But, if once in a while we focus on a kid who didn’t leave any records, just a lot of good memories, and if once in a while we focus on a game that’s going to make winners out of a lot of kids who might otherwise get into trouble and become losers, that, too, is a big deal.

Now the bad--The story out of Taft High this past week was also a big deal, but for a far different reason.

If the Mark Rhodes story shows a positive side of sports, than the Mike Shwartzer-Matt Gilmore saga is the antithesis.

Shwartzer and Gilmore are baseball players at Reseda High. They were kicked off the Taft squad, they say, for signing a petition that asked for the dismissal of baseball Coach Art Martinez because of his unreasonable disciplinary policies.

Gilmore had to move into an apartment in Reseda to qualify for the transfer. Shwartzer and his parents maintain they got the runaround from Taft Principal Ron Berz because they wanted Mike to transfer to Canoga Park High, Shwartzer’s neighborhood school but a Taft rival.

Martinez has declined comment. Berz denies that Shwartzer’s athletic ability was the reason he was prevented from going to Canoga Park.

There can be no denying that two students were punished for expressing their opinions.

If you don’t agree with an English teacher, does that mean you have forfeited your right to take English? Isn’t Taft still a public school? Isn’t the First Amendment still in effect?

Sportsmanship and fair play should be demanded on the field, but shouldn’t they be required on the sidelines as well?

Quote of the Week--Overheard at Cal State Northridge where a member of the women’s tennis team was telling men’s Coach Tony Davila that she had secured a summer job: “Yeah, it’s all set. He mailed me the WD-40 form and everything.”