Laguna Finds Itself Caught in Maelstrom Over a Coach

When Cedrick W. Hardman, a big-name football player, arrived in Laguna Beach in 1984 offering to help its struggling high school team, some sports fans in the picturesque little community were thrilled.

Hardman would transform the football team to champions; the town would have a winner.

But the scenario went sour. Today, three years after Hardman’s entry into Laguna Beach High School football, factions in the city are bitterly divided over events that followed.

Hardman, 38, who was twice arrested in the city on suspicion of drug-related offenses, has left the Laguna Beach Unified School District. Petitions are expected to be filed soon for the recall of four school board members who allowed him to coach without pay after his second arrest. The football team’s booster club is under investigation. And bitter accusations and rumors are rife in the community.

Laguna Beach, says board member Carl Schwarz, is a “little Peyton Place.” He adds, “I wish our opponents would debate us face to face, and maybe we could eliminate some of these rumors.”

At the Hub of the Rumors

At the hub of most of the rumors is Hardman. A former All-Pro player with the San Francisco 49ers, Hardman moved to Orange County to become public relations director for Rockshire Records in Anaheim. When Rockshire’s recording division went out of business, Hardman began searching for a job.

In August, 1984, he was walking near his home in Laguna Beach and ran into then-football Coach Dennis Haryung. As they talked, Hardman offered to be an assistant football coach.

“He asked me if I needed any help,” Haryung said soon afterward. “I told him, ‘Are you kidding?’ ” Hardman became an assistant coach, and in 1985, following’s Haryung’s resignation, Hardman became head coach.

The Laguna Beach High School Artists began winning games. They were on their way to a winning season in September, 1986, when police stopped Hardman on Laguna Canyon Road, reportedly for erratic driving. The arresting officers said Hardman struggled, even after they sprayed Mace at him. In his car, police reportedly found 5.5 grams of cocaine.

He was charged with misdemeanor resisting arrest and felony possession of cocaine. Hardman had previously been arrested on March 29, 1985, on suspicion of possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, a misdemeanor.

The buzz of debate that followed Hardman’s first arrest became a roar after his second. At first, the school board suspended Hardman. Then, following a plea by Hardman’s doctor to let him continue coaching as part of his drug rehabilitation, the board voted, 4 to 1, to allow Hardman to attend practice sessions and coach without pay.

In subsequent weeks, board member Susan Mas, who had voted with the majority, said she regretted that vote. “I think we were focusing too much on rehabilitation and not enough on the impact,” Mas said. “I can’t speak for the other board members, but I know that it (the doctor’s request) certainly impressed me.”

But the vote to allow a man suspected of drug use to continue coaching high school players touched off a movement to remove those four approving members of the school board. In November, residents calling themselves Citizens United for Responsible Education (CURE) appeared at a board meeting and delivered notices of intent-to-recall against the four: Mas, Janet Vickers, Schwarz and board president Charlene Ragatz. Board member Harry Bithell had voted against allowing Hardman to return.

Matt Gorry, chairman of CURE, says the trigger was a challenge from two board members.

‘You Can Recall Us’

“Charlene Ragatz and Jan Vickers spoke to the PTAs at El Morro and Top of the World schools in October, and when they were criticized, they said, ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, you can recall us.’ Well, this is just what we’re doing.”

As of Friday, CURE officials said they had about 3,500 signatures on petitions to recall Ragatz, Vickers and Schwarz, and about 3,000 on petitions to recall Mas. Although CURE has continued its drive against Mas, recall workers say privately that the steam is no longer in the movement against her.

To trigger a recall election, a petition must have 3,515 valid voter signatures. CURE has said it wants to get 4,000 voter signatures--the rest for a cushion--by May 4, the deadline for filing the petitions with the county registrar of voters. If the petitions qualify, a date for the election will be set later.

In recent weeks, recall workers say, another controversy has motivated Laguna Beach residents to sign the petitions. “The signatures are really coming in now,” CURE member Gay Pivaroff said Friday.

That controversy involves the football boosters club, a parents’ group, which raised $3,000 to pay Hardman directly for training student athletes last summer. Stan Thomas, athletics commissioner of the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation, says that such direct payments by booster clubs violate CIF rules. Thomas has also criticized Ragatz for “wearing two hats” by being parent-representative on the football booster club and a school board member.

‘A Real Witch Hunt’

Ragatz, who has a son on the high school football team, responded: “I told Stan that he has his opinion, and I have mine. I didn’t give up my rights as a parent when I came on the school board.”

Ragatz has said that the real intent of leaks to the press about the booster club was to embroil her name in more controversy. “A real witch hunt is going on,” Ragatz said.

Vickers agrees. “I see this recall action as being very vindictive and very malicious,” she said. “I’m very concerned with the turn it has taken.”

Schwarz says recall workers are twisting both the Hardman and football boosters club controversies. “I think some of the people in CURE are going to be embarrassed when the facts come out” at a meeting Wednesday among CIF representative Thomas, the school board, and the boosters club board of directors.

But CURE leader Gorry says he also is looking for an airing of facts.

“We also have many questions about the football boosters club,” Gorry said. “We hope some answers will be coming out at the CIF meeting on Wednesday. We think a thorough public accounting needs to be made of where all the football booster club money went.”

Actions Eroded Trust

Gorry disagrees with Ragatz’s and Vickers’ assertions that the recall has become vindictive and a witch hunt.

“We aren’t attacking them personally. You’ve got to remember this is a small town. We’re the same people who helped get these board members elected. And we respect their public service.” But, he says, the four board members took actions, including the Hardman reinstatement, that has eroded the community’s trust.

Since the Hardman controversy began, the school board has formulated a policy setting procedures for disciplining any employee in the district charged with possession of drugs.

“It’s a very good policy, and I’m proud of it,” Ragatz said.

Hardman, who has shunned publicity, has been little mentioned in the final days of the recall petitioning, as attention has shifted to the boosters club. He still lives in the city, his friends say, but he has removed himself from contact with the school system. Earlier this year, Hardman told the board he didn’t want to return as coach next fall.

Mas publicly recanted her vote against Hardman and says that, in retrospect, she thinks he should not have been allowed to return to coaching.

Schwarz says that Hardman left behind more than memories of a winning football season.

“I don’t like football; I think it’s a dangerous, cost-ineffective sport,” Schwarz said. “But I’ll tell you that I was very impressed with Hardman’s work with the kids on the team.”