Disruptive Behavior Led to Stranding of Players, Coaches Say

Two coaches accused of abandoning six high school basketball players in a van alongside a desert freeway said Tuesday that they had pulled over because the boys’ behavior made driving dangerous and that they had never intended to leave them there for long.

Sunny Hills High School assistant coach R. Lyndon Boop, 26, said he considered it more dangerous to continue driving with the boys than to leave them on the side of the road for a short period. He said that before he stopped the youngsters had thrown a bottle from the window into heavy traffic, nearly incited a fight with passing drivers and behaved in a way that almost caused Boop to have an accident.

However, Boop added, he and fellow assistant coach Mark Kremer, 21, a student at Cal State Fullerton, never intended to abandon the players.

Indeed, he said, they drove back to the van no more than 1 1/2 hours later, only to see sheriff’s deputies drive off with the boys.

By the time they were able to turn around, the deputies and players were gone, he said.

Boop said they considered going to the police but didn’t know where the station was. Further, he said, they were convinced that the players were safe, so “we felt the best course of action was to pick up the van, return home and contact the parents.”

Riverside County sheriff’s officials said Monday that a deputy had found the six players about 9:30 p.m. Saturday in a van parked on the side of Interstate 10. The players told deputies they had been stranded for two hours after their coaches got mad at them for losing a game and for playing a radio too loudly.

The team had been returning from a summer tournament in Palm Springs, where they had lost, 45-40, to Artesia High School.

While one player had said Monday that Boop got angry at them for noisy high spirits inside the van, he did not paint the picture that the assistant coach did Tuesday in an interview and prepared statement.

Boop said in a statement he and Kremer prepared: “A bottle was thrown from the van into heavy traffic. Obscene gestures were made by the players, which incited passing motorists to want to fight the players. There was continuous loud, vulgar language, loudness to the point of making communication impossible and resulting in dangerous lane changes.”

In addition, he said the boys had obstructed his rear-view mirrors, and their noise was so loud that he and Kremer could not hear each other.

At one point, Boop nearly caused an accident with an unsafe lane change, the coach said.

After “repeated warnings,” Boop pulled the van off the road and gave a final warning, which was ignored, he said.

“After being subjected to this continual behavior for nearly an hour, we deemed the situation too dangerous for everyone on the freeway to continue and pulled off the road again,” he said.

He and Kremer considered letting the boys--ages 16 and 17--drive the rest of the way home. “However, due to the fact that they could not conduct themselves responsibly as passengers, we felt that they certainly could not conduct themselves as drivers,” he said.

One of the players, Manish Munshi, said Monday that three of the boys had been quietly “kicking back” inside the van, but the other three were loudly singing, clapping and joking.

He said Boop had pulled over once to warn them “to keep quiet or he’d leave us there.” The players complied for about 15 minutes, until a car pulled alongside the van.

“We started waving and stuff, and he (Boop) pulled over, took the keys and said, ‘I’ll see you Monday night,’ ” said Munshi, 16. Their next scheduled game was Monday night.

Munshi did not mention any bottle-throwing, obscene gestures or dangerous behavior on the van, as described by Boop. Efforts to reach the six players Tuesday for comment were unsuccessful. Munshi’s mother, who answered the phone Tuesday, said her son had no further comments.

Boop said the situation inside the van created such an atmosphere of “hostility” that “we felt that a cooling-off period was necessary.”

The coaches left the van and got into a car that was following the team vehicle, driven by a friend of Boop’s. They drove to a restaurant about three miles west of the parked van.

About 60 to 90 minutes later, they returned to the van to resume the drive home, he said.

“As we were approaching the van, eastbound, we spotted the players with a police vehicle and personnel,” he said. There was a center divider on the highway, preventing the coaches from making an immediate U-turn to join the players.

By the time the coaches could turn around and drive back to the van, “the police had picked up the players and left,” Boop said.

The coaches continued home and tried to notify parents, but could not reach anyone upon their return Saturday night. They contacted all parents, except one, on Sunday morning, Boop said.

In the meantime, however, Boop said that Kremer’s father was called by the boys at the Banning sheriff’s substation, and he offered to pick up the players and bring them home. However, other transportation had already been arranged, through the players’ parents.

“We sincerely regret leaving the players for the 1 1/2-hour interim, although we never abandoned them, as we returned to the van site with the intention of continuing the drive home with the players,” Boop said.

He and Kremer have been reprimanded. They were notified by the school about 1 p.m. Monday that they had been suspended, but by 4 p.m., after a meeting with officials, they were reinstated, Boop said.

However, he and Kremer were told by head coach Steve White to “sit out or not participate” in the Sunny Hills High School basketball team activities for the rest of the summer.

Boop described himself and Kremer as “walk-on” coaches, non-faculty members who assist with athletic activities. Boop said he receives a stipend for his work, but Kremer, a full-time student at Cal State Fullerton, is a volunteer.

Asked about his fate in the fall, Boop said, “I can’t answer that because I don’t know.”

White said no decision has been made about whether the coaches would be reinstated in the fall. “Their names will be brought up as coaches . . . and (they) either will be hired or rejected,” White said.

Meanwhile, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that it may be several days before a decision is reached on whether to press child-endangerment charges against Boop and Kremer.

Deputy Jess Gutierrez said, “We’ll read the reports, investigate, and then confer with the district attorney’s office about whether we should prosecute.”

During a regularly scheduled school board meeting of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District on Tuesday night, brief mention was made of the incident. Just one resident spoke to the board about the matter. He was John Lennoncq of Fullerton, a retired police officer from the City of Bell in Los Angeles County.

“Only thing I know is what I’ve read in the press,” he said. “But the only thing I can tell you is that if (District Superintendant) Dr. (Robert C.) Martin and the principal and the school official said it was OK, it’s OK with me.”

Lennon praised the school system and said he had had nothing but good experiences with it.

Martin briefly recounted the incident to the school board, and what he knew about it. He stressed that the summer basketball program is not related to the school district or approved by it, and he said that contrary to some published reports the two assistant coaches had not been suspended by the school district. He said the district could not suspend them because the coaches had been acting in a private capacity.

School board member Bob Hathaway interjected that it was his understanding that the coaches didn’t leave the boys because they were angry for having lost the basketball game.

“It’s my understanding that it was because of misbehavior on the part of an individual,” he said.

Martin nodded his head affirmatively and said, “That’s also my understanding.”

Following the brief discussion the school board met behind closed doors for a personnel session. Board president Marilyn Buchicq said she didn’t expect any action to be taken in the personnel session dealing with the episode.

“As Dr. Martins said, we can’t do anything because this was not a school program,” Buchi said.

As for Boop, he said if he had to do it over again he would handle Saturday’s situation in the van differently.

“I would have gone either to the nearest telephone and/or to the police, contacted their parents and stayed with them until they picked them up,” he said.

But he repeated that he and Kremer “never left the area, and we returned after weighing the situation.”

He said when he and Kremer left the boys to go to the restaurant, they did not explicitly tell the players that they would return, but he thought the players knew the coaches would be back.

The six players involved have been identified as Munshi, Ray Leoni, Brian McCloskey, Chris Drakos, Brendan Hickman, and Walter Mitter.

Boop said no alcohol was involved in the disruptive behavior. The thrown bottle had contained soda pop. Further, he did not know whether all six players were involved.

“If I had paid attention to all six in the van, it would have hindered my driving even more,” he said.

As it was, he said, it was so noisy, “my assistant and I could not communicate, sitting next to each other. A dangerous situation (near-accident) occurred, and I didn’t even know about it at the time. I was told by a witness later.”

Asked why the players had misbehaved, Boop said: “Without the head coach present, not all of the team, not even most of the team, but there are some individuals where misconduct is persistent.”

Winning or losing the tournament was of no consideration in how he reacted, Boop said:

“I was the driver. I deemed it (stopping) necessary. If the van had continued, we and the others on the road were in more danger than we were by leaving it there.”