Orange County Prep Wednesday : Throwing the Book at Them : High Schools Learn That if They Don’t Play by All the Rules, They Will Lose

High school sports are about games, and games are about rules. Run with a football and you’re a hero; run with a basketball and they give the ball to the other team.

You want to play the game, you’ve got to know the rules.

If you want to coach a high school sport or run a school’s athletic programs, your rules come from all directions--the league, school district, Southern Section. Interpreting those rules almost requires a law dictionary; applying them may require an intimate knowledge of each of your players.

And if you make a mistake, the penalties can be severe and affect entire teams.

“You screw up, make an honest mistake, and you can end up breaking a kid’s heart,” said Famous Hooks, Los Amigos swimming, water polo and basketball coach.

Hooks is talking about forfeits, and a glance at the 1987 Orange County high school sports year provides an alarming array of broken hearts. At least 10 teams have had to forfeit games after coaches or administrators violated rules they had either misinterpreted or thought they were obeying:

--Last spring, Mission Viejo, University, Tustin and Katella had to forfeit baseball games. Katella’s forfeit, in the final regular-season game, cost it a spot in the playoffs.

--In October, the La Habra football team forfeited four games, which eventually led to its not making the Central Conference playoffs, even though the Highlanders had been 5-0 on the field in the Freeway League. And the Los Amigos water polo team forfeited two games, eventually losing a spot in the playoffs.

--In November, Laguna Hills forfeited three football games, losing a chance at a playoff spot; and the Bolsa Grande football team forfeited five games, its Garden Grove League championship and lost the county’s longest winning streak in the process.

--In December, Katella forfeited four girls’ basketball games and Westminster forfeited three boys’ basketball games, including the Valencia tournament championship.

“I can understand people being worried about what’s going on,” said Father Charles Motsko, Servite principal and a member of the Southern Section’s Executive Committee, the body that administers, interprets and enforces the section’s rules.

“But I can honestly say that I’ve never come across a case that was malicious in nature. When people break the rules, it’s either through misunderstanding or misinterpretations.”

That’s not to say all forfeits are results of honest mistakes. The county’s most publicized forfeit involved the Capistrano Valley football team in November. In that case, Coach Dick Enright did participate in an illegal act--viewing practice tapes of rival El Toro.

But most administrators believe that case is the exception. They say they want to obey the rules; they just aren’t certain what those rules are.

Everyone involved, from those who make the rules to those who enforce them and those who have to work under them, admit the system is confusing.

There are five agencies making rules governing high school sports in California. The state Legislature, the California Interscholastic Federation, the 10 sections making up the CIF, the school districts and the leagues. The Legislature passed the 2.0 eligibility rule for students-athletes in 1986.

“The problem isn’t that we have too many rules,” said Gary Bowden, Canyon wrestling coach. “The problem, and what makes a coach’s life so tough, is all the different sources that are making rules . . . which only adds to more confusion.”

The broad body of rules governing high school sports in California is produced by the CIF, which governs everything from grade eligibility to the price a soccer referee can be paid. In turn, the sections, school districts and leagues can modify those rules to their own needs.

The Southern Section is the most visible and strongest rule-making and enforcing body in Southern California, comprising 479 schools, including those in Orange County.

“They hold the hammer,” said Bob Zamora, Capistrano Valley baseball coach.

The Southern Section has a rule book called the Blue Book, and by Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas’ own admission, “It’s not an easy document to read.”

Andrew Hernandez, Santa Ana High principal, thought early in the school year that his football team would have to forfeit games because of the use of academically ineligible players. He informed the Southern Section of this, only to be informed that the rule Hernandez had violated in the 1987-88 Blue Book, which had come out only a month before, was no longer valid. The kids were all right.

“It’s a good example of the state of things,” Thomas said. “We’re embarrassed by it.”

Others are downright perplexed.

“The rules are by no means written in concrete,” Bowden said. “You read the rule then you hope you make the right interpretation.”

Sometimes you do, sometimes you miss a chance at the playoffs.

La Habra forfeited its four games when a player who transferred from Servite in November 1986 without changing residence, was declared ineligible.

Under Southern Section rules, a player who transfers without changing residence is not allowed to play in varsity competition for a year.

La Habra Principal Thomas Triggs, the Freeway League representative to the Southern Section, and Coach Bob Rau interpreted the rule to mean the beginning of the school year. So the boy played with the team at the beginning of the school year.

They were wrong. The rule meant a calendar year after the transfer.

“Another great example,” Thomas said. “Tom Triggs is one of the most respected administrators involved in the Southern Section. But even he made a mistake. It happens.”

It also happens when a coach or administrator knows the rules but isn’t aware of every individual’s status on campus.

“Most of the problems we deal with are with kids’ eligibility,” Thomas said. “Now, if you think about a coach’s or athletic director’s day, most of the day he’s teaching class, then he has maybe one hour to check that everyone involved in sports is OK for that day. It’s an awesome task.”

And people slip through the cracks all the time. Hooks, as water polo coach, had a player who went by a nickname that Hooks believed was the player’s real name.

“Everyone called him by the name, every time he signed his name it was with that name,” Hooks said. “What else was I to think?”

It turned out that the boy’s legal name was something else. When Hooks would turn in a list of his players’ names to see if any were academically ineligible, the boy’s name was never spotted because his name in the school system was something else.

When the mix-up was finally discovered, it turned out the boy was academically ineligible. Los Amigos was forced to forfeit league victories and lost a chance to go to the playoffs.

“How much can a coach know?,” Hooks asked. “How much can we be expected to know?”

For 14 years, Bob Zamora, playing on an off-season baseball team on Sundays, didn’t think he was doing anything wrong by asking a player or two from his high school teams to join him.

Zamora knew there was a Southern Section rule that prohibited a coach from organizing, sponsoring or coaching a team outside the school with players from his team.

But Zamora did not organize, sponsor or coach the team.

“I just played second base,” he said.

So he thought there was no problem in having a kid or two on the team. He even asked other coaches if they thought it was OK.

“Everyone, including me, thought it was all very innocent,” Zamora said.

For 14 years he was right. Then midway through last season’s playoffs, the Southern Section came down hard on him. He was suspended through the playoffs and was put on probation for the upcoming season.

Could such incidents be prevented if the rule book were written more clearly? Perhaps, but the book is not likely to change much.

Thomas said the book is intentionally written technically and with a broad scope to protect the Southern Section should it be taken to court. “The book is all we’ve got,” Thomas said.

And to more than a few, the book is intimidating.

“I’m sure there are people, administrators and coaches out there who have the book collecting dust on their shelves somewhere,” Motsko said.

“They’re either afraid of what they’ll find in there or they just don’t care. I know that because of some of the cases that come before the committee. They’re so clear cut, and could have been avoided if someone would have read the book.”

The Los Alamitos football team went so far as to assign one coach, Tim Castles, to read and understand the rules governing football.

“There’s just too much at stake to be ignorant,” said Frank Doretti, Los Alamitos athletic director and assistant football coach.

For all the confusion, the Southern Section offers seminars for athletic directors on how to communicate new rules to their coaches.

The Southern Section also has an open invitation to all coaches and administrators to call and ask for interpretation of the rules. That is something Thomas says is gaining more popularity as forfeits become more frequent.

“I plan on having my hand on that phone when I even have the slightest question,” Zamora said. “The best policy these days is to assume nothing. Get it from them (Southern Section), and be safe.”