Rast Shaken by Southern Section Stance

Cam Rast has always behaved himself. He eats all his vegetables, never has to stay after school and always brings home good grades.

“I’ve always been a pretty good kid,” he said.

The Royal senior maintains a 4.25 grade-point average. Rast and twin Matt, both members of Royal’s 4-A Division championship soccer team, have both been offered academic and athletic scholarships to Santa Clara University.

So, naturally, Rast was shocked to learn earlier this month that the trip he made in January to the Soviet Union with the Junior Olympic team might cost the Highlanders their first title in the school’s history. Suddenly, Rast found himself in hot water.

“The Olympic development program told me I was covered,” Rast said. “Nothing seemed to be a problem. But I was a little worried.”

Rast typifies the All-American boy so well, who could blame him for wanting to play for his country? But it was not Rast’s wholesome apple pie motives that Southern Section officials found hard to swallow. They were piqued because Royal had not informed them of Rast’s trip in accordance with Southern Section bylaws.

After two weeks of meetings and mudslinging, the Southern Section office upheld the Highlanders’ championship, provided Royal meet recommendations that three school administrators be relieved of their athletic duties. Officials, however, were irked when Royal rejected the recommendations, saying that any punitive actions would be dealt with at the school’s discretion.

Finally the issue was considered closed by the Southern Section office when Royal Athletic Director Glenn Lipman resigned Tuesday.

Like nearly everyone else, Rast has a difficult time determining out how his trip overseas went undetected by the Southern Section office.

“It was funny because it was in all the papers,” he said. “I don’t see how they didn’t know.”

But there was nothing funny about the threat of Royal being stripped of its title. It would not have been Rast’s fault, but he hardly considered himself an innocent bystander.

“I was kind of shaken by it,” he said. “But everybody was just really supportive of me. The teachers at school were great and when people would see me they would tell me not to get down and ‘thumbs up.’ ”

Through it all, Rast kept kicking with the Olympic team. He returned Sunday from a trip to Mexico and will depart on a second trip to Guatemala on April 6. He has mixed feelings about how the controversy was resolved.

“I’m glad that they didn’t take the title,” he said. “We worked pretty hard for it and we’re a pretty close-knit bunch. I didn’t want anybody taking that away.

“But I felt the recommendations were a little stiff. They could have gotten around it in another way. I think the administrators kind of got the raw end of the deal.”

Rast admits that it was a tough call for Southern Section officials to make, one he is not quite sure how he himself would have handled.

“I know I wouldn’t have taken the title away,” he said.

Say, ah: Who needs tonsils? Certainly not Chatsworth’s Art Lowe.

Since undergoing a tonsillectomy two weeks ago, Lowe, a senior, has been hitting the ball down opponents’ throats.

Lowe, who is batting .454, is 7 for 12 (.583) in league play with seven runs batted in. Lowe also has the team’s only home run and leads the Chancellors with five extra-base hits.

Said Coach Bob Lofrano: “We may have to have everyone have their tonsils out.”

Best start?: With a 9-0 record, 3-0 in Foothill League play, Hart is off to its best start in the school’s 49-year history--probably.

“There aren’t any records from before 1967,” said Coach Bud Murray, who has served three terms as coach at Hart since that year. “I’ve never heard anything about Hart winning it’s first nine games.”

Murray, who returned to Hart last year after a seven-year absence, guided the Indians to 17 consecutive wins in 1974 after a 3-2 start. “That was the longest Hart streak I think we ever had,” he said.

Hart, however, finished second to Crescenta Valley.

New man on the job: Saugus assistant Bill Bolde has accepted a position this summer with the Valley Dodgers semi-pro baseball team.

Bolde, an assistant at Canyon from 1977-81, also was Canyon’s junior varsity coach for a season. He will maintain his position at Saugus.

“My goal is to keep escalating,” Bolde said. “This is a chance to gain a little expertise and the Valley Dodgers are a proven commodity.”

Beach city: Oak Park canceled its plans to take a Hawaiian Islands trip during Easter vacation but will still play in a baseball tournament in a beach city.

The Eagles are scheduled to play El Segundo on Wednesday in the first round of the San Luis Obispo tournament.

Coach Ron Veres had hoped to raise enough money to take his 15 players on an eight-day trip to play two high schools on the island of Oahu. The trip would have cost each player $581.

The Eagles held three fund-raisers--a candy sale, calendar sale and marathon baseball game--that netted less than $500.

“I wanted to bring some excitement to Oak Park, but it took more time than I had to organize it,” Veres said.