L.A. Games to Feature 11,000 High School Athletes

The 21st annual L.A. Games, with 11,000 Southern California high school athletes competing in 13 sports over two weekends, will begin Saturday at 22 L.A. area locations.

Preliminary competition will be held Saturday and Sunday, with finals in all sports set for June 25-26 at El Camino College in Torrance. The games, sponsored by the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, will not have an admission charge.

The 128-team basketball tournament will be the featured event, with Cleveland of Reseda the defending champion. Crenshaw, the top-seeded team this year, pulled out because too many of its players are attending basketball camps and other summer competition, Coach Joe Weakley said. Crenshaw has won five of the last seven L.A. Games titles.

In girls’ basketball, which has 64 teams competing, Los Angeles Locke will be playing for its third straight championship.

Competition also will be held in baseball, football, gymnastics, karate, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo and wrestling.

The games, formerly known as the L.A. Watts-Summer Games, began as an attempt to bring the youth of that area together after the Watts riots in 1965. Members of the commission helping to stage this year’s event are: Jim Hill of KABC-TV; Quintin Dailey of the Clippers; former Dodger catcher Roy Campanella; former Angel second baseman Bobby Grich; Mike Haynes, James Lofton and Stefon Adams of the Raiders; Steve Lundquist, a 1984 Olympic swimming champion; Joey Kirk, a 1988 U.S. Olympic soccer player, and former football star Bubba Smith.