Coaches in Bitter Hardship Case Form an Unlikely Partnership

The City Section refers to the procedural paper chase involved in an athlete’s transfer from one school to another as the hardship petition process. In the case of all parties involved in the seven weeks of bureaucratic setbacks and appeals that granted football eligibility to Cleveland High running back Sean Burwell last fall, it was, indeed, hardship.

On the surface, the request seemed simple enough: Burwell sought a transfer from Chaminade, a private Southern Section school, to Cleveland, a public school in the L. A. Unified School District.

Yet before the issue was settled, coaches, parents and administrators sounded off as City subcommittees contradicted and overruled each other in an emotional battle over whether the Valley area’s fourth-best ground gainer of 1986 would be eligible for his junior year.

Improbably, 10 months later on a practice field at Pierce College, Cleveland Coach Steve Landress and Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson are enjoying a skirmish of a lighter sort: Landress is piloting the offense and Lawson is coordinating the defense in an intrasquad workout of the West team in preparation for the Daily News All-Star Football Game. The game will be played at 7:30 tonight at Birmingham High.

“I guess it’s kind of ironic after all we went through,” Landress said as he watched Lawson take the team through calisthenics. “We end up on the same field, the same team. That all seems like it happened a long time ago.”

The lessons Lawson and Landress learned, however, will stay with them for a long time; both were embroiled in the frustrating tribulations of the hardship process.

Lawson watched as his program and the Chaminade administration were put under a microscope for their handling of Burwell, who left Chaminade amid charges of racism and institutional bias. It was doubly difficult because Lawson was in his first year at the school and the team started 0-2, losing to Notre Dame and Canyon.

“It was pretty tough to deal with all that right out of the gate,” said Lawson, who did not block the transfer. “Take that and back-to-back losses and everyone’s wondering if my head is on a platter.”

Burwell, who gained 1,211 yards as a sophomore at Chaminade, sought to transfer to Cleveland, a move that required him to document his personal troubles at Chaminade, a school in Canoga Park with 950 students. After an on-campus altercation last summer with a teammate, Burwell was facing punishment by Lawson and school administrators. Rather than face a suspension, academic probation and counseling, Burwell--a black student who maintained that the fight was racially motivated--bolted for Cleveland.

Because he had not changed his home address, Burwell was forced to petition on hardship grounds. As the process bogged down in an ocean of red tape and appeals, both schools remained in the headlines for weeks.

Neither coach endeared himself to his respective administrators. Where officials from both schools and the embattled City Athletics Office would have preferred a smoother path to resolution, Landress and Lawson shot from the lip, publicly and frankly.

“I think what’s good about most coaches is that we’re up front--and we get a lot of flak for it,” Landress said. “There are a lot of things that administrators, in dealing with their situation, prefer to hide.

“Good news is no news, sometimes, and they don’t want to see the bad stuff. People see something in the paper, take it wrong and read things into it that aren’t really there. Just mentioning the school’s name with an incident gets their attention.”

Both coaches met with superiors over their handling of the matter. It was especially hard on Lawson, because Chaminade relies on tuition fees.

“Let’s face it, that’s not the kind of image the school is trying to portray,” he said. “For a small portion of the people who heard about it, it must have looked pretty bad.”

Mentioning the episode to Landress draws a wince. Rarely at a loss to express an opinion, Landress said that the Burwell matter forced him to re-examine how he deals with administrators and the press.

If it happened again, “I’d probably put it in a different way, maybe with a little more subtlety,” he said, grinning. “Sometimes you know if it doesn’t work out right that you’re going to take the heat at the end. The main principle was that he had a right to play football.”

The end result was that, after yet another hearing was delayed by the Oct. 1 earthquake, Burwell was declared eligible in time to play in the second game of the season. His presence on the field, however, proved to be less than earth-shaking. In nine games, Burwell gained 256 yards in 69 carries and scored 3 rushing touchdowns. Burwell, who returns for his senior season in September, also started on defense for the Cavaliers, who finished 5-6.

“He didn’t gain a lot of yards, but he made all-league as a defensive back and he developed some new friends,” Landress said. “Regardless, if it had been a guy who never played football, I’d like to think we would fight for the guys who are second, third and fourth string.”

Things went better for Lawson after the smoke cleared. Chaminade rebounded from the two opening losses to enjoy its best season, rolling to 11 victories in a row and advancing to the Desert-Mountain Conference final, where the Eagles lost to Woodbridge of Irvine, 13-10, in the final minute.

Chaminade’s successes have translated into an all-star coaching position for Lawson--right next to Landress. When the two first met to discuss the all-star game, they discussed the Burwell episode.

“We went out that first night of practice and I bought him a couple of beers and some pizza,” Landress said. “Basically, we talked about the approaches of different administrations and the flak that is caused. Regardless of where you go, you’re going to have situations where not everybody’s going to be happy, and that’s what happened with Sean.”

There has been no tension between Landress and Lawson, however. If anything, the episode seems to have cemented friendships.

“We got our coaches together and their coaches together and as you can see we haven’t had anything close to arguments or disagreements,” Landress said as he pointed toward the Cleveland and Chaminade staffs working together organizing team drills. “The guys all get along and it’s been very professional.”