Power Ploy or an Act of Compassion? : Despite Charges of Illegal Recruiting Buzz Holcomb of Westlake Village Claims Opening His Home to 3 Pacoima Athletes Was a Benevolent Gesture

Buzz Holcomb sits in the eye of the controversy and never blinks. The Westlake Village electronics salesman brushes aside charges that he brazenly violated Southern Section high school athletic codes when he opened the doors of his home to a group of talented young athletes from a disadvantaged neighborhood in Pacoima.

Opposing coaches claim he is trying to build an athletic empire around his 15-year-old son, and Holcomb even makes Westlake football coach George Contreras nervous. But Holcomb never wavers.

“They can say it’s recruiting but I don’t worry about gossip,” he said. “This is morally right. This is so right I will fight for these kids as long as they want.”

The battle lines were quickly drawn when Holcomb converted his two-story Westlake Village home into an athletic mini-dormitory last fall. Is Holcomb a genuine humanitarian, offering the prospect of a better life to deserving teen-agers? Or is he a carpetbagging recruiter interested in youths solely for their athletic abilities?

Those considerations are just some to be weighed by Southern Section officials when they rule on the Holcomb case this week.

At stake in what might be a landmark case that carries far-reaching implications is a crucial but vague and loosely worded regulation in the California Interscholastic Federation code. That regulation prohibits anyone from exerting “undue influence” on student athletes to attend a school outside their regular attendance area. If officials rule that undue influence has been exerted, the students may attend the school in question but will lose athletic eligibility for one year.

The code does not expressly define undue influence, but the outcome of the Holcomb case may help provide a clearer definition.

Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas and administrator Bill Clark plan to meet with Westlake officials this week to discuss the eligibility of Brian Brison and Mukasa Crowe, who both lived in Pacoima until moving in with the Holcombs last fall. The two attended First Baptist Academy in Thousand Oaks with Holcomb’s son, Erik, during the last school year and all three boys plan to enroll in the ninth grade at Westlake.

Leonice Brown, who also lived in Pacoima and competed on the same San Fernando Valley youth football and track teams with Holcomb, Brison and Crowe, moved in with the Holcombs this summer and plans to attend Crespi with his relative, running back Russell White. Brown, who will enter the 10th grade, is the half-brother of Rams running back Charles White and is Russell’s uncle.

Antiwaun Carter, a fourth member of the North Valley Golden Bears football and track teams, had moved from Pacoima to the Holcombs’ house at the start of the summer but lasted only two weeks before homesickness prompted his return. Three weeks ago, Holcomb and his wife took in Nicholas Tehrani, whose Westlake Village parents are divorced. Tehrani will enroll in the 10th grade and is the only soccer-playing member of the group.

Holcomb said he will assume legal guardianship of the boys with the blessing of the their parents. He is willing to foot the bills, drive everyone to practice and oversee their schoolwork. In his view, he is just offering a helping hand to some of his son’s playmates. If they were not athletes, the Holcombs probably would have avoided scrutiny.

Said Thomas: “If we had a band member, a chess player and a debater, no one would have noticed. But when you get some studs you get everyone’s attention.”

Holcomb agrees but offers no apologies. “I just don’t happen to hang around spelling bees or geometry classes,” he says. “My son has always been involved in sports.”

Erik served as the Pacoima connection for the Holcombs. When he ran track for a youth club in Westlake Village, he struck up a friendship with members of the Golden Bears at various meets. He convinced his father that the competition was better in the San Fernando Valley for youth sports, so Buzz registered his son with the Golden Bears for track and football last year.

Erik ran the 400-meter dash, competed in the high jump and also played quarterback and safety on the football team. The more the families mixed at sporting events the closer they became. And as the boys reached high school age, discussions centered on where to go to school.

Brison, Brown, Carter and Crowe live in the San Fernando High attendance area, but their parents feared for their sons’ futures. Life is rough in their neighborhood, where gang violence and drug deals are woven into the daily fabric.

Sgt. Tom Wilkinson of the Foothill Division heads the Valley’s largest anti-gang CRASH unit, short for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. The largest concentration of gang activity in the San Fernando Valley covers a 3-square-mile area in the heart of Pacoima, Wilkinson said.

Red Brison, Brian’s father, feared the gangs might swallow up his son, who seemed headed for trouble. Brian has been blessed with superior athletic ability as a sprinter in track and running back on the Golden Bears’ football team, but he has struggled in school. He had been kicked out of four junior high schools, flirted with gang membership and seemed destined for failure.

“He had made a name for himself as a fighter in school,” his father said. “Teachers had given up on Brian. They were just pushing him through school to get rid of him.”

Similar fears about the quality of education and the safety of the neighborhood drove the Pacoima parents toward Holcomb, who welcomed the boys to his Westlake Village home with assurances that he would assume legal guardianship on a year-to-year basis.

Crowe decided to move in last fall and when Red Brison learned that Crowe and Erik Holcomb were repeating the eighth grade at a private school, he wanted his son to join them.

Parents of the Pacoima boys insist that they freely signed over legal guardianship to Holcomb, saying that their only concern was giving their children a better academic opportunity in a safer neighborhood. They scoff at claims that Holcomb recruited their boys for athletics.

“That’s a lie,” Red Brison said in response to recruiting charges. “It was not Buzz’s decision, it was our decision. The sports thing has nothing to do with it. We were looking at the schooling.”

Said Holcomb: “I didn’t come to the kids and ask them to come to Westlake to build an athletic program. I’m not interested in building an athletic dynasty. I’m interested in building a dynasty of good kids.”

Others are skeptical of that claim, saying athletics is the central issue. Bob Richards coaches football at Thousand Oaks, one of Westlake’s Marmonte League rivals. He is normally reserved and weighs his words carefully--until he heard about the arrangement at the Holcombs.

“This is recruiting and it’s wrong unequivocally,” he said. “He’s talked some parents into bringing these kids out here and that’s undue influence. You’re simply taking boys out of their home situation and communities for purely athletic reasons.

“If it’s a humanitarian move, why didn’t he go down and pull kids for their scholastics? These kids have one thing in common: athletic ability.”

Westlake Athletic Director Bob Fisher refuses to make assumptions about Holcomb’s motives. Still, he scrupulously has checked with the Southern Section office about Holcomb’s new charges since he first learned in February of their arrival in Westlake Village.

“After investigating it, I have no cause not to accept it at face value,” he said. “The man says it’s for humanitarian reasons. To speculate otherwise would be unfair.”

Fisher also fears for Westlake’s image, insisting that the school played no part in Holcomb’s decision.

“Westlake is not involved in this. We just happen to be the school they may enroll in. We’re being really careful because we don’t want to jeopardize ourselves. I’m a super-cautious person and I want to make sure we comply with all Southern Section rules,” he said.

Crespi Vice Principal Greg Gunn said the parochial all-boys school in Encino will seek written clearance from the Southern Section before allowing Brown to play. As a private school that draws students from all over the Valley, Crespi has grown accustomed to recruiting charges, Gunn said.

“We’re always accused of undue influence, but we haven’t had any problems in the 13 years I’ve been here,” he said. “From our standpoint we’re not looking at the other boys who have moved. We’re only looking at Leonice Brown and what’s good for that young man. We just want verification so we don’t jeopardize our program.”

Contreras, whose football program likely will benefit from the addition of Brison and Crowe, also is leery of jeopardizing his reputation. In 10 years at Westlake, as the only football coach the school has ever had, Contreras has never forfeited a game. Suddenly, this summer he became the uncomfortable subject of whispered accusations with a common theme: How did he recruit those guys?

“I don’t feel comfortable at all,” Contreras said. “We’ve had innuendoes that I had gone down there and recruited. I keep hearing this stuff and I start to bristle. If you have hard evidence about seeing Coach Contreras talking to players at a hot dog stand, then, hey, I’m caught and I’m done. But except for generalities, I don’t know where Pacoima is.”

Contreras knows what it’s like to be on the other side of recruiting charges. In recent years, he has lost four players to other schools. When quarterback Rob O’Byrne left the program three years ago for Crespi, Contreras voiced his belief in the concept of neighborhood schools. Although his program is now the recipient of transfer students, his opinion remains unchanged.

“I believe in one basic rule: You go to school in the district that you live in. Period,” he said. “I know that these parents are trying to do the best thing for their kids, but you can’t have all this crossing over. But when you start talking about divorced parents and legal guardianship, there’s a lot of gray areas. That makes it tough.”

Tom Hernandez, the San Fernando football coach, has no trouble with gray areas in this case. He knows recruiting when he sees it, he said.

“I met Holcomb at a banquet last fall and he seems like a nice guy, but the guy came in and raided the neighborhood. This is flat-out recruiting. They’re 14-year-old kids and they’re being enticed unfairly. Some parents don’t fully understand what’s going on,” he said.

Also at stake for Hernandez, a 1975 San Fernando graduate, is neighborhood pride. Besides the loss of athletes, the Pacoima defections send a troubling message, he said.

“San Fernando’s pride has been attacked,” he said. “Our community can take care of its own. There are people here in this community that will help kids. We’ve gotten a bad rap and this adds to that. After this came out, we had to contact every kid in the program to make sure they’re still coming to San Fernando.”

Ensuring attendance by neighborhood youths is routine work for coaches in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although state and City Section rules prohibit athletic recruiting, the 49 Los Angeles high schools face a conflicting reality: voluntary integration.

In response to the state Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling that mandated integration, the district has encouraged students to attend schools outside their attendance areas. Voluntary programs such as magnet schools, Permits With Transportation and the Capacity Adjustment Program were established to facilitate movement.

All too often, many coaches complain, those programs mask recruiting. In addition, they claim, after athletics officials in the district prohibit a student move because it violates recruiting rules, the move is upheld at a higher administrative level.

“Most people laugh at the rules in the City because they don’t exist,” Hernandez said. “They always get overturned.”

Those rules may get tested again this fall. Carter, who lives in the San Fernando attendance area and returned home from the Holcomb house this summer, said he plans to attend Kennedy High in the fall. Under City rules, he would have to move to the Kennedy district to secure athletic eligibility. But if he appears on the Kennedy roster this fall, Hernandez will object but will file no protest.

“I don’t have much confidence in the rules so I’ll let the City take care of it,” he said. “I’m not irritated with the kids. They’re good athletes and good kids and we need every good kid possible. But they’ve been told too much crap.”

If Southern Section officials agree with that assessment, Holcomb’s Pacoima boys may lose one year of athletic eligibility. That decision apart, Erik Holcomb, Brison and Crowe may enter Westlake with no athletic eligibility because of academics.

All three earned passing grades at First Baptist Academy, but Holcomb pulled them from the school in March and sent them to a private tutor. Because the boys were not enrolled in school at the end of the academic year, they may have jeopardized their academic eligibility at Westlake. That ruling also is expected next week when Southern Section and Westlake officials meet.

Holcomb points out that all three already had completed the eighth grade before entering First Baptist Academy. But what if the Southern Section denies his boys athletic eligibility? The Pacoima parents and their sons said they are pleased with the Holcomb arrangement. Will they stay pleased if their sons lose athletic eligibility?

“There’s been a big change in Brian,” Red Brison said. “Athletics aside, I’ve got what I wanted from this. Brian is getting good grades now and that’s what’s important to me. What people don’t understand is that Mukasa and Brian have been here for a year. I want things to go on as they are. I’d be angry if they took away their eligibility. I’d be willing to fight it.”

Holcomb thinks no fight will be necessary. He is convinced that the boys’ academic standing is safe. And with Carter back in Pacoima and Brown headed to Crespi, it looks less like Holcomb is stacking the Westlake program.

In addition, even if the Southern Section denies eligibility, the boys lose only one year.

“We’ve done everything above aboard and it would be a shame, but if they have to lose a year, so be it,” he said. “We don’t want to have a war or a big battle. But if the parents want me to fight, we will.”

He also agrees with those who claim his motivation is selfish. Holcomb, 44, freely admits to a checkered past. After he built his own manufacturing business into a success, a trip to life’s fast lane of alcohol and drug abuse cost him his business, a previous house and left him bankrupt.

“I’m a recovering alcoholic and I’m helping myself by having these kids in my house,” he said. “They’re keeping me clean. I’m so busy driving everybody around to practices, I don’t have time to do all that stuff. I get hugs from the boys when it’s time for them to go to bed and the high I get from that has made this all worthwhile.”

And nothing will detract from the moral authority this arrangement packs, Holcomb said. He maintains that the primary beneficiaries of the move are the boys and their families. Holcomb claims others can learn from what he and his boys are doing.

“I’m no bleeding heart liberal or white knight. I’m closer to a John Bircher,” he said. “But if everybody just did what we’re doing, we wouldn’t have the problems we do with unemployment and the other social problems we have. Everybody in my spot should reach into Watts and pull out two, three of four kids and give them an opportunity. This feels good to me and I’m going to give it a shot.”