Peninsula Pair Have Football Covered, Plan Cage Magazine

Things are a little less hectic now in the Hollywood Riviera offices of California Football magazine.

A couple of weeks ago, as the fall issue of the fledgling magazine was going to press, co-founders John Prassas and Andy Bark were spending long hours overseeing production.

It’s a deadline scene repeated in magazine offices around the country, but for the lifelong friends this fall’s issue may mark something of a watershed.

Just a little more than two seasons along, the publication appears to be on the threshold of profitability. And later this year, taking advantage of the euphoria surrounding the back-to-back National Basketball Assn. title of the Lakers, the pair will launch a spinoff publication, California Basketball magazine.

“The time is right,” said Prassas about their venture. “Everything is in place.”

The brainchild of Bark, California Football attempts to deliver information from “preps to pros.”

“Our information is slanted for the insiders,” explained Prassas. He added that those not knowledgeable about state football will probably not read their publication anyway. In each issue there are large sections on the Rams, 49ers, Chargers and Raiders, juxtaposed with inside information on high schools and junior colleges.

“This is the greatest state in the world, let alone the United States,” said Prassas. “There is so much happening.”

And quite a few people interested in reading about football, according to figures released by the pair. More than a quarter of a million people already read each football issue, which is published three times a year, the owners say. They expect about the same readership for their basketball magazine, which will be published two times in its first year.

They declined to say what their budget is. Most of their income comes from advertising, although they refuse to accept ads for tobacco and alcohol. Ironically, Prassas said, had they accepted those ads, “We would have had instant profitability.”

They have a full-time staff of four and about a dozen free-lance contributors. They expect to turn a small profit this year, yet neither would predict the future of their publication.

“We are here earning a living, just breaking even,” Bark said. “It’s a 5- to 10-year process to become a multimillion-dollar operation.”

As Bark speaks, a large newspaper clipping with a photograph of his idol, media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch, looks down on his cluttered desk from a wall. Prassas’ desk is nearby in the cramped quarters looking out onto Catalina Street. There are sports posters everywhere, including one of a uniformed football player, arm thrust out, fist clenched and determination on his sweaty face. The poster has a one-word caption: Commitment.

That seems to be the attitude both men have adopted. As Prassas said: “It’s been kind of a crap shoot. We’re learning as we go, wingin’ it.”

Only time will tell the staying ability of the publication, an idea Bark borrowed from a similar magazine in Texas that he discovered while a freshman at the Air Force Academy. After transferring to UC Berkeley, Bark, 27, kept in close contact with his former Rancho Palos Verdes neighbor, Prassas, 28, who was playing football at Brown University.

“(The publication) was just a raw idea,” said Bark, who often sounded out Prassas about it. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I just wanted to get the idea out there.”

For a while the magazine took a back seat. Prassas played a few years each in the Canadian Football League and U.S. Football League, then went into marketing. Bark tried to make it as a free agent wide receiver with the San Diego Chargers, then sought a career in broadcasting, where he did American football telecasts that were beamed to Australia, and radio work.

Between assignments Bark found himself with “a lot of free time on my hands.” He lined up silent partners, selling them shares in the magazine. In May of 1986 the two men published their first issue.

They had found their niche, said Prassas.

Carving out a spot in California’s highly competitive sporting business has proven a challenge. Similar efforts in the past have met with failure, and Prassas and Bark had their doubts.

The pair point out there are more than 900 high schools and a hundred community colleges in California. In addition, Bark says this state also has “a rich diversity of players.”

In developing the format for the magazine’s prep and junior college coverage, they hired two specialists as correspondents: Mark Tennis of Cal-Hi Sports and Fred Baer of the Junior College Athletic Bureau.

Based in Sacramento, Cal-Hi Sports has rapidly become the national spokesman for California’s prep programs. The athletic bureau, founded by Baer in 1962, is a well-read, independent news service that provides statistics and rankings for all community college athletics in the state. Both services are regular contributors to USA Today. Prassas and Bark feel their expertise lends credibility to California Football magazine.

“If we didn’t have Mark Tennis I don’t know how we would cover all the high schools in this state,” Prassas said.

Prassas and Bark are about as different as night and day, yet so far they appear to have survived much of the creative bickering that often haunts the publishing business. Prassas says that is because they have “a complementing relationship,” despite varying backgrounds.

They ran “in the same gaggle of kids,” Bark said, as children growing up in Palos Verdes. But when it came to football, Bark, a slender blond, was a wide receiver. Prassas, who maintains a muscular build, was a linebacker.

Today they remain decidely different. Bark is single, lives near the beach, likes to surf, play beach volleyball and the night life of Redondo Beach.

Prassas married his high school sweetheart, a Palos Verdes cheerleader, eight years ago. They have two children and recently bought a house in the tree section of the peninsula. Prassas spends most of his spare time remodeling it.

“We’re very different,” Bark said.

Time will tell if California Football can be different by securing a niche where others have failed, as these two lifelong friends hope it will.