Oak Park Reduced to 15 Players

Oak Park High qualified for the playoffs last year in all three major sports for the first time, leading football Coach Ron Veres to expect a sports renaissance. It was to begin with this year’s football team.

Oak Park’s sports boom, however, might turn into an early bust.

Only 19 players showed up for the Eagles’ first football practice two weeks ago and that number has been dwindling after almost every practice.

Three players suffered injuries during the first two weeks of practice: Middle linebacker Mike Wootton tore a muscle in his right leg and will be out at least a week, wide receiver Adam Jones sprained his left ankle and cornerback Glen White has a bacterial infection. Adams and Jones should return by next week.

One other player was declared academically ineligible.

That leaves Oak Park temporarily with a record-low 15 players.

“I’m very disappointed,” Veres said. “I thought we had the nucleus and the potential to be a very competitive team not only in our league but in our conference.”

The upcoming season looked so promising after Oak Park went from 0-9-1 in 1986 to 7-4 in Veres’ first year as coach. The Eagles finished third in the Tri-Valley League and qualified for the Inland Conference playoffs.

“We still have 11 talented players,” Veres said. “The question is whether they can play 48 minutes against teams like Calabasas and Carpinteria.”

Veres spends more time counting healthy bodies than mapping out potential wins.

“We can’t field enough players to have a decent practice,” Veres said. “We run plays with our strong side offense while our weak-side offense plays defense. Then we flip-flop the two.”

The obvious solution would be for Veres to promote several of Oak Park’s 25 junior varsity players.

“There are four or five sophomores I would like to bring up to help balance out the squad,” Veres said. “But I’m receiving negative feedback from their parents who are afraid their kids might get hurt playing on the varsity level.”

One player, Zach Siciliano, practiced with the varsity during the summer, but his parents prefer that he remains on the junior varsity.

“My husband and I talked about it and it’s not like we won’t permit Zach to play on the varsity,” said Robin Siciliano, Zach’s mother. “We would like him to have more experience and would prefer him be around kids his own age.”

Senior running back Jess Garner believes Oak Park can survive without additional help.

“It’s true we don’t have the numbers,” Garner said, “but we do have players with a lot of heart, and we won’t give up. If we have to play every minute of every game, we can do it.”