The Webb That Holds It All Together : The Section Commissioner Isn’t a High-Profile Guy

When Kendall Webb became just the second commissioner the San Diego Section has had on July 1, 1976, the first thing he did was visit each county school.

To govern with rules, you must know them. And to govern athletics in the schools, you must know them, too. Besides, Webb thought it might be best to make himself known a little bit.

Upon his arrival at the first school, Webb was greeted by a smiling, receptive principal who chatted with Webb and then offered to show him around.

The two walked down to the football field where preseason practice was under way. The principal called over his coach.

“Coach, I’d like you to meet our new commissioner, Kendall Webb.”

“Nice to meet you, Kendall,” the coach replied. And then the coach’s face went blank.

“The commissioner of what?” he asked.

And Kendall Webb’s face went blank.

“Right then I realized that not many people even knew my job existed,” Webb said. “That coach, you might say, set me straight right off the bat. I’ll never forget that.”

More than 12 years and hundreds of introductions later, Webb is still only the second commissioner the section--which now has about 75 member schools--has ever had. But still, not many people know who he is or what he does.

Certainly, few high school students would recognize him if he walked into the cafeteria during lunch. And if any did know him, it’s doubtful they’d care.

He makes a public appearance every time a section championship is decided, but even then, he is unassuming in his appearance. Webb never grabs the microphone to make a speech and rarely stands center stage. He hands out trophies and shakes hands, then exits.

“Most of what I do is not done in the public eye,” Webb said. “But that’s the way I like it. Nobody, I guess, ever grows up aiming to be a commissioner. It just happens.”

A lot of things wouldn’t happen without him.

Just last week, a local bank held a press conference to announce it was sponsoring next summer’s professional tennis stop here. Tennis officials had asked Webb if he thought area high school players would enjoy participating in a couple of free workouts with the pros while they were in town.

This was one of Webb’s easiest, and certainly least controversial, decisions. To seal the deal, though, his presence was required at the press conference.

As usual, the work was already done.

“I wasn’t exactly called upon to make any speech,” he said with a grin. “In fact, all they did was introduce me. I didn’t even get to stand up.”

So, who knows Kendall Webb?

“I’ve known him a long time,” said John Maffucci, the athletic director at Army-Navy Academy. “But even when you know him, you really don’t get to know him. That’s the way he is.”

Webb’s job is like that of an umpire. It requires that he remain impartial. And that’s easier to do when you don’t get too close to a lot of people.

“I’ve been working with him on boards and committees ever since he came to San Diego,” Maffucci said. “Then, last year, I see him at a state athletic directors meeting, and he walks by and says, ‘Hi, John.’ Then, he keeps walking. He wasn’t being rude, but that was it.”

Perhaps Webb, 56, isn’t big on long conversation because there is so much to do. The San Diego Section office, which operates out of a trailer on the grounds of the County Education Building near the University of San Diego, consists of only four full-time employees: Webb, Assistant Commissioner Jan Jessop, an office manager and a financial secretary.

Webb spends most of his time on the phone or in meetings.

“I’m always in meetings,” he said.

But what goes on there?

“Basically my job has to do with all of the rules that govern high school sports in San Diego County,” Webb said. “I can recommend rules, enforce rules, interpret rules or implement the rules. But I cannot write the rules.

“I’m a commissioner, not a czar.”

Webb has made plenty of recommendations. Some, like his suggestion in 1979 that the county’s teams be split into 3-A and 2-A sections for playoffs, are accepted.

Others are not.

Several years ago, he suggested that coaches not be allowed to practice with teams while their sport was out of season. It is now commonplace and legal for, say, a baseball coach to work with his players during football season as long as no school equipment is used.

“The problem of not having a rule to at least limit this is that kids aren’t really free to make their own decision and maybe play another sport or get involved in some other activity,” Webb said. “The way it is now, a coach is going to say, ‘Well, you don’t have to come to the workout, but you know Johnny’s a pretty good third baseman, and he’s going to be there.’ Obviously, the kid is going to try to make it. I’ll keep working on that idea, but right now there’s just not enough support for it.”

Webb is used to that. The rule book may back him up, but any time he makes a decision, somebody is going to be upset.

“That doesn’t really bother me,” Webb said. “I know that I listen to everybody equally, and I do my best to interpret the rules that apply. I know somebody’s going to be happier than somebody else in any decision. But I accept that.”

Some rules are easy:

1. A student cannot be more than 19 years old before Sept. 1 and still play high school sports, and he must be 15 to play varsity football. Webb says he has discovered two kids who were over the age limit during his tenure here.

2. A student must complete his high school athletic career in eight semesters. If a student is held back a year, it doesn’t give him or her an extra year of eligibility.

3. All athletes must pass four classes and maintain a 2.0 overall grade average to be eligible. In some instances, a school district will allow one semester probation periods for students to get their GPA back over 2.0. But the athlete must always pass four classes.

Two months ago, Oceanside High School’s star quarterback, Jerry Garrett, was ruled academically ineligible, a decision that was appealed. The argument was that Garrett could be put on probation by the Oceanside school district and thereby still be allowed to compete.

But no appeal was allowed by Webb because Garrett had not passed four classes.

“It wasn’t any popularity contest,” Webb said. “The rule was there. He didn’t pass the classes. I feel bad for him because he knew what he had to do. I’d hate to see him throw his chance for an education away.”

Webb certainly didn’t.

He received his teaching credential from UCLA in 1954 and, after spending 2 years in the service, got his first teaching job at Bell High School in Los Angeles.

At UCLA, he had run track and studied administration, but now he would be teaching social studies and English and coaching football, basketball and gymnastics.

He laughs about the gymnastics.

“I had a lot of experience to do a lot of things, but teaching gymnastics wasn’t one of them,” he said. “But I hung in there. I would get the more experienced kids to teach the younger kids, and I learned as I went along. Sometimes, you have to learn to adapt.”

He was at Bell for 5 years, during which time he returned to UCLA and earned his masters in administration. In 1962, he moved to Palisades High for one year. Unbelievably, he says, they had him coaching gymnastics there, too.

“It was like they thought I knew something,” he said. “I couldn’t get away from it.”

Finally, he did get away. Way away.

While he was moonlighting as a part-time assistant manager at a department store, one of the managers took a liking to him.

“He offered me a full-time job and told me I’d be the store manager some day,” Webb said. “So I went for it.”

But after 2 years of being passed over for more experienced managers from out of town, Webb returned to teaching at Foothill High School in Tustin. Only teaching. His gymnastics coaching career had finally ended.

He eventually worked out of the classroom and into an administrative position as vice principal at Foothill. In 1973, Webb began a 3-year stint as the assistant commissioner at the CIF-Southern Section office.

He took over as the San Diego Section commissioner after Don Clarkson, the first commissioner (from 1960 to 1976), announced his retirement.

“Obviously things have grown quite a bit down here since I took over,” Webb said. “But a lot of things have stayed the same. You still have decisions to make all the time. Maybe since there are more schools (the number has grown so fast even Webb isn’t quite sure of how many schools were here when he took over), there’s more decisions. But you can only make one decision at a time.”

One decision Webb is happy he made was to pursue a relationship with Dixie Madsen, a well-known long-distance runner and body builder who became Webb’s second wife in December 1985. Webb works out, too, and he is trim and in good health for his age. He could easily pass for a man in his 30s.

“It’s all hard work except for one thing,” Webb said. “The only secret I have is that my wife dyes my hair.”

So now we know a little more about Kendall Webb. And that’s not always easy to do.