1,000 Students Protest Ban on Savanna Team

About 1,000 students of Savanna High School walked out of classes for two hours this morning to protest a decision banning the football team from playoffs this weekend for using an ineligible player.

Students walked out of classes at 8 a.m. and rallied on the school’s front lawn, waving banners and placards and chanting slogans in support of the Savanna Rebels, who forfeited a berth in the Southern Section Division VI playoffs, six victories and a tie for using a player who was in his fifth year of high school.

The Rebels had secured their first championship of the Orange League in the school’s nine-year history. That was also nullified by league principals who voted Tuesday on behalf of the California Interscholastic Federation.

Members of the Savanna High Football Boosters Club said today that they had retained a lawyer to try to overturn the principals’ decision in court, just as the boosters club for Huntington Beach High School’s Oilers successfully did Tuesday. Gloria George, a Savanna Boosters leader, said a suit was to be filed in Orange County Superior Court today.

“We’re going to stay here until we get it (the title) back,” Denise Gaiye, a 15-year-old sophomore wearing a Rebels jersey and a Rebels bandanna, said defiantly in a crowd of cheering students. “What we desire is what we’re after. Because you know what, it was not Savanna’s fault.”

A school administrator Tuesday acknowledged that he did not check closely enough on the transcript records of transfer student Ray Leuta, a reserve lineman who Savanna officials thought was playing in his fourth year. The school was notified by an administrator at one of Leuta’s previous schools this week that the youth was actually in his fifth year.

Savanna Principal William Wong said about three-quarters of the school’s 1,460 students participated in the walkout and rally.