Court Rulings to Resolve O.C. Playoff Chaos

On the eve of the prep football playoffs, angry school boosters and determined league officials were preparing Wednesday to square off in Orange County courts over which teams should be allowed to compete.

The up and down saga of Huntington Beach High School football team took another dip Wednesday when officials of the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section announced that they would appeal a judge’s decision to let the Oilers participate despite having fielded an ineligible player.

Southern Section officials delivered the Oilers another blow Wednesday, however, announcing the discovery of a second ineligible player. But because the player in question competed in only one of the Oilers’ 10 games, forfeiture of the game would not be enough to keep the team out of the Division I playoffs.

At Savanna High School in Anaheim, meanwhile, about 1,000 students staged a walkout Wednesday in protest of the Rebels’ last-minute disqualification on grounds that they used an player who was in his fifth year of school.

Attorneys for the Savanna booster club are scheduled to appear in Orange County Superior Court this afternoon to seek an order which would serve to reinstate the team, which enjoyed its first championship season in the school’s 29-year history.

In all, the hopes of four Orange County teams to compete in the CIF Southern Section playoffs could be decided by day’s end.

If the Oilers are indeed knocked out, the Fountain Valley High School team will take their place in the Division I playoffs. If Savanna is not reinstated, the Brea-Olinda High School team will replace it in the Division VI playoffs. CIF officials have told the Fountain Valley team to keep practicing just in case.

Reno Bellamy, president of the Huntington Beach High Football Boosters Club, said it is conceivable that two teams from each of those two divisions could show up for the playoffs Friday, not knowing which the courts will have allowed to play.

“That is mental cruelty to both teams,” Bellamy said. “One team may have to get back on the bus and go home.”

The dramas began unfolding Saturday, when Sunset League principals negated each of the Oilers’ victories for the 1989 season after ruling that starting right tackle David Roman, 17, was ineligible because he had been living with an older brother and not with his mother since his transfer from Maryland. CIF rules require that athletes live with their parents or with legal guardians.

On Tuesday, however, school boosters persuaded Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas N. Thrasher to issue a temporary restraining order reinstating the team.

Thrasher ruled that although David’s brother, Tony, 24, was not his legal guardian, Tony did fulfill the role of guardian and that the spirit of the CIF rule was therefore not violated.

In advancing their arguments today before the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, CIF officials say they intend to rely in part on one of the Huntington Beach Union High School District eligibility documents, which state that a student will be deemed ineligible for athletics unless he or she resides with a parent or court-appointed guardian.

A CIF official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the federation will also argue that Roman could have applied for a hardship exemption to the CIF rule, as his mother was unable to join him in California because she was having difficulty selling her home in Silver Spring, Md.

The other Oilers athlete to be ruled ineligible is Marcos Diaz, who played four downs in a game against Westminster Nov. 3, said Southern Section spokesman Scott Cathcart. Huntington Beach won the game, 10-0. A Huntington Beach administrator discovered Wednesday that Diaz was academically ineligible to play in that game, which means that the team must forfeit that win, Cathcart said.

As it stood Wednesday, the Oilers’ 8-2 record officially fell to 7-3 overall and 3-2 in league play. Edison High School (7-3, 4-1) and Ocean View High School (7-3, 4-1) became league co-champions, with Huntington Beach third.

If Southern Section attorneys win their appeal, however, the Oilers will again be officially 0-10 and out of the playoffs.

Emotions over the issue spilled over Wednesday on the Savanna High campus, where hundreds of teen-agers congregated on the front lawn, yelling slogans and waving placards.

“It’s not fair,” said freshman Heather Wise, 14, of her team’s disqualification. “The football team deserves this to be in the playoffs.”

Principals of the Orange League schools had ruled Tuesday that the Savanna Rebels would have to forfeit their league co-championship, a berth in the Division VI playoffs, six victories and a tie because they had used an ineligible player.

The students at Savanna rallied in support of the Rebels and vowed to wage a fight similar to that mounted by protesting students at Huntington Beach to have the Savanna team reinstated in the playoffs.

Apart from the legal action, students, parents and even some teachers participating in Wednesday’s rally at Savanna said they hoped to draw public attention to what they saw as the unfairness of their predicament.

Reserve lineman Ray Leuta was ruled ineligible because he is a fifth-year senior. Savanna officials said they believed Leuta was a fourth-year senior when he transferred this year from another school. The matter was brought to Savanna’s attention this week by an administrator from one of the schools Leuta used to attend.

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

Students were particularly upset about losing the title because it was the first time in years the Rebels had tasted victory. The Rebels had only won one game in the previous two years.

“Most of the teams would schedule their homecoming games with us so they could have an easy victory,” said Rebels linebacker Scott Millspaugh, 17, who, like other Rebel players, was wearing his red and gray jersey to the rally. “This year, we beat all the teams at homecoming and won ours as well.”

“It’s impossible for this to happen to us,” said Fernando Velasquez, 16, another football player. “We just worked hard all season and set our minds to winning and came out on top.”

Non-players were equally disheartened.

“It’s a big crock, man,” junior Robert Stone, 16, said as rap music pulsated from one of the students’ cars and trucks lining the driveway leading to the school.

Brett Fawcett, a 16-year-old junior and one of the organizers of Wednesday’s walkout, said he was on the telephone until 1 a.m. Wednesday asking students to boycott the first period of classes. He and several other students, including some cheerleaders and football players, also printed up several hundred flyers urging students to participate in the protest.

“Do It If You Love Our Team,” one of the flyers read. “Meet in Front of the School. If the Gates Are Locked, Jump Them!”

The gates were not locked. Savanna Principal William Wong said about three-quarters of the school’s enrollment of 1,460 participated in the walkout and rally. The remainder, Wong said, remained in classes.

Wong, who stood outside monitoring the protest with a two-way security radio, added that he empathized with the students and considered the rally a healthy release for their frustrations.

“I think the students needed an opportunity to make a statement--and they did,” Wong said.

The rally was marred only by a brief fistfight between two students that apparently had nothing to do with the football controversy. The fight was quickly broken up by campus security officials as a crowd of students who were watching yelled, “That’s not the Rebels’ spirit!”

The students erupted in wild whoops and cheers at the sight of carloads of fellow classmates cruising past on nearby Gilbert Street while waving the red and gray Confederate flags that are the Rebels’ symbol. More cheers went up when a young girl shinnied up one of the palm trees in front of school and posted an Orange League championship banner.

Although the walkout was planned to last only one hour, teachers and school officials had such difficulty persuading students to proceed to their classes when the 9 a.m. bell rang that all wound up sitting out for the second period as well.

Most, however, filed back in for third period, at which time Wong instructed teachers to take official attendance for the day. School officials late Wednesday still had not completed a final tally, although they said that absenteeism was well above normal.

English teacher J.B. Shore said that, as far as he was concerned, the day was a total loss even for the students who decided to return. The 165 students in his classes were scheduled to write essays in preparation for the statewide writing assessment test.

“I anticipate that the student attitude will be so depressed that they will not be able to concentrate,” Shore said as he stood outside the school during the rally.

Times staff writers Chris Foster and Elliott Teaford contributed to this report.