THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Granada Hills Wins With Players’ Choice

Call Bob Johnson a pragmatist. A democrat. A delegator. Any of the above applies.

All because Johnson, the Granada Hills High basketball coach, apparently has a very good idea of when to let the masses make their own messes.

Take this week’s pregame strategy for the Highlanders’ North Valley League game against Cleveland, ranked 10th in the state in Division I by Cal-Hi Sports.

“It was a compromise,” Granada Hills point guard Jermoine Brantley said. “He asked us all at the beginning of the week how we felt we should play them.”

Johnson must have agreed with the final tabulation. Let’s hear it for democracy in action, because the majority opinion yielded an 88-82 upset of Cleveland on Friday, snapping the Cavaliers’ 16-game win streak in Northwest Valley Conference play. The victory moved Granada Hills into a first-place tie in the 4-A Division North Valley League.

“We all felt we should pressure them like they pressure other teams,” Brantley said, “then go downcourt with an up-tempo style.”

The player rationale?

“Our philosophy going into the game was that Cleveland had never been pressed before,” said Brantley, who led the lobbying for a fast pace and swarming defense. “The last team to press them was Fairfax (in a December tournament game that the Cavaliers lost).

“Teams always play zone defense against them, so we went right at them with the man.”

“Man” is a reference to man-to-man defense, of course. But in every other sense, Brantley was the man for the Highlanders. The 5-foot-10 senior scored 21 points and had a career-high 17 assists. That’s hardly surprising considering that Brantley--who now has 168 assists for the season--long ago shattered the school single-season record of 126 set by Sam Puathasnanon in 1987.

The vote is in on the defensive role reversal too: Cleveland turned the ball over 22 times to 16 for the Highlanders.

Add big game: Cleveland guard Eddie Hill, who tied Brantley with a game-high 21 points, said the Cavaliers “deserved to lose.”

“Nothing went right,” he said. “We played real bad and they played real well.”

Hill, though, insists that the loss was an anomaly. In fact, the Washington State-bound senior guaranteed that this upset was a rare bird, indeed.

“I promise it won’t happen again,” Hill said. “I promise that. When we play them next time, it’ll be one worth coming out to see.”

Granada Hills plays at Cleveland in the regular-season finale Feb. 9.

Paradox in cleats: Find who doesn’t fit in this group and win a prize: Kirk Langer, Dick Butkus, Hacksaw Reynolds, The Boz, Emily Dickinson.

Answer: Langer.

Does this mean that Langer, an All-North Valley League linebacker at Granada Hills, can wax poetic and wax opponents? Can this be the same guy who once listed his nickname as “Banger” and his favorite hobby as marksmanship?

The one and same.

Langer and teammate Henry Shim, a defensive lineman and budding artist, recently collaborated on a handmade poster for Granada Hills Co-Coach Darryl Stroh. The artwork on the 2-by-3-foot drawing, sketched by Shim, features five Highlander players mauling a Kennedy ballcarrier. The poster also includes an original poem by Langer, titled “The Battle Field.”

One might expect the embroidered verse of an inside linebacker to be limited to the oh-so-lyrical pairing of trench with stench . But in truth, Langer’s effort isn’t half-bad.

Draw your own conclusions:

A wet, muddy field

One man, part of a whole

Standing under brilliant lights

All eyes on him, seeping through his armor

The intensity mingling with his overwhelming rage

Sweat drips down his forehead

Over the many gashes, cuts and bruises

Which engulf the warrior’s body

Yet, they are not to be felt

Only one thought exists in his

Once peaceful mind which is now consumed

By primal instinct; THE FOOTBALL IS MINE!

Langer and Shim presented Stroh with the artwork at the year-end banquet to commemorate the team’s 10-0 start.

“Nobody had ever gone 10-0 before,” Langer said, in reference to the Highlanders’ school-record streak to open the season. “We though we’d give him something to remember it by.”

The numbers “10-0” are prominently featured on the poster too. Unfortunately for Langer, et al., the Highlanders were upset in the first round of the 4-A Division playoffs by El Camino Real and finished 10-1.

What the heck, nobody’s perfect. Even Thoreau was tossed in the hoosegow once.

Add Langer: As expected, City coaches universally have praised the L. A. Unified School District’s recent modification of the no-fail eligibility requirement. Students now need only a C average to participate in extracurricular activities such as music, drama and sports.

Each coach queried about the change, it seemed, was able to point out a student-athlete who had been sidelined by the no-fail rule. Each coach stated, in virtually the same breath, that players were being systematically discouraged from taking challenging courses for fear of failing and losing their athletic eligibility.

Were coaches, for the sake of dramatic effect, overstating the case? Perhaps not.

In the spring semester of 1989, Langer said he received four A’s, one B and an F--the latter in trigonometry. Under the previous requirements, he was ineligible to play football in the fall. Consequently, Langer was forced to make up the course in summer school.

For the record, a student-athlete speaks out in favor of the modification:

“I think it’s great,” Langer said. “Some kids are trying to excel in high school, pushing themselves to the limit trying to get ready for college.

“I was taking trig my junior year and I already had a tough schedule. It killed me. This could help a lot of kids.”