Boy Drowned After Diving, School Says : Tragedy: Officials say 14-year-old jumped into pool despite being a novice swimmer. His parents question that account.

A 14-year-old boy who drowned during his swimming class at a Long Beach high school this week jumped off the diving board into the pool after challenging another student to do the same, school officials said Thursday.

Jordan High School Principal Alta Cooke described the drowning of ninth-grader Ryan Hardison as “a freak accident, a very unfortunate freak accident” that should not be blamed on the lifeguard and instructors supervising the pool.

“We had our lifeguard there and two teachers,” Cooke said. “Nothing would be done differently. We were following district policy. We were not negligent.”

But James and Loretta Hardison, Ryan’s parents, disputed the school’s version of how their son ended up on the bottom of the school’s swimming pool Wednesday, unnoticed by his classmates and instructor.

“Off the diving board. Off the diving board?” his father asked incredulously Thursday. “No way.”

James Hardison said that his son, an ROTC cadet, did not know how to swim, had a fear of the water and had talked to his instructor, ROTC 1st Sgt. Nick Church, about his apprehension. Church assured the teen-ager he would teach him how to swim, Ryan’s father reported his son as saying.

Ryan was spotted at the bottom of the pool Wednesday at 11:15 a.m. by the school’s lifeguard, Mike Quigley, who pulled him out and tried to resuscitate him.

In an attempt to determine exactly what led to the drowning, school officials on Thursday asked 23 students “to write down what they saw--not what they heard, or thought had happened, but what they saw,” said Vice Principal Bob Evans.

Evans said that one student wrote, “I saw Ryan went off the diving board. When he jumped, before he entered the water, he acted kind of wild. I thought he could swim.”

Another student, Eric Pribish, told The Times that, earlier that morning, Ryan tried to persuade a classmate “to go off the diving board. (The classmate) told him that he was stupid because they couldn’t swim.”

Although James and Loretta Hardison had said earlier that they heard stories from some students that Ryan was either pushed into the pool or forced to jump in, none of the nearly two dozen students wrote that in their accounts, Evans said.

Two students said in interviews with The Times that Quigley sometimes turned his attention away from the pool to read a magazine. ROTC ninth-grader Karimah Saleem said she observed the lifeguard reading before Ryan drowned.

J. D. Manning, who was in a ninth-grade swimming class the period before the incident, said, “He does that all the time.”

School officials disputed those reports and said the lifeguard, who declined to be interviewed, supervised the students at all times.

Karimah Saleem said that, before to the drowning, Church yelled at Ryan to “get your goddamned ass in the pool” when the boy left the shallow end to get towels. Karimah did not specify whether Church meant the 3- to 4-foot shallow end or the deeper end, with depths up to 12 feet.

Church, who was not in school Thursday, could not be reached for comment and was said to be distraught. But Lt. Col. William Waterman, the senior ROTC instructor at the school, said Karimah’s account of Church’s remark “doesn’t sound like him.”

Waterman said Church told him he was encouraging to the boy when he saw him practicing swimming in the shallow end. “ ‘Hey, you’re doing it,’ ” Church told Ryan, according to Waterman.

Principal Cooke said she would like to interview this student and any others who may have overheard Church telling Ryan to get back in the pool. “This gentleman loves his kids and he would not force them to do anything,” she said.

“I’m not saying he’s not a macho guy, because we like to think of our ROTC (members that way). But he’s a very caring man,” she said. “That is not his attitude. I can vouch for that.”

Waterman said the purpose of the ROTC program at Jordan High is to teach leadership, raise self-esteem and “instill in young people a respect for their heritage as American citizens.” It is highly structured but is not viewed as a source of military recruits, he said.

Long Beach police said they are conducting a routine investigation of the death, but the case “appears to be a drowning,” said Detective Logan Wren. School officials are compiling a report for the Long Beach Unified School District.

“After we read the report, depending upon what we find, if there have to be changes, then we’ll send it to the appropriate office,” said Supt. Tom Giugni.

Meanwhile, the flag flew at half-staff Thursday, and saddened cadets sat outside the ROTC office consoling each other. The indoor pool was closed and swimming classes were canceled. Counselors and psychologists addressed groups of students, many of whom said they were angry and depressed by what happened.

“There’s a lot of anger, a lot of guilt. They wonder, ‘What could I have done,’ ” Jordan counselor Lynne Fielding said. “Some are still in denial.”

“He was well-liked by his classmates,” Waterman said. “They’re very upset. They’re like most young people. They’re asking ‘why?’ ”