Derek Sparks Wants to Play for Mater Dei

Senior running back Derek Sparks, who withdrew from Van Nuys Montclair Prep last week, has enrolled at Mater Dei and practiced with the team Monday.

His eligibility will be determined Wednesday during hearings at the CIF Southern Section office.

Sparks’ withdrawal from Montclair Prep was not only a blow to the Mounties’ Southern Section title hopes but also hurt Sparks’ reputation among college recruiters.

He has already played for three high schools, and recruiters are worried about his stability.

“I’m sure after what happened last week that a lot of colleges just scratched him off their list,” said Dick Lascola, who owns a scouting evaluation service in Fallbrook. “If Derek doesn’t play another down of football this season, I’m sure he’ll still get a scholarship to a Division I school. But that school will be leery because he’ll be coming in with a whole set of problems.

“The school probably will just cross its fingers and hope it works out.”

Sparks, 6 feet 1 and 208 pounds, was one of the top prospects in the Southland last season. At Montclair Prep, he rushed for 1,944 yards, scored 35 touchdowns and was named The Times’ Valley back of the year.

But his personal problems are of long standing. Under the guardianship of his uncle, Jerome Sparks, Derek transferred in 1988 from Wharton High in southeast Texas to Wilmington Banning, where he led the team in rushing and was named sophomore state player of the year by Cal-Hi Sports.

In the spring of 1989, Sparks transferred to Montclair Prep, which already had Michael Jones, a senior standout running back. But Sparks upstaged Jones.

Sparks has been in a tug of war with his uncle in recent months over guardianship. Sparks said Monday that his mother, June, who has moved from Wharton to Santa Ana, will become his legal guardian.

“I don’t think that this is a good situation for him,” said a Pacific 10 Conference football coach who has been recruiting Sparks. “The best thing for him academically would have been to stay at Montclair Prep.”

Sparks has a 2.0-plus grade-point average, but he has yet to reach the 700-point NCAA qualifying standard on the Scholastic Aptitude Test to avoid Proposition 48.

“He’s definitely a guy we’ll recruit regardless if he is in Texas, Montclair Prep or Mater Dei . . . or if he doesn’t play at all this season,” the coach said. “But it would be easier for us to keep track of him if he is at Montclair Prep, which I think would give him the best possibility of passing the SAT.”

TIMES’ FOOTBALL POLL Southern Section

No. School, League Record 1. Fontana, Citrus Belt 1-0-0 2. CC Canyon, Golden 2-0-0 3. Bishop Amat, Angelus 1-0-0 4. El Toro, South Coast 1-0-0 5. Muir, Pacific 1-0-0 6. Edison, Sunset 2-0-0 7. Loyola, Angelus 1-0-0 8. Hawthorne, Bay 1-0-0 9. Paramount, San Gabriel Valley 1-0-0 10. Lompoc, Northern 1-0-0 11. Capistrano Valley, So. Coast 2-0-0 12. Quartz Hill, Golden 1-0-0 13. Crespi, Mission 2-0-0 14. Santa Barbara, Channel 1-0-0 15. Westlake, Marmonte 1-0-0

This will be a big weekend for several of the area’s top football teams.

Fontana, the defending Southern Section Division I champion, will be tested by a talented Pasadena Muir team Friday night at Fontana. Muir was co-champion in Division II last year. Last Friday, the Steelers defeated Montclair, 27-13, to run their winning streak to 15 games. Muir spotted Palmdale 13 points before winning, 38-13.

“This game will be interesting,” Fontana Coach Dick Bruich said. “We hope that we play better than we did last week and that they play worse than they did. They are a very talented team with speed, speed and more speed.”

Playing before Fontana’s expected capacity crowd will be a homecoming for Muir Coach John Tyree, who coached at Fontana from 1974-76. He played a major role in the development of the Steelers’ winning program, compiling a 26-9 record in three seasons and leading the Steelers to the Southern Section major division title game against Los Altos in his final season.

In an intersectional matchup, Bishop Amat of the Southern Section will travel to Veterans Stadium in Long Beach Friday night to play Carson of the City, which will be opening its season.

Bishop Amat, which routed Riverside Rubidoux last Friday, 37-7, has defeated the Colts at La Puente the last two seasons, and Carson Coach Gene Vollnogle is pleased that the Colts do not have to go there this year.

“Our situation at Carson always has us playing on the road, but it’s better to be playing (at Veterans Stadium) than at their place,” said Vollnogle, who is in his last year at Carson and is two victories short of 300.

“Unfortunately, I saw them play last Friday and they are really good,” said Vollnogle, whose Colts lost to Dorsey in the City Division 4-A final last season. “They are much better than they were a year ago. It is remarkable to see a high school team so advanced at this stage of the season. I would like to play them later in the season, but it should be a wild game.”

In another key showdown, Lompoc will play at Santa Barbara.

Harry Welch, football coach at Canyon Country Canyon, announced last week that he will resign at the end of the season because the Canyon administration has not added a period to his schedule that would ease the burden of both coaching and teaching.

Welch, who has talked about resigning for the last couple of years, is one of the most successful coaches in Southern California. Through eight seasons, he has 91 victories and his current Cowboy team is 2-0 and ranked second in the Times’ Southern Section poll.

Welch said he turned his resignation in to Principal Bill White after noticing that he had not been given an additional planning period this school year.

“I talked to (White) in the summer, and told him that the only way I would be able to consider staying is if I was given more assigned time for football,” Welch said. “He felt that wasn’t what he could do at this time. I put in a great deal of time and I care very much about my English class. I just do not have enough time for both.”

Canyon defeated rival Hart last Friday before 10,000 at College of the Canyons, 14-7.

Prep Notes

Without Derek Sparks, Montclair Prep lost its second game of the season to St. Monica Friday, 7-6. The Mounties, No. 1 in the Division X preseason poll, are 0-2. . . . The City opens its football season Thursday, with most of the weekend’s games on Friday.

Times staff writers Chris Foster and Eric Shepard contributed to this story.