Mater Dei Has Image Problem After Recent Student Transfers : Preps: The private school has been criticized for enrolling Derek and Leland Sparks.

Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana has a long-standing tradition of academic and athletic excellence, but school officials now are trying to restore that favorable reputation. In recent years, the co-educational parochial school has been scrutinized by Orange County public school administrators and even the Catholic Athletic Assn., of which Mater Dei is a member, for alleged unethical practices by its athletic department.

“I know our image isn’t great right now,” said Father John Weling, Mater Dei’s president. “It really bothers me, but I don’t quite know how to go about changing it. I’m open to ideas.”

Mater Dei’s image has taken a beating since the school accepted the transfers of cousins Leland and Derek Sparks, senior football players who left Montclair Prep in Van Nuys and came to Mater Dei on a wave of controversy in September.

The Sparkses were top football players at Montclair Prep last year, leading the team to a 12-1 record and to the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section’s Division IX playoffs. Leland plays quarterback-wide receiver and Derek is a running back, considered one of the top college prospects in the Southland.

But the cousins, originally from Wharton, Tex., had problems at Montclair Prep and left the school one game into this season.

Although the Sparkses did not do well academically last year at Montclair Prep, they were admitted to Mater Dei only two days after they had applied on Sept 5.

Derek started practice upon enrollment and played in his first game two weeks later. Leland recently was granted a fifth year of eligibility--he repeated his junior year at Montclair Prep--and played in his first game last Saturday. Both players are on academic probation, meaning that they have one semester to improve their grades to maintain eligibility.

“Mater Dei immediately opened itself up for a lot of criticism when it accepted the Sparkses,” John Johnson, principal at Brea-Olinda, recently told The Times. “When you read that three different transcripts were produced in order to get the students eligible, you start to wonder.

“The public perception was to question the ethics here.”

Said Lyle Porter, Mater Dei’s principal: “We accepted these students because they met our admission requirements. I don’t think any other school would have turned them down, either. We followed the rules.

“Derek and Leland weren’t accepted based on their athletic abilities. They came knocking on our door. We didn’t seek them out. We had openings and they qualified, so they were admitted. I’m glad they’re here. If this situation came up again, we’d handle it the same way.”

The Sparkses’ admission to Mater Dei quickly caught the attention of Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas. One day after the Southern Section Executive Committee had granted Leland a fifth year of eligibility, Thomas inquired into the admission policy at Mater Dei. He found nothing amiss.

He said later, however: “Mater Dei could have improved its image in the Southern Section if it had turned those two kids away. That would have showed the public school principals (Mater Dei’s) academic commitment if they had turned them away.”

A positive image is important to Mater Dei. The school has expressed interest in joining a public school league when the Southern Section begins releaguing procedures later this year for the 1992-93 cycle.

Mater Dei now competes in the Angelus League, which is made up entirely of Catholic schools. Although Mater Dei would like to maintain its parochial school rivalries, it also would like to reduce travel costs and missed class time. Incidents such as the transfer of the Sparks cousins, however, make public school principals wary of Mater Dei. Since Mater Dei is private, it has no attendance boundaries. Many top athletes who don’t live in or near Santa Ana attend Mater Dei.

“Public school leagues have explicit recruiting rules so they can’t get kids from other schools,” said Peter Hartman, superintendent of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. “An athlete can’t arbitrarily go where he wants. But parochial schools don’t play by those rules. So it’s not fair competition. It’s like saying the Raiders can only recruit in Southern California, while the other NFL teams can recruit nationally.

“Sure Mater Dei says it doesn’t recruit, but we employ all kinds of people who used to work for them and they say it does go on. The coaching circle is pretty small and things slip out. And you know kids; they always talk.”

Mater Dei has long been a basketball power and occasionally excels in football, which may partially explain the resentment by public schools. Controversial transfers, however, probably have increased that resentment:

--In 1982, basketball player Tom Lewis transferred from Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley to Mater Dei to play for his surrogate father, Pat Barrett, an assistant coach. Lewis, a 6-foot-7 center, started for the Monarchs for three years, leading them to Southern Section division championships in 1983 and ’85 and a runner-up finish in ’84.

Capistrano Valley took Lewis before the CIF rules committee after his sophomore season, claiming that Barrett had recruited him improperly. Lewis won the case.

--In February of 1988, the Southern Section Executive Committee put Mater Dei on probation for a year for using undue influence in recruiting athletes Danny O’Neil and Warren and Weston Johnson of Corona del Mar High in Newport Beach. Although the Johnsons never left Corona del Mar, O’Neil had transferred to Mater Dei in December of 1987. He played football and basketball there.

The probation didn’t exclude Mater Dei from regular season or postseason athletic contests, but it did result in the reassignment of Assistant Principal John Merino, who admitted that he had arranged meetings with the three athletes, their parents, and Mater Dei’s basketball coach, Gary McKnight, and former football coach, Chuck Gallo.

CIF bylaws stipulate that before enrollment, all parental contact must be handled by school administrators, not coaches.

“I had some doubts about going to Mater Dei and the controversy only magnified my doubts,” said O’Neil, now a redshirt freshman quarterback at Oregon. “It seemed I was getting put down, and the school (Mater Dei) was getting all kinds of adverse publicity.”

The school was still getting feedback over the O’Neil incident when the Sparks’ transfers brought a new load of negative publicity. The transfers were widely publicized and a Times story about Thomas’ inquiry into the school’s admission policy caused an uproar on campus.

Porter wrote a two-page letter that detailed the Sparks’ transfers and the basis for their acceptance. The letter was passed out to fans attending the Mater Dei-Santa Ana football game at Orange Coast College on Sept. 21.

Derek Sparks made his Mater Dei debut against Santa Ana, rushing for 281 yards in 13 carries and scoring three touchdowns as the Monarchs won, 38-21.

“Any coach would be glad to have two players like Derek and Leland Sparks,” said Bruce Rollinson, Mater Dei’s football coach. “They’re a nice addition to any football team. Nobody would’ve turned them down. I think the school handled their admission with the utmost caution. I’m completely satisfied.”

Said Dean Crowley, associate commissioner of the Southern Section: “I think with some public school officials and administrators, Mater Dei does have an image problem to overcome. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. I think the Mater Dei administration has worked hard since the Danny O’Neil incident to improve things. Because (the school is) so good academically and athletically, they just attract many top student-athletes. Parents shop around and many like what they see at Mater Dei.”

Few question the high academic standards at Mater Dei, but critics wonder how Derek and Leland Sparks were able to meet those standards.

Derek attended Wharton High as a freshman. He moved to Southern California in the summer of 1988 to live with his uncle, Jerome Sparks, and played at Wilmington Banning as a sophomore. He transferred to Montclair Prep in the spring of 1989.

Transcripts from the three schools showed he had an overall grade-point average of 2.97 when he inquired into admission at Mater Dei. The transcripts from Montclair Prep were unofficial, and when the second set of transcripts arrived--after Derek had already been accepted--one grade was changed to an F. Porter said that prior knowledge of the grade would not have resulted in denial of admission for Derek Sparks.

Leland Sparks attended Wharton High for three years before transferring to Montclair Prep in the fall of 1989.

Unofficial transcripts showed he took only three classes for the two semesters he attended Montclair Prep, which would have made him ineligible under Southern Section rules. Official transcripts showed Leland taking six classes his first semester at Montclair Prep and five the second semester. He also failed one class in the second semester, making him ineligible for athletic competition.

Montclair Prep is under investigation by the Southern Section on charges of grade tampering and waiving tuition involving the Sparkses. If found guilty, the school could be expelled from the Southern Section.

Derek and Leland are now living in Santa Ana with June Sparks, Derek’s mother, who recently moved from Wharton.

“The transcripts, combined with the story of all the problems at Montclair Prep, allowed Derek and Leland Sparks’ admission to Mater Dei,” Porter said. “Out of our enrollment of 2,130 students, Derek and Leland would be among the bottom quarter academically.”

Although Porter said the school is at capacity, he said there were a few openings for juniors and seniors. He said the school has no waiting list.

Derek and Leland Sparks said they never had to pay tuition at Montclair Prep. The tuition is $2,950 a year at Mater Dei. Porter said that neither Derek nor Leland is on scholarship. He added that he told the family of a private-school financial aid service available through the Catholic Diocese of Orange and that both Derek and Leland had paid the required $200 admission fee.

Even so, there has been criticism of the way Mater Dei handled the Sparks matter.

Jon Dawson, Loyola athletic director, said last month that the incident had given Catholic schools a black eye. He added that Derek Sparks had twice inquired about admission at Loyola, but was told each time that he didn’t meet admission requirements.

Dawson’s comments drew criticism from Mater Dei, and he has been told by the Loyola administration not to comment.

Bill Goodman, Angelus League president and principal at St. John Bosco, said the league is satisfied with the way Mater Dei handled the Sparks’ transfers.

Just the same, Mater Dei’s reputation apparently took another hit.

“I think a lot of people just spoke out about Derek and Leland Sparks without knowing all the facts,” Weling said. “If another school had a problem with this matter, I wish they would have called me so we could’ve tried to work it out.

“Obviously we knew the admission of Derek and Leland would create a fuss. We didn’t know it would create such a big fuss, though. I think the fuss was worth it. These are two great kids. We gave the benefit of the doubt to the kids. That’s our philosophy here.”