Comparatively Speaking, Coach’s Crime a Mere Misdemeanor

The problem with Ted Williams is that he went about this undue influence business all wrong. He should have been much more blatant.

Williams is the Corona del Mar freshman football coach who was suspended from coaching for one year because he spoke to a junior high student about football--a violation of Southern Section Rule 510.

The primary reason for the rule is to curtail recruiting. Using “undue influence” to sway a student to enroll at a particular high school is one of the more dastardly deeds the section must keep in check.

With that in mind, you’d think Williams could have made this suspension worth his while.

He might have slipped the kid some Skittles, or promised him cuts in the lunch line, or told him how playing football at Corona del Mar High is a one-way ticket to Babe City.

Or he might have run the route of Artesia basketball Coach Wayne Merino, who allowed six junior high school all-star basketball players to sit on the team bench while Artesia won a section title two weeks ago.

Undue influence? Try blatancy a billion times over.

But Williams did it his way--unintentionally, it seems--tripping over Rule 510 as if it were a dog in the dark.

Of course, intent is tough to prove. And even if it could be proved, Williams knows it makes no difference to the regulators.

“Apparently I broke a rule,” he says. “So I guess I deserve what’s coming to me.”

Some disagree--with a passion.

Those who know Williams, who teaches an hour of adaptive physical education each day at Ensign Intermediate in Newport Beach, TeWinkle Intermediate in Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar’s junior and senior highs, describe him as a pure-hearted fellow who would do anything to help people, especially kids. Anyone who has seen him work with the disabled or heard him talk about his “special kids” knows he is indeed an extraordinary individual.

But extraordinary individuals make mistakes, which is what Williams did by giving a student from Ensign permission to go into the Corona del Mar weight room during Williams’ weightlifting class.

When the student, a football player, asked Williams questions--including questions on the Sea King football program--Williams answered.

That was his crime. He should have known better. In these hard-liner times, ignorance is as good as guilt.

Undue influence can be a tricky matter. The rule itself is about as hazy as a summer day in East L.A. Especially when it’s applied to schools such as Corona del Mar, where junior and senior high students coexist.

Basically, a coach can look, but he had better not talk to the junior high athletes.

Section Commissioner Stan Thomas says the section “has always left it up to each school’s principal to see that (Rule) 510 is in place.”

At the very least, that makes things interesting.

Consider Brea-Olinda girls’ basketball Coach Mark Trakh. Not only does Trakh teach at Brea Junior High--the only junior high that feeds into Brea-Olinda High--the only class he teaches is girls’ basketball .

But because the Brea-Olinda administration deems it okey-dokey, it’s legal with the section.

At Corona del Mar, Principal Tom Jacobson handed Williams a one-year suspension for talking with the student. This has raised the ire of Williams’ colleagues.

Some feel Jacobson might have supported Williams had Jacobson, the president of the section’s executive council, not worried about losing political face. A conflict of interests? Maybe so.

Either way, Williams loses out.