City Schools Get a Weekly Cable TV Deal

Getting media exposure has been a problem for high school athletics in inner-city Los Angeles over the years, but a cable television deal struck last week may change that.

In an unprecedented move, the City Section has worked out a package that will include the City finals in football and basketball, as well as a game of the week in each sport.

James Miller, an independent cable producer, came up with the plan that will unite the 10 major cable companies in the City for high school sports programs.

“Instead of me selling them the idea of the game itself, I’m going to buy cable access time and produce the programs myself,” said Miller, who recently has worked with Continental Cablevision. “They’ll tell me what time they have available in order to broadcast the games, but most do not have enough programming to fill their schedules.”

Miller’s package, named “High School Sports Game of the Week,” will begin in the fall. A football game will be shown weekly through the season, which will be capped with the 4-A Division championship game.

The same format will be used for basketball, with the boys’ and girls’ 4-A and 3-A championship games ending the season.

“We want to always televise the most significant matchup in the City every week,” Miller said. “But, what makes this package stand out is that we will also feature girls’ sports. We will have two or three regular-season girls’ games and we’ll show their 3-A and 4-A finals.”

Said Hal Harkness, City athletic commissioner: “We hope that this gives sports in the City greater support in the community and generates more interest. However, we will have to wait and see how it turns out. It all remains to be seen how the regular-season games will go, but we have sold the rights fee to Miller to have the City championship games.”

Also included in the package will be coverage of the City track and field finals, softball and baseball’s 4-A and 3-A championship games and the gymnastics final.

A seeding error by Harkness nearly cost the Washington High boys’ 1,600-meter relay team a berth in Thursday’s semifinals.

The Generals’ fifth-place time of 3 minutes 27.19 seconds in the quarterfinals last Friday at Birmingham High was faster than Belmont’s winning 3:27.21 effort in the first heat. But because Washington failed to finish among the top four in Heat 2--which featured perennial powers Dorsey and Crenshaw--it was not allowed to advance to the semifinals until Harkness discovered his error.

While entering the times of various boys’ 1,600 relay teams into a computer, Harkness inadvertently typed in Van Nuys’ qualifying time as 3 seconds flat, instead of 3:36.8, the time the Wolves’ ran in the Valley Pac-Eight Conference finals.

The result gave Van Nuys Lane 5--the position traditionally reserved for the team or individual with the fastest qualifying time--in the first heat of the quarterfinals Friday, while Washington had to duke it out with Dorsey, Birmingham and Crenshaw in the second heat.

By virtue of having the fastest qualifying time of all the teams entered in the quarterfinals, 3:26.3, Washington should have been seeded into the first heat and Marshall, with a 3:44.2 mark from the Northern Conference finals, should have run in the second heat.

“I screwed up the seedings,” Harkness said. “Washington had the fastest time going in and should have been in the first heat.”

Because of the mix-up, Hollywood has been taken out of the semifinals and replaced by Washington.

El Segundo High baseball Coach John Stevenson underwent heart bypass surgery Monday and will be sidelined from coaching at least until the fall, interim coach Craig Cousins said.

Stevenson, 57, has been hospitalized since May 4 after suffering a heart attack. The surgery, which involves removing a length of vein from the thigh and grafting it to the heart to bypass the blocked artery, was performed at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood.

An angiogram revealed that Stevenson has artery blockage, Cousins said.

“The heart attack was not serious, but the blockage is very serious,” Cousins said. “It’s something you can’t anticipate until you get in there.”

Cousins said the surgery will probably prevent Stevenson from coaching again until next school year. Stevenson also serves as the school’s athletic director and coaches El Segundo’s American Legion team in the summer. Cousins will assume those duties during Stevenson’s recovery.

Stevenson is the state’s winningest baseball coach with a 32-year record of 681-251. His teams have won six Southern Section titles and reached the 2-A Division final the past two seasons, winning the championship in 1989. El Segundo, seeded second in the 3-A at 24-4, opens the playoffs Friday against Garden Grove.

Prep Notes

Jon Palarz, a former player and assistant coach at North Hollywood Harvard, has been hired as the new boys’ basketball coach at North Hollywood Campbell Hall. Palarz, 30, has coached at Chicago Francis Park for the past two years. He replaces Joe Jackson, who was unexpectedly fired last month for unspecified reasons. . . . Wilmington Banning is seeded first in the City 4-A Division baseball playoffs, which begin Wednesday. Wilson is seeded first in 3-A.

Alpha League officials plan to propose tougher penalties against member Van Nuys Montclair Prep at a league meeting May 20. The Southern Section recently put Montclair Prep on three years’ probation and banned the school from the playoffs in all sports the next school year and for three years in football for illegally recruiting players. Several Alpha League officials, however, do not think the punishment is tough enough and want Montclair Prep to be ineligible for league championships.