Hazelton Wins Time in Bid to Retain Coaching Job : Football: Southern Section grants Montclair Prep assistant continuance after attorney cites lack of specific charges.

The fate of John Hazelton was left in limbo Thursday when a Southern Section appeal panel granted a continuance for the Montclair Prep assistant football coach who is contesting a recommendation that he be fired.

Hazelton’s attorney, Daniel M. Grigsby, told the three-member panel that repeated requests of section Commissioner Stan Thomas to produce specific charges against Hazelton had gone unanswered since Thomas’ original recommendation on April 23 to fire Hazelton.

Grigsby said that Thomas cited only “undue influence” in a May 28 letter but failed to give specifics.

Faced with that information, Southern Section attorney Andy Patterson recommended that a continuance be granted so that the section could prepare specific charges against Hazelton.

The next hearing is tentatively scheduled for July 31.

“As due process requires a person to be advised of the charges against them . . . so as to give them some basis to prepare, I’d recommend that you grant a continuance,” Patterson told the panel.

A unanimous vote to grant the continuance brought an early end to the meeting in Cerritos that included appearances by Montclair Prep Principal Vernon E. (Doc) Simpson, head Coach George Giannini and Jerome Sparks, uncle of Leland and Derek Sparks, former football players at the school whose recruitment resulted in an investigation of the Montclair Prep program.

Also appearing, at the invitation of the Southern Section, was Chuck Denninger, an assistant principal at Banning, where Derek played in 1988.

Thomas said after the meeting that the section would work immediately to produce charges. To that end, he met in his office Thursday with Jerome Sparks, whose nephews transferred from Montclair Prep to Mater Dei last fall.

Jerome Sparks’ testimony against Hazelton and the school in earlier hearings led to Thomas’ April 23 decision to ban Montclair Prep’s athletic programs from postseason play for a year and the football team from the playoffs for two years.

At that time, Thomas also made the recommendation that Hazelton be dismissed.

Simpson informed Hazelton in a June 21 letter that he would “not be able to allow (Hazelton) to coach at Montclair during the 1991-92 school year.”

Simpson, however, said that he wrote the letter under duress, citing a June 14 letter from Thomas to Montclair Prep attorney Jim Blatt: “Under no circumstances will this office permit (Hazelton) coaching for Montclair Prep during the 1991-92 school year.”

Thomas angrily warned Simpson on Thursday that producing specific charges could have a “greater impact” on penalties already imposed by the Southern Section on Montclair Prep and that the case against the school would “reopen from zero on out.”

Thomas said that, among others, he would interview both Derek and Leland Sparks before they leave for Washington State in the fall. He also said that he was caught off guard by Grigsby’s adamant requests for specifics.

“I wasn’t really prepared for that,” Thomas said.

“We have an admission of guilt signed by the principal and I assumed that was satisfactory. But when you bring in attorneys, everything changes.”

Hazelton, meanwhile, said that he was prepared to take his case to the courts, if necessary, but regretted that the matter couldn’t be resolved Thursday.

“I would just love to get a chance to tell my story,” Hazelton said. “I’m a little disappointed that we’re not finished.”

The case marks the second time in three days that the Southern Section has been charged with circumventing due process.

Counsel for Harry Welch, the football coach at Canyon High whose program has been accused of conducting off-season practices in violation of section rules, on Tuesday leveled the same charge against Thomas in a 45-page brief.