Panel Upholds Suspension of Hazelton

A Southern Section panel rejected John Hazelton’s appeal to regain his job as an assistant football coach at Montclair Prep, but it was difficult to distinguish the winners from the losers after Wednesday’s 8 1/2-hour hearing at the section’s office in Cerritos.

Panel members Frank Cano, Ray Monti and Tom Triggs, principals at Alhambra, Quartz Hill and La Habra high schools, found Hazelton guilty of violating the state rule on undue influence in two of seven charges.

In addition, the panel added a charge, determining that Hazelton exhibited a “disregard and lack of knowledge of the state’s recruiting rules.”

Hazelton is barred from all contact with the Montclair Prep athletic program until the end of the 1991-92 school year. However, he said he intends to carry his case to the state level and to the courts if necessary.

Hazelton emerged from the grueling all-day hearing in surprisingly good spirits, saying that he was relieved the evidence was out in the open.

“I’m happy to have the testimony heard,” he said. “With all these charges around, people didn’t know if I murdered someone. I was not embarrassed by anything that came out today. I was proud of how things came out.”

Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas, who provided testimony along with section administrator Bill Clark, expressed satisfaction with the panel’s findings, even though the group rejected five of the charges.

“I think that overall (the panel) thinks there was a proven violation,” Thomas said. “Whether it was one or 10, it doesn’t matter. It just takes one.”

The seven charges stretched back to Hazelton’s tenure as the Banning High football coach and centered on Derek Sparks, who played football at Banning, Montclair Prep and Mater Dei. Sparks will attend Washington State in the fall on a football scholarship.

The Southern Section built its case on the testimony of Derek’s uncle, Jerome Sparks, who gave seemingly conflicting testimony. Jerome Sparks also supplied the day’s most remarkable comments when he threatened two witnesses who testified in Hazelton’s behalf. After a comment by Connie Calhoun, a Baptist minister, that disputed Sparks’ testimony, Sparks said to Calhoun, “I’m going to put you to the gun.”

Calhoun, who has known Sparks since their childhood days in Texas, left the hearing at lunchtime after claiming that Sparks threatened him again in the bathroom, a charge that Sparks denied.

In the afternoon, after Montclair Prep treasurer Carol Stevens made a jocular reference to her own Italian background, Sparks said, “If you knew my background, you’d keep your mouth shut.”

The panel endorsed the Southern Section’s case on a charge that Hazelton requested that Jerome Sparks compile a list of five top football players from Texas for the purpose of recruiting them to Montclair Prep. According to the charge, Hazelton made the request in the winter of 1989 after he joined Coach George Giannini’s staff, and after Derek Sparks enrolled at Montclair Prep with his cousin Leland, who also played for the Mounties and at Mater Dei.

Hazelton denied the charge.

The panel also ruled that Hazelton broke rules when he offered inducements to Jerome Sparks during the 1987 season while Derek was a freshman in Wharton, Tex. Derek played for Banning in 1988, the year after Hazelton left Banning to become an assistant at Valley College.

During questioning about that charge, Hazelton volunteered information that he spoke to physical education classes at a junior high in the Banning attendance area while he was the Banning coach. That constitutes a violation of state rules.

The panel claimed jurisdiction over that infraction even though Banning is a City Section school, claiming the undue influence regulation is a state rule.

Hazelton shrugged off that violation, saying he made the appearance at the junior high school at the bequest of the Banning administration.

“I was proud of going there. I was doing my job,” he said.

The panel cleared Hazelton on five other charges:

* That Hazelton advised Jerome Sparks in 1988 that he would place Derek in any school where he would eventually coach;

* That Hazelton would live with Derek and Leland Sparks to assure their attendance at Montclair Prep;

* That Hazelton promised to arrange employment at Montclair Prep for Eric Sparks, Jerome’s brother who worked at Montclair Prep as an assistant coach, caretaker and dormitory supervisor;

* That Hazelton offered to arrange off-campus housing for Derek and Leland Sparks;

* That Hazelton conspired to arrange a foster-care arrangement between Derek Sparks and Steve and Susie Goldbaum, a Granada Hills couple whose son John was a teammate of Derek’s.

Montclair Prep has a boarding school license and housed the Sparks cousins in the fall of 1989.

The Southern Section also hinged its case on an agreement reached in April between the Southern Section and Montclair Prep.

Principal V.E. Simpson admitted to recruiting violations, and the school’s athletic department was placed on three years’ probation. The school was banned from postseason play in all sports for the 1991-92 calendar year and the football team was barred from the playoffs for three years with an opportunity to appeal for reinstatement after the second year.

The agreement also included the recommendation that the school suspend Hazelton for one year.