Forfeiting a Game, but Not Their Safety

Nothing is so unnerving as children in peril. Keeping children safe from fear or harm is life’s foremost priority, or should be, whether it involves accompanying them along dangerous sidewalks when they go door-to-door for Halloween, or preventing them from attending--or playing--a game of high school football that jeopardizes their well-being.

Children who feel unsafe are unsafe. It is like being in love. If you believe that you are in love, that means you are in love. There is no difference. Children who feel afraid are afraid, and an adult’s reassurance that everything is going to be OK is not necessarily enough.

The parents of the children of Banning High, proud as they understandably are in the Wilmington community of a football team ranked No. 1 in the widespread county of Los Angeles, have sensed fear in some of their sons and daughters. That is why a virtual posse comitatus of them rode forth, 150 strong, to do something about stopping today’s football showdown between the city’s standout teams, Banning and Dorsey.

The game is already over; Banning lost. By forfeiting rather than playing, the team no longer is undefeated. Banning’s players were unwilling to travel to Jackie Robinson Stadium, where Dorsey plays its home games in southwest Los Angeles, because of recent gang-related violence there--or, in the cases of many, were unwilling to defy the parents and guardians who look after them.

As one Banning player, Larry Rayford, said this week:

“My mom told me flat out: ‘You’re not going.’ So that’s it.”

The parents and classmates of Dorsey High’s football players are equally proud of their school and team, and concerned for children’s welfare. Paul Knox, the coach, is deservedly proud of his squad. Jerelene D. Wells, the principal, is proud of her student population.

But a 16-year-old who attends Dorsey was shot in the head Monday within view of students participating in physical education classes. It has been suggested that the young man was shot by gang members. It has been insinuated that the young man was a gang member. The bullet didn’t care. Bullets don’t care whom or why they hit.

All the parents of Banning’s children know is that it happened, and that it could happen again. It happened Oct. 4 at a Dorsey game when gunfire between rival gangs interrupted another game of football, sending innocent teen-aged children--the players included--running for their lives.

Just imagine Banning’s players looking over their shoulders between each play, distracted by every unfamiliar face along the sideline, skittish at every sudden noise. Do the officials at high school football games still use starters’ pistols to signify the expiration of time? A gunshot at a Dorsey game could signify the expiration of someone’s life.

Why this particular game could not be rescheduled at a different site is unclear. Perhaps Dorsey is not inclined to yield its home-field advantage in a game of such importance. Or perhaps those who pack weapons to football games would pack them no matter where a game was rescheduled.

Wooden slats were affixed to the outside of Jackie Robinson Stadium in an effort to keep outsiders out. Security forces, it was promised, would be trebled in time for the Dorsey-Banning contest. Knox told his Dorsey players to continue coming to practice. Banning’s principal, Augustine Herrera, however, acceded to the wishes of his own constituency and agreed to the forfeiture of the game.

Students were frustrated, but relieved.

You could hear it in the voice of Banning player Ernie Gamboa, who looked into a TV camera and said he appreciated adults who would support what he and his friends believe.

“And we love them for it,” he said.

City Councilman Nate Holden and others decried Banning’s reluctance to fulfill its interscholastic obligation to play football. The councilman went so far as to say that Banning’s players should be duly notified that if they do not honor a commitment to play this one game, if they attempt to dictate whom they will or will not play, then all their future football endeavors should be taken away from them as well. Play one, play all.

It could have been a very entertaining afternoon of football, Banning vs. Dorsey, and players from both sides are naturally disappointed at its cancellation. But football is a dangerous enough activity without distraction, and no final score in the world is worth daring children to have the nerve to play the game.

It would have taken courage for Banning’s players to change their minds, or change their parents’ minds, and proceed with today’s game. It took more courage not to. Banning’s children and Dorsey’s children will be alive, accounted for and asleep in their beds late tonight, most of them. They are never entirely safe, children, but for one more day, at least, they are safer.

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