High School Games Aren’t the Same

Al Washington remembers the 1980 Carson-Crenshaw high school football game.

On the way to the stadium, there was a corpse that had been covered by police. Washington had to walk past the victim of a violent crime. So did his mother, and his brother, who was a player.

The memory won’t leave him. The violence remains.

“When we played Dorsey (at Jackie Robinson Stadium) in 1988, they shot out the lights while Dorsey was driving with 3 minutes left in the game,” says Washington, who was then a coach at Carson. “If it weren’t for the gunshots, they would have had a chance to win. (Instead) the game was called, and we were given the win.

“In 1981 (as a junior), we played at Manual Arts, and we heard shots in the stadium at the end of the game. Gunfire has been around for a while in the city.”

If the violence isn’t new, the momentum of fear is.

Since Wilmington Banning forfeited its game against Dorsey for safety reasons Nov. 1, the fear of violence at high school football games has drawn national attention.

People in the city are heatedly divided on whether Banning’s decision was correct.

Despite the violence Washington has seen, he says people shouldn’t give in.

“Now I feel the gangs are saying, ‘We won,’ ” Washington says.

But Banning Coach Joe Dominguez says he simply is putting the safety of his students first.

And the effects of fear are evident.

At Gardena, the stands were at least half-empty for a recent Carson game.

“I don’t know if it was gang-related, but I never seen anything like it in 13 years of going to Carson games,” says Washington, now a Long Beach City College coach and a former City Section player of the year. “The stands were always packed for those games. Maybe it is because of fear. I don’t think you can give in to that kind of stuff. Just bring in more police support and let the games go on.”

From Marshall, a former flag girl called The Times to ask if it was safe for her to attend her school’s homecoming game. She had heard that shots were fired across the field during a Franklin-Lincoln game at Roosevelt High.

There wasn’t.

Police say there was a drive-by shooting in the vicinity of the stadium that did not involve the game or anyone at the game.

But the fear was there, too.

Going to a Friday night football game isn’t the same anymore. And it isn’t a problem exclusive to the inner city.

Last weekend, there were two bench-clearing brawls. One resulted in the Van Nuys-Canoga Park game being called with 3 minutes left. The other led to the ejection of four players from the Costa Mesa-Laguna Beach game, plus the one-game suspension of another player.

It makes one wonder, “What has happened to high school football games?”

The Times spent a weekend at selected games, watching through the eyes of a parent, a player, a cheerleader, a coach, a police officer and a reporter.

The results are called, “Fear on Friday Night.”

COPING WITH FEAR: A look at Southland views since Banning forfeited game for safety reasons. C6.