Banning High Probation Ruling Stirs Anger

Supporters of Banning High School reacted angrily to this week’s decision to place the school’s football team on probation for forfeiting a Nov. 1 game to Dorsey High School amid fears that the contest could end violently.

“I’ve lived all my life in Wilmington . . . and I’ve never seen such an uproar here,” Joe Perez said on Wednesday, a day after the CIF City Section’s Interscholastic Athletics Committee placed Banning on probation through the 1992 season.

“They’re more worried about image than they are (about) the safety of kids,” said Perez, vice president of the Red and Black Club, a group of former Banning football players.

The 14-member CIF committee voted unanimously Tuesday to place Banning on probation, which means the team will be under close scrutiny but will still be able to participate in the city playoffs that begin Nov. 22. The committee also ordered Banning to play Dorsey at Dorsey’s home field next year.

Officials of Banning High School and the Los Angeles Unified School District did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. At a meeting of the team’s booster club Wednesday night, Coach Joe Dominguez said that Banning administrators told him they will appeal the decision.

Warren Furutani, the school board member who represents the Wilmington area, told booster club members that he would support the appeal.

Helen Morales, whose son, Chris, plays on the Banning team, said the probation ruling was a “one-sided decision” by the committee.

Morales said her son and his teammates did not want to play at Dorsey, especially in light of the near-riot last year when Banning defeated Dorsey at Gardena High School, where Banning plays its home games.

“They’re showing more common sense than the . . . board,” Morales said of the players.

Julian Rodriguez, president of the football booster club, said he received several calls Wednesday from lawyers offering free legal advice to the school should it decide to appeal or take action against the school district.

He said the committee’s decision was “unfair. . . . It’s not just the gang problem, it’s what happened last year” at the Banning-Dorsey game.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the Wilmington area, expressed her displeasure with the committee ruling in a letter Wednesday to district Supt. Bill Anton. Flores asked that the probation be reconsidered and that officials from Dorsey and Banning be allowed to work out a solution to the dispute by themselves.

“This hard-line approach to a common problem will only lead to future confrontations throughout the school district,” Flores said in the letter.

Banning parents and the school’s football coach, Joe Dominguez, began arguing early this year that the intense rivalry between the two schools, combined with gang activity in the Dorsey High area, could lead to a tragic confrontation at the game. Officials of the school district refused to provide a neutral site for the match.

After two apparently gang-related shootings occurred in the weeks before the Nov. 1 game date, parents decided to forfeit rather than play at Jackie Robinson Stadium in southwestern Los Angeles.

The controversy, which attracted national media attention, prompted several city and school officials to rise to Dorsey’s defense, further antagonizing Banning backers.