New Academic Calendar Causes Hand-Wringing

Senior point guard Daley Dispatch jumps aboard a smoke-spewing Los Angeles Unified School District bus and grabs a seat next to a teammate. The bus meanders through inner-city neighborhoods and picks up other youths, all of whom sport colorful sneakers and athletic garb. It is mid-January.

The bus downshifts and chugs over Sepulveda Pass, then begins dropping off players at different high schools in the Valley. Van Nuys, Birmingham, Reseda, Cleveland . . . Daley’s school, Taft, is one of the last on the loop.

His mind wanders as traffic slows. The ride takes forever. Is it worth the trouble? A retracing of the same path awaits on the journey back to Los Angeles. Most days, the round-trip, including practice, takes five or six hours.

Sometimes, he doesn’t get home until well after dark. School isn’t in session in his neighborhood, and lots of guys cruise the streets at night with time on their hands and a wild look in their eyes. Daley makes a mental note to remember to remove his red game uniform before he walks home.

At long last, the bus pulls into an empty parking lot at Taft. Players walk across a barren campus and into a cavernous gym. Echoes reverberate off the walls as teammates trade barbs.

Teammates who live in the Valley have been there for an hour, shooting around and warming up. Good thing, because the gym sure is cold. Guess the school forgot to turn on the heat again.

Daley and his mates suit up for a key game against their league rivals. Nervous energy adds electricity to the biting winter air: The championship is at stake.

A parent or two wanders in the front door, as do a handful of loyal classmates. There is plenty of room in the gym--just as there has been all season. Two cheerleaders show up and paste a hand-written banner on the wall. At least it adds color. Last year at this game, the place was packed, Daley recalls.

Players gather at midcourt for the jump ball. Coaches shout last-minute instruction, although raised voices are unnecessary.

A referee’s whistle pierces the air . . . . . . the thought of which roused Taft High Coach Jim Woodard from a vivid daydream.

Fantasy, fallacy, fiction?

On the contrary, some believe it is inevitable. More predict that the scenario will be worse.

The district’s adoption of a year-round academic calendar has meant many changes for many people. Few, however, have been more affected than those associated with winter sports such as basketball, soccer and wrestling.

A logistics nightmare is expected to await athletes who live in Los Angeles and play for Valley high schools. Winter sports participants also will forfeit part of their school vacation in order to compete. Since school won’t be in session for much of the season, game attendance is expected to plummet.

The effect on boys’ basketball, the most popular of the winter sports, could be devastating. Woodard, who will begin his 11th season at Taft, is thankful that his playing days are over, and glad he isn’t a high school senior who is being deprived of his glory days.

“It’s like they sat down and said, ‘How can we screw up things as bad as they can be?’ ” Woodard said. “Then they went out and did just that.”

If dozens of twists and turns qualify something as screwy, then most coaches would maintain that the winter sports schedule has redefined the word. In fact, the nuts and bolts of the schedule are still being sorted out, although basketball season already has started.

When the district instituted a year-round academic calendar for 1991-92, the impact on athletics was immeasurable. The first temblor was felt when school started in mid-summer.

Since most district high schools opened in mid-August, City Section football teams lost their traditional two-a-day conditioning period known as Hell Week. It was a minor casualty compared to the blow that winter sports will be expected to absorb.

For basketball, January might well be dubbed Hell Month. Just ask the players.

Reseda swingman Marquis Burns is an honor student with a strong work ethic that helped him earn a basketball scholarship to UCLA. But even stand-up guys have their limits.

“I don’t really like the idea of spending my vacation on a bus riding back and forth to the Valley,” said Burns, a senior who lives in Los Angeles. “Even for basketball.”

Some of the area’s best and brightest City stars of the past and present have been bused to the Valley from Los Angeles: Former Cleveland standouts Brandon Martin and Lucious Harris both were All-City selections; Brent Lofton of El Camino Real was selected the 3-A player of the year in 1989. There are numerous others.

Changes in the academic calendar could dam the tide of talent as well as quash interest in the programs. The reasons are manifold, but most relate directly to problems associated with transportation and attendance.

The year-round academic calendar has two intersession periods. The first is in the summer, the second, termed the Winter Session, will run from Jan. 2 to Feb. 5. The lone area City schools offering Winter Session courses are Granada Hills, Grant, Monroe and Taft.

The fall semester ends Dec. 20, followed by a two-week holiday break and the debut of Winter Session. The courses offered during Winter Session will be remedial in nature and will end at 1:20 p.m. Students wishing to take a remedial class can enroll at whichever campus happens to be offering the particular course they desire.

Consequently, most campuses will be closed. Even at campuses where Winter Session courses are offered, the potential fan base will be diluted because there will be numerous students from other schools.

In the eight-team Northwest Valley Conference, four league games will be played during Winter Session. Two more games will be played when high schools are closed throughout the Valley, during the period leading up to the second semester. On Feb. 14, when the spring semester starts, Northwest Valley Conference teams are scheduled to play the eighth game of a 10-game conference schedule.

In short, the regular season will be nearly over before most students will be on campus to attend any games.

Basketball players will have plenty of hardwood happenings to fill in their classmates about: Of the first eight games in Northwest Valley competition, only the game on Dec. 11 will be played while all students are in school. The next conference game will be held Jan. 24.

City teams that do not participate in holiday tournaments will have a five-week layoff between conference games.

A two-week “dead period” has been built into the schedule in January to allow players and coaches a chance to salvage part of their vacation. It is not expected to advance their cause on the basketball court, however.

City coaches, assistants and school representatives are prohibited from meeting with players, either on campus or off, for the two-week period, which spans Jan. 6-20. Any interaction will result in game forfeitures, according to a City bulletin mailed to coaches. Players are allowed to practice on their own.

Granada Hills will be fielding a team that includes four sophomores who will be counted on to make heavy contributions. For young or inexperienced players, retention of coaching instruction over the two-week period will be important. Conditioning will be up to the individual.

“Let’s face it,” Granada Hills Coach Bob Johnson said. “They’re on their own.”

The hands-off period might negatively impact a player’s chances of landing an NCAA Division I scholarship. A key evaluation period for men’s Division I recruiters begins Jan. 20, the day the City’s two-week dead zone ends.

During the NCAA evaluation phase, which ends Jan. 30, recruiters are allowed to watch a prospective player compete in four games. After a two-week layoff, players probably will not be performing at optimum level. After the break, City coaches will have three practices to whip the players into shape before the first game is played.

During the City’s dead phase, boys will not be allowed to receive home visitation from Division I coaches. All NCAA Division I men’s programs are in a “quiet period” from Dec. 12 through Jan. 19, and off-campus contact with recruits is limited.

Seniors will, however, be able to use the two weeks to make official visits to Division I campuses. Unofficial campus visits, to attend games and the like, are permissible for all players.

“That’s one of the reasons I hoped Marquis (Burns) would sign early,” Reseda Coach Jeff Halpern said. “To avoid the mess, to avoid the distractions.”

What’s more, teams have very few night games scheduled. Reseda’s home opener against Crenshaw on Wednesday was its only scheduled night game this season. All other non-tournament games are set for 4 p.m., which won’t make it any easier for area recruiters to drop in after college practices end.

Cleveland will play host to Dorsey at 7 p.m. on Dec. 3. It marks the only other scheduled night game for a team in the Northwest Valley Conference.

Don Thomas, an assistant principal at El Camino Real, said conference administrators agreed to eliminate night games out of self-interest. Administrators, who recently had their salaries pared by the district, no longer are willing to stay on campus all day and into the night.

“It’s our vacation time too,” Thomas said. “Let’s be up front, we’re looking out for ourselves.”

Fans and players might pay the price.

“We always looked forward to night games,” Burns said. “It seemed like more fans came out.”

Each of the 17 Valley high schools is currently operating on a year-round academic calendar called “Track A.” The absence of night games will make it difficult for parents to attend. Games, in terms of atmosphere, might seem like practices. What if they held a basketball game and nobody came?

Granted, there will be people in the stands, “but it’s certainly become less of an event,” Woodard said.

School spirit will fall as attendance dwindles, taking much of the fun out of games for the players and coaches. Players seeking the adulation of their peers might be anonymous on their own campuses.

“(They’re being shorted) part of the high school experience,” Woodard said. “This is something for them to fondly look back on for the rest of their lifetime. It loses something.”

Playing in front of a sparse crowd might be demoralizing, but it pales in comparison to sitting for hours on a crowded bus.

City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness concedes that orchestrating transportation for players is the biggest hurdle to making the winter sports schedule workable. Nonetheless, busing is a reality in the district and Harkness’ department has been ordered to make the schedule work.

“The real discomfort, the real bugaboo, is transportation,” Harkness said. “We’re not talking about players who live a mile from school who can get on the RTD and drive down Victory Boulevard. These players live a long way from where they go to school.”

Harkness said the names of 600-700 athletes who ride the bus are being cross-referenced by address in a district computer. Sometime soon, the district is expected to begin coordinating pick-up and drop-off zones for athletes from Los Angeles who attend school elsewhere.

“It’s an absolute maze of people going all over the place,” Harkness said.

It is conceivable, then, that buses will make stops at several points in the inner city to gather players, then drop them off at their respective high schools. From door to door with a two-hour practice in between, Halpern expects the process to last about five hours.

“There’s a distinct possibility they won’t get home until 7,” Halpern said. “And even later on game days.”

Among area programs, those of Halpern at Reseda and Johnson at Granada Hills might be impacted the most by the transportation dilemma. Both coaches have 10 players--the total includes the boys’ junior varsity--who are bused to campus from outside the area.

“This is probably the most devastating thing that’s happened to basketball since I started,” said Halpern, who has taught in the district for 26 years and coached for 16 seasons at a handful of schools.

Some coaches would like to see an adjustment made. Halpern, a member of the City Interscholastic Athletics Committee, would like to see the basketball season for 1992-93 begin one month earlier.

Under this plan, which was considered and rejected in favor of the current format, the regular season would end in conjunction with the first semester in December, just before the holiday break.

Halpern, in fact, has been asked by Harkness to investigate alternatives to the current schedule. Halpern sent a questionnaire to City basketball coaches Nov. 20, and respondents were asked to check one of the following boxes:

* I’d like the schedule to remain the same.

* I’d like the season to end Dec. 20 (or on whichever date the first semester officially ends).

Halpern says that under the second option, which he earnestly prefers, the City playoffs would be held over the holiday break. Those teams that didn’t make the playoffs perhaps could participate in tournaments.

The City 3-A and 4-A champions, obviously, would have considerable time to kill before the state tournament opened in March. No problem, Halpern predicted.

“(The City’s) not worrying about picking up after a long layoff right now,” he said. “The good teams will be able to pick things back up.”

Woodard, who initially was not in favor of starting the season a month earlier, admits the plan has positive attributes.

“I’m in favor of playing the season when school’s in session,” Woodard said. “It’s got to be better than this.”

Theirs is not a universally held opinion, however. Harkness says the second option is fraught with logistic problems. By backing up the boys’ and girls’ basketball, wrestling and soccer seasons--all programs that normally play over the winter--teams would be competing simultaneously with fall sports.

For instance, Harkness said that soccer and football teams undoubtedly would be vying for practice space on the same fields. Volleyball, wrestling and basketball would be sharing the gymnasium. Factor in the various junior varsity and B teams in both the boys’ and girls’ programs, and a logjam looms.

“Soccer backs up on football and basketball backs up on volleyball,” Harkness said. “There would be times in October and November when they’d all be playing at the same time. That’s a heck of an overlap.

“The best plan lies within the traditional athletic calendar. It makes the best use of the people, coaches, players and facilities.”

In short, Harkness prefers the status quo.

Unless alterations are forthcoming, Halpern said he will quit as coach. Chatsworth’s Gary Shair resigned his boys’ basketball coaching position last spring in protest over the new athletic calendar.

“I’m done,” Halpern said. “And I think others will follow.”

Several Valley coaches contacted by The Times last season said they would quit unless they were remunerated for coaching over the Winter Session. The district approved an allocation of 34 hours of additional pay per coach to help compensate for the loss of vacation time.

Harkness said that the winter sports calendar for 1992-93 has not been finalized. The school board’s allocation of funding for coaches’ pay, transportation and administrative supervision was a “one-year thing,” he said. So far, nobody has stepped forth with an alternate plan that all parties agree is athletically and financially sound.

As for predicting what adjustments--if any--are on the horizon for next season’s winter sports schedule, Harkness says, “I’ve not a clue.”

If the current system is adopted permanently, some coaches expect the infusion of players from Los Angeles to end.

“Most players didn’t understand (in which time frame) we’d be playing when the school year started,” Granada Hills’ Johnson said. “We might really begin to feel it in another two or three years.”

If not earlier, particularly if a team is struggling or if a bused player is riding the bench.

“What happens if a team starts losing?” Halpern said. “What if a kid gets disenchanted and he bails out?”

Coaches predicted that there will be several spinoff problems associated with the current schedule:

* Booster clubs at some schools traditionally could raise money at each game by selling concessions. It wasn’t big money, but as Halpern points out, every self-generated dollar helps when the entire district is buried in red ink.

“I can’t be sure that the boosters will be there,” Halpern said. “Or that they’ll have anybody to sell anything to.”

* The new academic calendar--the first semester now ends in December instead of January--will mean several additional players may be felled by the academic ax.

Under the old grading period, players who became academically ineligible weren’t removed from the team until the last week of the regular season. Since final first-semester grades now will be finalized in December, ineligible players will miss nearly the entire season.

On the plus side, Harkness said an ineligible player could conceivably make up any academic deficiency through the Winter Session’s remedial curriculum.

There seem to be few other positives. Even though the opening tip-off for many teams was held this week, administrators, coaches and players are looking ahead with dread.

“If they do this again next year, it’s tragic,” Johnson said.

Any way you slice it, most coaches feel the current schedule is a clunker.

“I hope that sanity prevails and that this is a temporary aberration,” Woodard said. “It seems to me that this was planned by the same people who designed the Edsel.”

El Camino Real’s Thomas, a 40-year district employee and a member of IAC, waxed prophetic about the damage the new calendar will inflict on basketball. The outlook is gloomier than a January sky.

“It’ll ruin it,” Thomas said. “There will be no students, no night games, no nuthin.’ ”