Lincoln’s Success Is Rallying Point for Community : High school basketball: Southeast San Diego gets behind the Hornets as they play for the state championship.

They’re trying to create a sense of community in Southeast San Diego, a neighborhood that leaders say has felt the cold shoulder of the media while it tries to deal with increasing gang violence and drug warfare.

It’s a community that surrounds Lincoln High School, which itself has become a symbol of urban decay as its enrollment continues to shrink. Currently, 850 students attend Lincoln. Another 1,700 neighborhood teen-agers attend other San Diego City schools through a magnet busing program.

“We’re fighting a real battle at this school,” vice-principal Dr. Ron Gallegos said. “We’re fighting it all the time.”

For the past week, the battle has been set aside. The community is coming alive again and rallying around a basketball team short in recognition, short in size, but growing in stature every day.

The Lincoln Hornets (24-8) fly to Sacramento this morning and will be at the Arco Arena at 4:15 p.m. to take on Salinas Palma for the California Division IV Championship.

“People used to look at us as if we were the bad boys of the community,” junior guard Archie Robinson said. “It would be our rival schools that would boost us. Our friends on other teams would call to say, ‘Good going, keep it up.’ ”

Now a team that at one point in the season looked downright mediocre with a 9-7 record is finding new support.

“On Sunday I was walking to a friend’s house,” Robinson continued, “and a car that was driving by slowed down, honked the horn and someone yelled out, ‘Good job.’ I didn’t even recognize who it was.”

Saturday night, Lincoln, the No. 2 seed, won a berth in the state championship game, and a shot at being the first boys’ team from San Diego to win a state title, by upsetting the No. 1 seed in the Southern California Regional finals, Oxnard Santa Clara, 62-60, at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Robinson’s experience is not unique.

Senior forward Berry Randle went to see “Gladiator” the other night when a stranger recognized him.

“Some guy I’ve never seen before walked up and asked, ‘Are you gonna win?’ ” Randle said. “It just kind of hit me that everybody is getting behind us. I told him, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna win.’ ”

Senior forward Hosa Baker, too, has felt the attention all week.

“I’ve been going to the park just to shoot around, and even little kids are getting excited,” he said.

Businesses, too, are responding, and one, Hartwell Ragsdale Mortuary, finds getting behind the Lincoln basketball team particularly worthwhile.

Hartwell Ragsdale “is the one who buries the kids who die in gang wars,” said Ray Smith, who as president of Lincoln’s Parent Athletic Support Group, takes it upon himself to secure sponsors.

“This is one of the truly outstanding things to happen to this community in the 40 years I have been in business,” Ragsdale said. “This is something the press, even the black press, hasn’t really covered, and this is something good these kids are doing. We can save about 14 kids if we get serious about following through with them. The state championship is great, but we have to make sure they go on to college and become respected citizens.

“I just feel that the community has to get behind these young boys.”

The community is.

“Everywhere I go, restaurants, wherever, the first thing people are saying is ‘Good luck--we’re behind you 100%,’ ” said Smith, whose son, Akili, is a junior forward on the team. “The first thing people used to say was, ‘We had another drive-by last night. We lost another one.’ ”

Now they are talking about 13 teen-agers who, as Ragsdale put it, “have avoided the problems we have in the community and who are going to make something of themselves.”

There was another Lincoln team not so long ago that went on a similar journey. In 1988, the Hornets silenced naysayers, picked off a couple Los Angeles-area schools and made its way to the Division III state championship game.

They made it to Sacramento, but they didn’t make it back to San Diego with a trophy.

“I went to that game in 1988,” Gallegos said. “There were only a handful of people who made it up from Lincoln. And even though we led for most of the game, the arena was quiet.”

Today there will be a different atmosphere at the Arco Arena.

Lincoln Principal Virginia Foster chartered three buses so students and parents who buy $5 tickets to the game can have free transportation to Sacramento. Except three buses weren’t enough. On Thursday, high demand forced Foster to add another bus to the convoy, which was scheduled to leave Lincoln this morning at 3.

“The student body has really perked up,” Gallegos said. “It’s really starting to get behind the team. It’s becoming pervasive--the whole community has really come alive. They’re so behind these kids and so proud of them.”

The pride is being showered not so much on a winning basketball team, but rather on a bunch of under-sized underdogs.

There’s Randle, who at 6-foot-4 is the tallest Hornet and probably the only one who will play Division I college ball. He has been guarding players much taller all season and he’ll do so again today when he lines up against Palma’s 6-9 center, Brandon Peterson.

Lincoln’s other two starting forwards are Smith, 6-3, and Baker, 6-0.

Lincoln’s guards are small even by Division IV standards. Junior Archie Robinson and senior Dennis Washington both stand 5-8.

Senior Scott Hammond, a 6-3 forward, and junior Joe Evans, a 5-10 guard, are the first players off Lincoln’s bench.

Entering the Southern Regionals, what was less impressive than Lincoln’s size was its record. Those eight losses were more than any other seeded team in either the Southern or Northern regionals.

“We were being written off three games ago,” Gallegos said. “People were wondering ‘Geez, how are these little players going to beat these guys?’ But they were counting us out because they weren’t considering how big these kids’ hearts are.”

No one’s counting them out this time.