Prep Sports

Simi Valley and Royal high schools will not participate in next month’s Los Angeles Watts Summer Games, citing safety concerns in the wake of rioting that followed the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial.

Administrators from both schools said that participating in the games, scheduled to begin June 21, would place the schools’ athletes, coaches and parents at risk.

Royal Principal Dave Jackson said that since the King beating trial concluded in a Simi Valley courtroom last month, members of the school have been the target of threatening comments.

Royal normally sends the school’s boys’ and girls’ soccer and volleyball teams to the L.A. Watts Games, Jackson said.

Simi Valley Principal Dave Ellis said the decision by his school was made irrespective of the riots.

He said the school’s boys’ and girls’ soccer teams are the only squads under consideration to compete. And they are unlikely to participate because they are scheduled for a tournament in Oregon at the same time, he said.

The L.A. Watts Games were instituted in 1967, in the wake of the Watts riots in 1965, to promote better relations between Southern California’s ethnic communities through athletics.