Inglewood Placed on Probation by Southern Section : Prep football: The council rules that the school used three ineligible players during the 1991 season. Coach Angelo Jackson says many players may look to transfer.

Inglewood High’s football program was placed on probation Tuesday at a special hearing of the Southern Section’s Executive Council. Inglewood, which was found to have used three ineligible players during the 1991 season, will not be allowed to participate in the section playoffs in 1992 unless the program conforms to certain guidelines to be set by the Southern Section staff at a later date.

The violations, which were heard at the section office in Cerritos, centered on three athletes--one who was found to be a fifth-year senior and two who were academically ineligible. The penalty was not more severe because the three-member panel was convinced that Inglewood never knowingly committed an infraction, and because Inglewood had been compliant and has been conducting its own internal investigation into the violations.

To Inglewood’s second-year football coach, Angelo Jackson, the penalty levied on his program is not half as bad as the effect of the charges themselves. He said the damage had been done long before the 8 1/2-hour meeting convened.

“We’ve lost a lot of kids over this already,” said Jackson, who last season led the Sentinels to a 5-5 record, their best in several years. “Last year at this time we had 110 guys out for football. Now, if we’re blessed, we’ll have maybe 20 or 25. Everybody has been thinking about transferring because they thought we’d get heavy probation.”

Inglewood, which competes in the Division III Bay League, was found guilty of four violations involving three players:

Antrero Fuller was found to have played as a fifth-year senior for Inglewood in 1991. Leuzinger Athletic Director and football Coach Steve Carnes testified that Fuller played for the Olympians in 1990 and was considered a senior. Fuller was expelled from Leuzinger near the end of his fourth year and did not graduate.

In using Fuller last season, Inglewood was found to have violated rules 202 (the “eight-semester” rule) and 229 (the “expulsion” rule).

George McKenna, superintendent of the Inglewood Unified School District, conceded that Fuller was ineligible when he played for Inglewood. “Our own internal process was flawed,” he said, although he contended that Fuller’s intention upon transferring to Inglewood was to finish his high school education. It was only later, McKenna said, that Fuller decided he wanted to play football.

* Willie Sargent played for Inglewood’s sophomore team in 1991 after being deemed ineligible at Leuzinger at the end of 1990, when he played on Leuzinger’s freshman team.

“We couldn’t figure out how he was eligible to play against us when he couldn’t play for us,” Carnes said.

After first questioning the validity of Sargent’s transcript from Leuzinger, showing him attending the school for both semesters of the 1990-91 school year, McKenna asked for a recess to make a telephone call. When he returned, he conceded that Sargent had been ineligible when he played for Inglewood in 1991.

The panel ruled that Southern Section rule 205 (continuing academic eligibility) had been violated.

* Lester Church was found to have been academically ineligible when he played for Inglewood in 1991.

Church’s case was the most interesting of the three because he was an All-Bay League selection in 1991 and because a unique piece of evidence was produced during the proceedings.

Church had transferred to Inglewood from Hawthorne High and gave Inglewood an unofficial transcript from Hawthorne. However, that transcript was found to have been forged--it was actually a transcript of his twin sister, Leslie. Lester Church’s photograph had been superimposed over his sister’s and one of her credits--pep squad--had been deleted.

Church could not have played for Inglewood based on his own transcript because it contained five failing grades from his last semester at Hawthorne.

Inglewood argued that Hawthorne might have altered the transcript to keep Church eligible there, insisting that Church left Hawthorne because he did not like the coaches.

Inglewood Principal Ken Crowe said he had requested Church’s official transcript from Hawthorne but he never received one and, thus, had only the unofficial one to consider.

“We had no reason to believe the transcript Lester gave us was inaccurate,” Crowe said.

“I am frightened to say that as I sit here today, I am not sure that, if this were to happen again tomorrow, the same result would not occur,” said Hollis Dillon, director of special services for the Inglewood Unified School District.

It was never discovered who doctored the transcript. However, the panel ruled that Inglewood should not have accepted an unofficial transcript and that--knowingly or unknowingly--the school used Church when he was ineligible.

Several Inglewood High supporters at the hearing were upset that Church had been allowed to play at Hawthorne in 1989 and 1990. In each case, he was academically ineligible (with a grade-point average below 2.0) in the spring semester but became eligible for the fall by earning an A in a football course during summer school.

However, whenever Inglewood’s representatives attempted to turn the tables on Leuzinger and Hawthorne, panel chairman Frank Cano (principal at Alhambra High) insisted that the discussion only focus on the charges at hand.

Inglewood officials and supporters indicated that they might bring charges against Leuzinger in the future, insisting that they were being “picked on.”

However, in levying the penalty against Inglewood, the panel deplored the conduct of both sides and said that the allegations should have been taken care of by the Bay League and should never have been allowed to come this far.

“As close as (Hawthorne and Inglewood) are to each other, there should have been some communication between them over this case,” said panel member Edna Herring, principal of Eisenhower High in Rialto. “The kids are the ones that come out on the short end.”

Said Cano: “I feel the Bay League needs active participation of its principals so that they can anticipate and solve problems before they reach this stage.”