PREPS / ROB FERNAS : Only Memories Remain for Morningside Football Team

“Moving forward” has become a popular catch phrase at Morningside High, perhaps because looking back has become painful for many of those associated with the school.

Until a few weeks ago, Ron Tatum looked back on the 1991 football season with pride and a great sense of accomplishment. He coached the Monarchs to their first Southern Section football championship, celebrating with his players after they defeated Temecula Valley, 27-20, in the Division VIII final on Dec. 14.

No one can take away those memories.

But because Morningside played an ineligible athlete, the Southern Section has taken nearly everything else.

The championship was stripped from Morningside and given to runner-up Temecula Valley, the Monarchs’ 11-2 record was adjusted to 0-13, and the Inglewood school district must compensate the Southern Section for the medals and jacket patches awarded to the players.

“It’s a total slap in the face,” Tatum said.

One could argue that Morningside has only itself to blame. Unintentional or not, the school allowed defensive lineman Stacy Maxwell to play after he had turned 19 before Sept. 1 of last year. In addition to being too old to compete in interscholastic athletics, Maxwell also was academically ineligible and had violated transfer rules.

Most agree it was an administrative oversight. Maxwell gained eligibility by giving Morningside false information about his birth date, and the school was at fault for allowing him to play without first obtaining the official transcript from his previous school, Long Beach Wilson.

For this, a lot of hard-working coaches and players suffered the indignity of having their championship season erased from the record book. Morningside is the first school in Southern Section history to be stripped of a football title. The section was founded in 1914.

“To look at the whole thing is really sad,” Tatum said. “It hurts to find out that Morningside is now 0-13. To get everything taken from us, that’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Moreover, Morningside’s football team has been placed on probation for the 1992 season, and the school is required to develop a written plan for checking athletic eligibility.

Morningside Principal Lisa Daniels said students wishing to participate in athletics now must present a birth certificate before gaining eligibility. Students must also provide proof that they meet residency and academic requirements, as well as verifying that they have received a physical examination and obtained medical insurance.

“We’ve instituted very rigorous standards,” Daniels said.

But shouldn’t these standards have already been in practice? If they had, Maxwell never would have been allowed to play football for Morningside.

“We don’t want to say that we failed,” Daniels said. “This was a case that got past us.

“Personally, I feel very badly about it, but we have to keep moving forward. We have a school to run and children to educate. We have to teach them that this is one of life’s challenges. It’s unfortunate and it has affected each of us in a very personal way. I don’t think there is one person at Morningside High School who feels good about it, but we’ll survive. We’re positive and that’s what we want to convey to the student body.”

Tatum said he holds no animosity toward Maxwell, whose actual age was not discovered until last spring.

The way Tatum sees it, Maxwell was trying to become a part of something that he had missed in previous years of dropping in and out of high school.

“We live in a strange society,” Tatum said. “I see a lot of kids who drop out of school for all kinds of reasons. (Maxwell) was trying to find his way again. He lost his way and I think he wanted to use football to help get him back to where he was going. By attempting to play football, he was trying to make a change in his life.

“He was someone who was trying to get back on track. I can’t fault him for that. I think the way he went about it was wrong, but everyone needs direction and guidance.”

Tatum said he is uncertain if Maxwell knew he was putting the football team in jeopardy by playing. He said there may have been another reason for Maxwell to lie about his age.

“I think it was a situation where he didn’t want anyone to know how old he was,” Tatum said. “Part of it was that he was embarrassed by being older.”

Tatum said Maxwell, 20, has been practicing with the football team at Santa Monica College. Considered a junior this past year, Maxwell has not graduated from high school.

Jim Masterson, the former men’s basketball coach at Marymount College and a onetime assistant at Serra High, has been named boys’ basketball coach at San Pedro High.

Masterson, the Marymount athletic director, coached the Mariners for six seasons until the small college on the Palos Verdes Peninsula disbanded its basketball program after the 1990-91 season because of budget cuts. His career record at Marymount was 52-109.

Masterson replaces Jack Kordich, the veteran San Pedro coach who resigned after last season. Kordich was twice named The Times’ South Bay Coach of the Year, most recently in the 1990-91 season.

“(Masterson) seems to be perfect for our needs,” said Rey Mayoral, San Pedro assistant principal in charge of athletics. “We didn’t have any teaching positions to offer, so the fact that he is a walk-on coach worked out.”

Others who applied for the San Pedro job included Phil Sherman, the coach at Ribet Academy and former coach at Leuzinger, and Dick Acres, who coached Carson High to the 1982 state title and was an assistant at Oral Roberts University, where he helped coach his sons, Mark and Jeff.

Karla Frasso, a former intramural athletics coach at Dodson Junior High in San Pedro, has been named girls’ basketball coach at San Pedro. She replaces Tony Dobra, who resigned after last season. Dobra will continue to coach the San Pedro softball team, which won the City Section title last season.

Nicole Odom, a South Torrance High senior, and former South standout Gillian Boxx recently helped the Orange County Bat-busters win the Amateur Softball Assn. 18-and-under fast pitch national championship.

The Batbusters were 8-0 in the national tournament, beating teams from Colorado, Michigan, Oregon and California. The defensive play of Odom and Boxx--who play third base and catcher, respectively--was instrumental in the team’s success, as was timely hitting from Boxx, a sophomore at California.

Both girls are aiming toward the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta when softball will debut as a medal sport.

Torrance school trustees, in a break with tradition, have authorized the sale of advertising in campus gymnasiums and football stadiums. The signs are to be sold by athletic boosters, with most ads to remain posted for the entire sports season.

Sports booster club members pushed for ad sales as a way to defray the cost of providing equipment for athletic teams.

The first-ever CIF/Reebok Bowl, matching the City Section 4-A Division and Southern Section Division I football champions, will be played Dec. 18 at Anaheim Stadium, it was announced this week.

One of the favorites for the City 4-A title this season is Carson, which returns several key players from last year’s disappointing 6-5-1 team.