Southern Section Rejects Garritsons’ Eligibility Bid

Standout distance runners James and Carrie Garritson Wednesday were denied a hardship appeal to compete on the varsity cross-country and track teams at Buena Park High.

The Southern Section Executive Committee’s ruling means the two athletes, who transferred from Sunny Hills last month, will be eligible to compete only on the junior varsity level.

Mike and Linda Garritson said they removed their oldest children from Sunny Hills and enrolled them at Buena Park after James continued to be threatened and assaulted by gang members. They said that the safety of James and Carrie necessitated a transfer.

James, a senior, figured to be Buena Park’s top runner. Carrie, a junior who is Orange County-record holder in the girls’ 3,200 meters, would have been a contender for the CIF State Division II cross-country title.

James Garritson said the run-ins dated to his freshman year at the Fullerton high school and reached a boiling point during summer session in August.

He said he had been punched and shoved, his life had been threatened, he’d been followed home from school, and the family’s home had been repeatedly vandalized.

After the first major incident in the fall of 1989, Mike Garritson moved the family to Lake Arrowhead, where James attended Rim of the World High. But the family returned to Fullerton less than 12 months later, primarily because the snowy weather was not conducive to year-round training.

James said his troubles began anew with repeated name-calling and, in one instance, escalated into a physical confrontation that ended only when Mike Garritson and members of the Sunny Hills’ coaching staff intervened.

During a summer school math class, James said the harassment reached such a level that he asked if he could leave class early to avoid a possible fight. When his teacher refused, he bolted out the door. He said several of his tormentors got up to follow him, but the teacher blocked their path.

“At that point, I was glad to be out of school,” said James, who explained the situation to vice principal Steve Roderick in early August. “After about two weeks, we got threatening phone calls at home. ‘We know where you live. We’re going to kill you. We’re going to track you down,’ (the callers said).”

But under the letter of the section’s hardship rule, the Garritsons needed to show that the transfer was necessary because of “an unforeseeable, unavoidable, and uncorrectable act, condition, or event, which causes the imposition of a severe and non-athletic burden upon the student or his or her family,” committee chairman Frank Cano said.

In the end, the section’s three-person committee decided that Sunny Hills was not given the chance to correct the situation and ruled against the Garritsons.

After the ruling was announced, Mike Garritson refused comment. Asked if the family would appeal to the California Interscholastic Federation, the state-wide governing body, Linda Garritson nodded.

“If the kids never run competitively again I don’t care,” Linda Garritson told the committee. “At least they’re smiling when they come home from school.”