Another World : Folks in the Desert City of Ridgecrest Take High School Sports Seriously, but Visitors Find the Trip an Ordeal

The bleak, desert surroundings of Burroughs High provided the backdrop for such otherworldly movies as Star Trek V. So it seems fitting that the school’s Golden League opponents, traveling here for games, sometimes feel lost in space.

Ridgecrest, population about 30,000, is in the desolate northeast corner of Kern County, where the dust never quite settles.

It is off California 14, which winds past wind-swept fields of tumbleweeds and through the copper cliffs of Red Rock State Park.

“You go to the end of the Earth, come back five or 10 miles and then you’re here,” says Pat Plugge, father of four past and present Burroughs students.

The road to Ridgecrest winds past the Desert Tortoise Natural Area, where the creatures plod across 40 square miles of dusty plains. Crime in this area consists of using the tortoises for target practice, running over them with off-road vehicles or poaching them.

Standing on Burroughs’ football field, you can just about see where the world ends. The field is slightly elevated above a vast plain. Beyond the borders of the town and a few scattered houses, blue-gray sagebrush dots the ground for miles. At dusk, the desert looks like a giant tweed carpet.

Looking north, past the visitors’ bleachers, lights from an autumn fair twinkle on the edge of the plain. Beyond lies Death Valley.

To the west, the tips of the Sierra Nevada mountains rise in the distance. To the East, the next city--excluding a few dusty settlements--is Las Vegas.

On Friday nights, Burroughs football is the only show in town. One evening in early October, Burroughs defeated Santa Maria Righetti in a nonleague game, 28-24, avenging a 42-0 defeat the previous year.

In the stands, the crowd of about 500 enjoyed a rare, mild night. Often, the wind howls from the high-desert plain across the field.

For opponents, traveling to Ridgecrest for a Friday night football game--and then home again--can be an ordeal. Burroughs is about 95 miles from its farthest league opponent, Palmdale, and about 85 miles from its closest, Antelope Valley. Because of its remoteness and a reputation for rowdy fans, Burroughs would win no popularity contests in the Golden League.

“I’m sure if (league opponents) had their way about it, we would have been gone a long time ago,” says Don Crouse, the school’s athletic director.

Geography made the trip to Ridgecrest distasteful to Harry Welch, Canyon Country Canyon’s football coach, in the days when his teams played there.

“It was an all-day affair,” Welch said. “It was leave at 12-noon, have dinner somewhere near Ridgecrest--which in the early days, our options were really limited. There were not a lot of places to eat that were not frequented by Gila monsters and scorpions.”

Welch said it was usually about 2 a.m. when the group got back to Canyon Country.

Canyon and Saugus were moved to the Foothill League after last season. Lancaster Highland and Littlerock, each of which is playing its second season of varsity football, replaced them.

Losing the high-profile programs of Canyon and Saugus left the Golden League with a little less prestige, but it also cut transportation costs. Saugus is more than 135 miles from Ridgecrest.

Burroughs, though, has more than just a geographical problem. Because of its size, the desert school is seldom competitive with other football teams in the league. And in basketball, at which it excels, its fans have a bad reputation.

Traditionally, Burroughs has been the league doormat in football. Consider Canyon’s 62-6 thrashing of Burroughs in 1985, and Quartz Hills’ 41-0 pounding in 1989.

In the last 10 years, Canyon was 10-0 against Burroughs, and the games were never close. Welch denies that he ran up scores in hopes of running Burroughs out of the league. He suggests, however, that the Golden League is not the place for the school.

“I’d like to see them get into a league where they could have a chance at winning,” Welch said. “This is my 11th year at Canyon, and they haven’t had a chance. They just haven’t had a chance.”

The Golden League is in the Southern Section’s Division I, which is composed of the largest, most competitive schools.

Burroughs is a three-year high school of 1,250 students. Its athletic programs are also available to about 500 ninth graders from two junior high schools.

Including the ninth-graders, Burroughs is the second-smallest school in the Golden League. Without them, it’s the smallest.

On the other hand, it is far larger than its neighboring schools, such as Trona, which has only 170 students. There are no other leagues that could accommodate Burroughs’ location and its size.

“It’s not unreasonable to have them where they are,” says Stan Thomas, Southern Section commissioner. “But I will say this, that Division I football for Ridgecrest Burroughs is something they’ll probably never get very far in, because there are so many other schools with three and four thousand (students).”

Burroughs, traditionally, is a basketball power. It won 11 consecutive Golden League championships between 1979-89.

Basketball season brings rabid involvement by Burroughs fans. Last season, after Quartz Hill had defeated Burroughs, 51-49, in double overtime, the Quartz Hill bus was given a police escort out of town. Apparently, the escort was more than just a courtesy.

Steve Hurst, Quartz Hill’s basketball coach, told a reporter that his players had been the targets of severe taunting by fans during the game’s closing minutes, and that the situation got scary after the final buzzer.

John Clark, former Saugus basketball coach, said that eggs and rocks sometimes were thrown at his team bus as it left Ridgecrest, and that things were especially rowdy in the 1986-87 season, when Saugus broke Burroughs’ 40-game home-court winning streak.

“You make a mistake and you beat them up there and then you have to have a police escort,” Clark said.

People in Ridgecrest dismiss the hometown reaction as kids just having a healthy, good time.

“Where would I rather have (my son)--yelling, out drinking at a party?” asked Ann Auld, the mother of Bryan Auld, former Burroughs tight end.

John Albee, Quartz Hill football coach, said: “When you’re up at Ridgecrest, there’s not a lot of places to go, so they get more athletic involvement out of their students than other schools do.”

Crouse estimated that more than 500 students participated in Burroughs sports last year.

Almost everyone you talk to says there is not much drug involvement and are no gangs in Ridgecrest.

“By comparison (to Los Angeles), this a pretty slow town up here,” says Lt. Jon Lovgren of the Ridgecrest Police Dept. “This is a pretty family-oriented town.”

Ridgecrest was established during World War II, when the Navy built what is now the U.S. Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake. The 1,200 square-mile area is a testing ground for rocketry and weapons research.

Many students at Burroughs are the third generation of those who came to work at the Navy base during the war.

Things haven’t changed much since their grandparents settled here. The base is still the town’s major employer. Most of the employees are civilian scientists, a smaller proportion being military personnel.

Community support for Burroughs is high. Boosters recently raised money for new band uniforms, which cost $300 each. A local bank donated football uniforms this season.

“It’s fun here. It’s a small town and there’s not much to do, but I like living here,” said Treanna Mather, who plays on the girls’ basketball team.

Mather is seeking a basketball scholarship, although college scouts seldom visit here.

Chrissy Paiz, a 1990 Burroughs graduate, got a softball scholarship to Cal State Bakersfield. She returns to Ridgecrest on Friday nights to act as trainer for the football team.

“I was lucky,” Paiz said. “That’s why I want to come back here, to help others.”

Although Burroughs has its disadvantages, in many ways it’s no different from any other high school. On a Friday night, football players don’t seem to notice the surrounding high desert.

Even for Righetti players, who had ridden for more than five hours the previous day and spent the night on the Navy base, it was just like losing anywhere else.

“I don’t think the drive was a factor,” said Righetti’s Anthony Basoco. “It’s just a factor of not coming out ready to play.”

Football is still football, even in the high desert.