Elimination of ‘Dead Period’ Gives City Coaches Choices : Winter sports: Teams may practice throughout two-month break, but transportation problems keep some from doing so.

Second verse, different than the first.

In the second winter of their discontent, City Section basketball coaches again are wrestling with scheduling problems related to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s move to a year-round academic calendar.

Only this time, there’s a twist. To a degree, the coaches have brought the problems on themselves.

The year-round calendar, which went into effect for the 1991-92 school year, leaves a two-month break between the winter and spring semesters. The current break is from Dec. 18 to Feb. 16.

Conference play, however, resumes midway through the intersession period. Games in the Northwest Valley and Valley Pac-8 conferences--in which 17 of the Valley’s 18 City schools compete--are scheduled for Jan. 20.

Until then, because of a change in athletics regulations, it’s a free-for-all. Actually, free is not the correct word, because for some players and coaches a personal price tag will be attached.

The two-week “dead period” that last season prohibited contact between coaches and players from Jan. 6-20 was eliminated this year at the request of coaches and administrators. The cancellation of the period, designed in part to protect athletes from overzealous coaches, opened the door for coaches to practice this week.

However, the City will not begin busing winter-sport athletes to their campuses until Jan. 14, so if teams choose to practice in the interim, players living outside the area must provide their own transportation.

While their Southern Section counterparts are forging headlong into league play this week, City teams are doing their own thing. Or doing nothing at all.

Chatsworth has fewer players bused than many area schools--only two in the team’s rotation of key contributors. Yet one player, senior swingman Javier Jimenez, will ride the RTD from his home in the L.A. Basin to the Valley to get to practice.

Jimenez will fork over considerable pocket change for bus fare; Chatsworth began practicing Thursday.

“He’s a dedicated kid,” Coach Sandy Greentree said. “He’d ride the RTD here every day if we asked him to.”

Last year, Jimenez didn’t have to. But after the 1991-92 basketball season, the City athletics office solicited opinions from coaches and administrators concerning the dead period and other problems associated with year-round school and its impact on the winter-sports schedule.

The City decided to keep the basketball schedule in place, rejecting a suggestion that called for starting the season a month earlier and completing it before the December holiday break.

And the dead period was eliminated.

“It was done mainly for the (non-Valley schools),” said Reseda Coach Jeff Halpern, a member of the Interscholastic Athletics Committee. “It’s two separate worlds. They don’t have a transportation problem and they don’t care about what that rule change means in the Valley.

“(In a vote), there are more of them than there are of us.”

City wrestling and boys’ and girls’ soccer teams also are eligible to practice, though fewer teams are fielded in those sports than in basketball. The regular season has been completed in soccer, and playoffs begin Jan. 20. Wrestlers and soccer players also will be bused to campus by the district starting Thursday.

Many playoff-bound boys’ soccer teams in the area have been adversely affected by the switch. Fourteen of Taft’s 22 players are bused to the Valley, forcing Coach Doug Magorien to wait until busing resumes to begin practice. Birmingham boys’ Coach Jose Freire, who has 11 bused players on the team, has held makeshift practices.

Granada Hills boys’ Coach Pete Mabie drives to South-Central L.A. three times a week to pick up his five players who live in the area and transport them back to campus for practice.

“We still haven’t had a full practice,” he said.

Said Magorien: “It really has a negative effect. I feel bad for the kids. I’m not pleased with it but the show must go on.”

North Hollywood is scheduled to play a wild-card playoff match against Bell on Jan. 15, the day after district busing resumes. North Hollywood’s players all are from the area, however, and the Huskies have been able to practice.

Some Valley boys’ basketball teams that use bused players, including Taft and Sherman Oaks CES, will wait until district busing begins next week before reopening practice.

“We decided to wait for a variety of reasons,” Taft Coach Jim Woodard said. “Mainly, to have a life.”

Grant will reopen practice Monday. Only one player, senior guard Darwin Alfelor, is bused to school.

Coach Howard Levine plans to dole out RTD bus fare even after district busing resumes because he does not trust district buses to deliver Alfelor on time.

“He has been given strict instructions to take RTD,” said Levine, who did likewise with his bused players last season. “We decided we’re not going to worry about the (district) bus situations. We give them money to take the RTD and that’s that.”

Cleveland is the lone City boys’ team from the Valley competing in a tournament this week. The Cavaliers are playing in the eight-team Bell tournament, which will conclude tonight. But the extra competition carries a stiff price, particularly for Coach Kevin Crider.

Crider planned to pick up players who live in the Valley and personally deliver them to the Bell campus.

Other coaches will spend time on the road as well, though it isn’t exactly the same grind. Halpern will leave today for a weeklong vacation in Hawaii. Reseda will begin practicing Jan. 19, because, unlike the majority of City teams in the area, the Regents do not play until Jan. 22. Taft also will not resume conference play until Jan. 22.

Halpern would have experienced considerable trouble rounding up his crew: Ten players from his varsity and junior varsity teams ride the bus to school from the basin.

“I figure we can still get it back in gear (despite the short practice period),” said Halpern, whose teams have won or shared three consecutive league titles.

Trenton Cross, a junior point guard at Reseda who lives a few blocks from the Forum, isn’t so sure.

“I wish we were still meeting (for practice),” he said. “There are always going to be guys who sit at home and don’t do anything but get out of shape.”

It is not likely that Cross will suffer that fate. He said he will pass the time playing basketball in the neighborhood, and he also plans to ride a stationary bicycle for as much as an hour each day.

Reseda’s coach is not alone in electing to take time off between semesters. North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller is on a cruise this week and will reopen practice Monday. Granada Hills Coach Bob Johnson is spending time in Palm Springs.

El Camino Real will reopen practice Monday. The six players who are bused to the campus will be responsible for finding their own transportation until district busing begins Thursday. Until then, the bused players are expected to stay at the homes of players who live in the Valley, Coach Neils Ludlow said.

Like Chatsworth, Canoga Park also reopened practice Thursday. Coach Jeff Davis said he considered starting earlier in the week but figured the players could use a break.

“I wanted them to have a little extra time,” he said. “Not a lot, just enough to keep ‘em hungry.”

Several area coaches, when polled about their dead-period practice plans, asked about the schedules of other teams. Now that the City has given them the opportunity, some feel pressed to use the extra time--even if they might prefer to do otherwise.

Greentree, who plans to let his assistants run the two practices this week, was busy taking a brief course in family relations.

“Right now, I’m re-introducing myself to my wife and getting to know my kids,” he said.

For players at schools not practicing this week, pickup games could be the norm, though many won’t bother.

Kennedy reopens practice Monday. Until then, senior swingman Joe Wyatt, who lives in the Valley, plans to spend his time “shooting around” in the driveway.

North Hollywood guard F.J. Johnson, who lives in the L.A. Basin, will be driven to school by his father Monday through Wednesday. During the dead period last year, Johnson played basketball in the neighborhood and lifted weights to stay sharp. This year, though, Johnson plans a more leisurely approach. North Hollywood completed play Dec. 30 in the prestigious Las Vegas Holiday Prep tournament by finishing fifth with a 60-54 victory over City rival Fremont.

“We’re all glad to have a little time off,” Johnson said. “Vegas was a hard tournament for us against some good teams from over the nation. The guys are glad to have a couple of days to themselves.”

There is no universal approach to the issue. To underscore the difference of opinion, Fremont also is playing in the Bell tournament.

“Some guys would be out there every day if they have the chance,” Halpern said.

Staff writers Kennedy Cosgrove and Paige A. Leech contributed to this story.