HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS AND THE MEDIA : Coverage Gets Bigger, Imprint Turns Bolder : Overview: Prep reporters widening their scope to include girls’ sports and off-the-field activities.

As cameras rolled and reporters fired a volley of questions, Sylmar High football player Tyrone Pierce stared into the room with wide-eyed trepidation.

Although Pierce considers himself savvy, the situation overwhelmed the 17-year-old linebacker.

The setting was a news conference to kick off the inaugural CIF/Reebok Bowl matching City Section 4-A Division champion Sylmar against Southern Section Division I champion Bishop Amat.

Pierce, along with Coach Jeff Engilman and fellow captain Art Larrea, reveled in the attention. However, Pierce felt out of place. He was, after all, in high school.

“It was like nothing I had ever been at before,” Pierce said. “It was like a big press conference for a college team going to a bowl.

“I haven’t talked to too many reporters, so that was really different.”

Said Engilman: “It is kind of strange to have the media so involved in (high school sports), but they are covering more things (this way). Times have sure changed.”

As the Southland’s major daily newspapers strive to provide readers with increased community coverage, reporting on high school sports has expanded. The increased emphasis has brought changes in the types of stories written and the role of the high school reporter.

John Reardon is among those who have witnessed the metamorphosis first-hand.

The Rio Mesa football coach, who began his career 30 years ago, marvels at the extent of media coverage and its impact.

“It’s a neat thing. It’s so much bigger than when I started out,” he said. “There have been big improvements. We never used to have these long stories on the kids like we do now.

“It helps school spirit and the kids and parents love it. Everything is so complete. It’s as good as the stuff you see on the college teams.”

The so-called major boys’ sports such as football and basketball are not the only ones to reap the rewards of such coverage. Longtime Simi Valley softball Coach Suzanne Manlet has seen major strides in newspapers’ attitudes toward coverage of girls’ sports. She attributes the advances to improved play, better overall coverage of high school sports and the realization by newspapers that there is an audience for girls’ sports.

“I’ve been coaching for 15 years, and (the coverage) has only become better,” Manlet said. “It used to be that people thought girls’ sports were not worthy of publication, but I think a number of people will tell you differently now. More and more, (newspaper) reporters have come to the games.

“There is more exposure now, and that only helps to create more interest.”

Alemany girls’ basketball Coach Melissa Hearlihy, too, believes the media are doing a better job of recognizing girls’ athletics. She said its impact is not lost on the athletes.

“It seems like it has become better, especially in the past couple of years,” said Hearlihy, in her eighth season as the Indians’ coach. “I used to have to reach a certain point in the playoffs before I ever saw a reporter at the games, but now reporters come to the games all the time.

“The best thing about it is when the kids open up the paper and see the stories and pictures. It makes them feel good, and that’s important.”

As with college and professional sports, newspapers are the leading medium in covering high schools. In fact, newspapers are vital to high school coverage because of the broadcast medium’s relative lack of presence.

*

Still, KCOP-TV (Channel 13) signed a five-year $395,000 contract to televise the CIF/Reebok Bowl. The lucrative agreement helped bring the game to fruition. Some radio stations broadcast high school sports, and others devote time slots exclusively to talk shows on the subject.

But with the exception of championship games, record-breaking performances and other infrequent stories, the job of informing the public about the who, what, when, where, why and how of high school sports in the Southland is left to newspapers.

The Southern Section media directory lists 44 daily newspapers covering the 482-member section. Six daily newspapers cover the 49-member L.A. City Section.

The manner in which reporters covering high schools gather and write information differs sharply from their brethren at other levels. Reporters covering college and pro sports typically do so under optimum working conditions.

They are assisted by college and team staff members who arrange interviews and provide writing areas, statistics and phones to file stories at the conclusion of games, all of which helps to meet deadlines. Even quotes by coaches and players are supplied.

High school reporters are not as fortunate.

Not all schools are equipped with facilities for the media, and reporters regularly are forced to write by light in cars, in bathrooms and in other on-campus rooms away from fields and gymnasiums, which cuts into already limited writing time.

With many events ending well into the night, reporters sometimes fear for their safety as they stand at phone booths, computer in hand. Reporters are sometimes harassed in those situations, as a female Times reporter was last season after covering a game in Sylmar.

Also, reporters covering high schools must sometimes handle the information they uncover differently from reporters covering colleges and the pros because of the age of their subjects. Most high school students are juveniles, and newspapers routinely withhold names of those under 18 accused of wrongdoing. In controversial sports stories--such as those involving crimes--about college and pro athletes, newspapers do not hesitate to print names. However, when high school athletes are involved, the decision is more complicated.

There is no uniform policy regarding naming juveniles in sports stories. Variables such as the degree of the offense committed, the prominence of the athlete and when the information was uncovered all factor into the story. With so much to consider, editors are forced to grapple with each story individually.

“We look at each story on a case-by-case basis,” said Mark Tomaszewski, Orange County Register sports editor. “Once we’ve done that, the policy is not to name them unless there is a compelling need to.”

*

The Times and the Daily News view the situation similarly. It is the policy of each to withhold names of juveniles in most non-sports stories. However, high school sports coverage has created a different set of rules. The visibility of high school athletes brought by media attention opens them to scrutiny, as is the case with athletes at other levels.

In 1990, when Brian Brison, then a 16-year-old football player and track athlete at San Fernando High was arrested and charged with punching Birmingham track Coach Scott King during a practice session, The Times Valley edition covered the story.

Juvenile authorities placed Brison on six months’ probation, and subsequently City Section officials banned him from athletic competition for one year.

The ban from athletics coupled with Brison’s athletic prominence--he eventually earned a Division I football scholarship to Ohio University--made it a story, according to Times’ assignment editor John Lynch, who covered the Brison story.

“We report on the status of prominent high school athletes,” Lynch said. “If a star player is sidelined for whatever reason, whether it’s an injury, illness, academic ineligibility or he’s run afoul of the law, we feel an obligation to let our readers know.”

However, editors say they carefully weigh options before running stories that can damage young reputations.

“The bottom line always revolves on whether it’s a story or not,” said Lon Eubanks, Times Valley edition sports editor. “Is it of interest to a wide enough spectrum of readers to justify it earning a spot in the newspaper? Is it worth the time and commitment by a reporter? Will we be able to present what we feel would be a true and accurate picture of the situation based on the information we are able to obtain?

“Doing difficult stories and how well you do them is what creates divisions in the quality of newspapers. We are always ready to make whatever commitment it takes if we feel the story is there and it should be done.”

*

The complexities of sportswriting have been altered dramatically during the past generation. Gone are the days when sports reporters often ignored the off-the-field activities of coaches and players.

Today, sportswriters are expected to be equally adept at searching for public documents and covering trials as they are in calculating batting averages and keeping score. The same standards apply to high school reporters.

“I think the sports reporter assigned to high school coverage today has to be as well-prepared to cover any aspect of life as the writer covering college or pro sports,” Eubanks said. “The same kinds of controversies erupt in high schools now as they do in the colleges and the pros.”

Several controversial stories have surfaced in the area over the years:

* Former Ventura High football Coach Harvey Kochel was arrested on Sept. 30 and subsequently charged with 12 felony counts of having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl at the school. Kochel pleaded guilty to six of the counts and admitted to a special allegation that he abused a position of trust. He was sentenced Tuesday to two years in state prison.

* Thousand Oaks football assistant Paul Gomes resigned under a shroud of controversy in November with two games remaining in the regular season. School administrators announced that Gomes had resigned to pursue a master’s degree. However, Gomes filed suit, claiming he was forced to resign for cursing a player during practice.

* Canyon High football Coach Harry Welch is embroiled in a legal battle that began in May, 1991 with the Southern Section over alleged violations of section rules. Welch was suspended from coaching but received a preliminary injunction that has allowed him to continue coaching until his civil lawsuit against the section is settled.

* Montclair Prep, a private school in Van Nuys, served a one-year ban from postseason play in 1991-92 in all sports in the wake of allegations of recruiting violations, grade tampering and non-payment of tuition by football players.

* Engilman was fired as the football coach at Grant in 1985 after allegedly sketching a depiction of female genitalia on a tackling dummy. He was suspended from coaching for one year in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“I don’t have a problem with reporters because they are just covering things and letting people know what’s happening,” Engilman said. “Just like the thing with (Kochel), some people might not like it, but that’s their job.”

These stories focus on coaches and administrators, who are adults in the public eye. That leaves them open to media scrutiny--both positive and negative.

“I suppose we are public figures in some ways,” said Pierce College baseball Coach Bob Lofrano, who formerly coached at Chatsworth. “It’s hard to believe that you are a public figure as a high school coach, but that is kind of the way it is now.”

Said Rick Vacek, Daily News sports editor: “Coaches are fair game. A story involving a 16-year-old boy is different than a 46-year-old coach. We err on the side of caution in stories involving kids.”

*

Still, some view the media as insensitive in regard to covering juveniles.

“I think it’s a reflection of our society as a whole that we tend to focus on the failures and not the positives in life,” Village Christian football Coach Mike Plaisance said. “(Newspapers) have to sell papers, so they are out there looking for kids involved in carjacking rings and selling drugs. But they won’t write stories about a kid who overcomes problems through athletics to graduate on time.

“I think that is a double standard and it upsets me.”

Said Chaminade football Coach Rich Lawson: “Press is press. You guys have got to report on the things that are happening. Unfortunately, a lot of what the press reports leaves a negative blemish on schools and kids.”

The way newspapers cover Proposition 48, which set standard academic requirements for incoming collegiate freshman athletes beginning in 1986, is a sore point with many.

Newspapers routinely report on the progress of star athletes in their attempts to meet the standards, which include earning a qualifying score on either the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the American College Test.

Antelope Valley football Coach Brent Newcomb believes stories hurt high school athletes who do not earn qualifying scores.

“I don’t think that it’s anyone’s business but the kids and their families,” Newcomb said. “You’re not a bad person if you don’t qualify. There are a lot of people who don’t qualify who become good students as well as athletes.

“O.J. Simpson started out at a junior college and I think he turned out all right.”

Said Canyon basketball Coach Greg Hayes: “The mentality of some writers makes it difficult to work with them. A lot of you guys don’t understand that there is a big difference in this level and colleges and pros. But it looks like reporters want to cover it all the same way.”

However, Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer finds many positives in the coverage.

“I think there are ardent readers of the paper and then there are people who occasionally read it,” said Schaeffer, a coach for 28 years. “I know a lot of people who read the stuff about high schools all the time.”

That thought has crossed the minds of newspaper editors too.

“Our philosophy is that high school sports are very important, we believe they provide the most passionate core of readers we have,” Vacek said. “We try to tell (the readers) as much as possible about the trends, the kids and the coaches that we can.

“For a lot of newspapers, high school sports coverage is an untapped gold mine.”

*

Said Tomaszewski: “I think the coverage will keep becoming more localized. More and more, people are trying to find out what is going on at their local high schools, and that’s what (newspapers) are attempting to give them.”

Spurred by the drive for increased readership--and the advertising revenue that accompanies it--large newspapers have ventured into areas often occupied by only smaller daily and weekly newspapers, attempting to become those areas’ primary source of information. Usually, there are no professional and few colleges teams to cover, making high schools the focus of the sports coverage in the “zone editions.”

Including the Valley and Ventura County, The Times has four editions (Orange County and South Bay are the others). Additionally, there are suburban sections for the San Gabriel Valley, Southeast/Long Beach, Central L.A. and Westside.

The Valley edition, which began publishing in 1984, covers the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys and Glendale. The Daily News has five zone editions: Antelope Valley, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Santa Clarita and Ventura County. In addition to the Daily News, the Valley Edition competes with such dailies as the Antelope Valley Press, the Simi Valley Enterprise, the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle, the Camarillo Daily News, Ventura Star-Free Press, the Glendale News Press, Oxnard Press-Courier and the Newhall Signal.

Competition among newspapers has helped enhance the scope and quality of reporting on high schools in the area.

Longtime sportswriter Pete Kokon, 79, who first covered high school sports in the 1930s, credits The Times’ arrival in the area with making the coverage “the best I’ve ever seen.”

“There is more of everything, and that’s because The Times and Daily News go after the same stories,” he said. “Obviously, the more competitive it is, the better it is for the reader.

“The big thing now is statistics, and the writing is by far better than the old days. So much has changed.”

A SPECIAL SERIES

TODAY: The Progressing Press

As the Southland’s major daily newspapers strive to provide readers with increased community coverage, reporting on high school sports has expanded. The additional emphasis has brought changes in the types of stories and the role of the reporter.

FRIDAY: Access and Excess

Compared to reporters who cover the college and professional ranks, reporters at the high school level enjoy virtually unlimited access to coaches and players. But the access also creates problems between reporters and the sports figures they cover.

SATURDAY: Overkill

For the most part, high school coaches revel in the media attention their athletes receive. However, coaches believe the media sometimes go overboard in covering high school athletics.

SUNDAY: A Spotlight Too Bright to Bear

High school athletes crave media attention and not just for ego gratification; many believe they need exposure to advance their careers to the next level. However, young athletes often are unprepared to deal with the media.