Tension Marked Angelini’s Past : Emotional Distress Dogged Harvard-Westlake Soccer Player Before Kicking Incident

Dwight Angelini of Harvard-Westlake High has been regarded as one of the top soccer players in Los Angeles, a gifted but volatile athlete, with loads of talent and sometimes a temper to match.

Now Angelini’s soccer abilities have been overshadowed by a single highly publicized act.

During a match against Notre Dame on Feb. 3, Angelini kicked Notre Dame’s Ryan Herrera in the head while Herrera was on his hands and knees away from the ball. The kick was captured on videotape, and Angelini was arrested Monday on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon--his foot.

Angelini, according to school officials, is a bright, well-liked student from a financially disadvantaged family who excelled in all phases at a prestigious private school. But suddenly he faces the prospect of appearing in criminal court for his actions during a soccer match--an almost unheard-of phenomenon.

How did Dwight Angelini’s world spin so quickly out of control?

“Dwight’s a Jekyll and Hyde on and off the field,” Harvard-Westlake Athletic Director Gary Thran said. “He’s just such a competitor and tries so hard.”

Ric Fonseca said his son, who plays for Notre Dame, and three of the players from his club team that play for Harvard-Westlake have spoken of Angelini’s emotional outbursts.

“They respect his playing abilities but say that he has a very, very short temper,” he said.

Angelini was ejected from four matches this season, including his final three. He was dismissed from the team after he was ejected from the Notre Dame match.

“The way I am on the field does not reflect my personality off the field,” he said two weeks after the incident. “I’m not a violent person off the field. I put everything into the game, a lot of passion. One of the frustrations I feel is when people don’t feel the game like I do.”

He said Thursday in his attorney’s office that he regretted his actions.

“I feel incredible remorse,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about the incident since Feb. 3. I feel awful about what’s happened, but I know it won’t change things.”

Herrera was hospitalized because of a concussion and still suffers occasional headaches and neck pains, according to his family. Herrera said Angelini’s attitude on the field is the root of the problem.

“It seems to me like he’s a great soccer player, but I guess he can’t handle getting beat,” he said. “He gets too frustrated too easily.”

Angelini has seen his world turned upside-down in a torrent of family health problems, recruiting pressures and his own rampaging emotions.

And it came to a head on the soccer field.

Angelini, 17, said living in his mother Yda’s native Argentina until he was 8 fostered his love for soccer.

“Down there you grow to love and respect the sport,” he said. “It’s the thing I love most in my life. It’s just a part of me.”

Harvard-Westlake Coach Barclay Mackinnon said that Angelini “maybe is too sensitive.” What Angelini felt during the 10 days leading up to the kicking incident was anxiety, pressure and fear, according to Mackinnon.

Mackinnon said Angelini’s on-field episodes--and ejections--seemed to coincide with health problems experienced by Yda, who seven years ago had been treated for breast cancer. “You could see that he wasn’t himself,” Mackinnon said.

Angelini’s father, Victor, said that three days before the kicking incident, Dwight returned home one evening to find his mother in tears. Surgery to remove a tumor was performed the next day.

Soccer and his family are the two constants in Angelini’s life. The close-knit Catholic family moved to Granada Hills in 1984. When Dwight was in the ninth grade, Victor approached Mackinnon and inquired about the possibility of his son attending the North Hollywood school. Mackinnon referred Angelini’s father to the admissions office. Angelini has attended Harvard-Westlake since 10th grade.

Angelini, a senior, and his brother, Brian, a sophomore, can attend Harvard-Westlake, which has an annual tuition of $10,000, because of their scholarships.

Angelini’s father is unemployed, and his mother is a teaching assistant for an English program, although her health has forced to take some time off.

“Certainly the family has come to the United States and struggled at least in the financial, monetary ways,” Mackinnon said. “In terms of financial assets, they don’t have a lot. Sometimes that transition can be difficult. But he’s really taken advantage of the opportunity.”

Angelini, a two-time All-Southern Section selection and last year’s Mission League most valuable player, was scheduled to fly to Dartmouth on a recruiting visit the following week.

Yale, Penn, Stanford and other college visits awaited Angelini, who once set his sights no higher than Cal State Northridge.

“The pressure and subsequent anxiety of being recruited are so new to him,” Mackinnon said. “I think it causes him more anxiety than it does make him feel great. That (and his mother’s health) might have put him over the edge. It culminated in the worst incident, obviously--a reprehensible incident.”

Angelini, who acknowledged that he felt intense emotions during those matches, vowed to change after each ejection.

“I’d talk about it, and it would be fine until the next game, but then the next game would happen and I’d feel it all again,” he said.

Because of his ability, Angelini was a marked man on the field, and the Notre Dame match was typical. He was head-butted in the first half by an opponent, who received a yellow card and was removed from the match by Notre Dame Coach Colm McFeely.

McFeely assigned Herrera to guard Angelini in the second half. About two minutes after intermission came the kick that skewed the lives of Angelini, Herrera and their families.

Although all parties acknowledge Herrera did nothing specifically to precipitate the kick, Angelini declined on the advice of his attorney, Roger Rosen, to describe the events that led up to the outburst.

After the incident, Angelini was suspended from school for two days. Mackinnon was suspended from coaching for one week. The school considered expelling Angelini, which is standard procedure when students are suspended, Harvard-Westlake Headmaster Thomas C. Hudnut said.

“I was very scared,” Angelini said. “I thought I was going to be dismissed.”

But school officials decided that Angelini had been punished sufficiently. Hudnut and Mackinnon said there was an outpouring of support for Angelini.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of phone calls we got,” Mackinnon said. “We had Notre Dame parents, Notre Dame coaches and the Notre Dame captain who said they would speak on his behalf.”

Angelini went to a Notre Dame practice the following day and apologized to the team, but Herrera was not present and the two still have not spoken.

Angelini also met with Harvard-Westlake psychologist Sheila Siegel.

“We talked about why it happened, what was the thinking,” Angelini said. “With her, I kind of summarized everything I believed in and she said, ‘I think you’ve learned.’ I’ve learned so much. I’m confident now that I can control it.”

But such an incident cannot be relegated to the past. He already has been accepted to California, but Angelini and those who care about him worry that this incident will cast a shadow over the rest of his life.

“My other great concern is how this affects colleges,” he said. “That could just kill many dreams I have.”

Mackinnon has informed college recruiters of the incident. Three weeks ago, college coaches remained enthusiastic about recruiting Angelini, Mackinnon said. But that was before they knew of Angelini’s arrest.

However, Dartmouth Coach Bobby Clark said he is still interested in Angelini. “I stick by the people I recruit,” he said. “We won’t change our recruiting at this stage.”

So adept at athleics, Angelini now plays the waiting game, and he, his family and many others wonder: Will criminal charges be filed against him? The district attorney’s office, Sylmar juvenile division, will decide in three to five weeks.

Angelini, who has played for his club team and will play in a senior all-star match Saturday, insists that this sobering incident has changed him.

“If I did believe that it could happen again,” he said, “I think I’d quit the sport.”