Canyon Transfers Provide Spark for Incendiary Clash : High school football: Former Thousand Oaks players and coaches prepare to face a Lancer team that feels bitter and betrayed.

Fred Polito felt intense pressure from the moment he and his girlfriend walked into the room packed with glaring Thousand Oaks High football players. Earlier that day, his teammates had learned that Polito, the team’s returning 1,000-yard rusher, was transferring to Canyon.

The quick opener, his specialty, was taking him clear out of town and into the backfield of a fierce rival.

Like any seasoned runner, Polito had carefully followed interference: Already at Canyon were three other former Thousand Oaks players--Brian Shubin and brothers Joe and Jim Robles--and three former Thousand Oaks assistant coaches--Larry Mohr and brothers Paul and Mike Gomes.

Enraged Lancer players, feeling betrayed and bitter, called a meeting July 29 to demand some answers.

You too, Freddie? We know you want to play tailback and the coaches have you at fullback. We know that one more fight with those gangster wannabes lands you in continuation school.

And we know you and Paul Gomes are tight, you worked at his gas station all summer, and, sure, you believe he got a raw deal when he was fired last year. Some of us do too.

But it’s your senior year, Freddie. Don’t you want to graduate with all of us? With your girlfriend? We’ve played together for years.

Stay, Freddie.

Polito broke down but he didn’t give in.

“Lookit,” he told them, his face stained with tears, “I don’t want to stay.”

Tonight, Polito and the other defectors return. Canyon (2-0) will visit Thousand Oaks (0-2) in a nonleague game, and once again the Lancers will be glaring. As can be expected when feelings of disloyalty and redemption are added to a heated rivalry, emotions will be sky high.

The way the Lancers see it, Canyon raided their refrigerator and now has the gall to swagger into their parlor, fat and happy.

In two Canyon victories, Polito has rushed for 178 yards and three touchdowns and the Robles brothers--Jimmy is an inside linebacker and Joe a defensive end--already have made big plays. Thousand Oaks has surrendered 58 points and 681 yards in losses to Canyon’s Santa Clarita Valley rivals, Saugus and Hart.

“Our guys are approaching it as the biggest game they’ve ever played in,” said the father of a Thousand Oaks player. “It might take on the magnitude of a CIF championship game.”

Thousand Oaks Coach Bob Richards refuses to discuss his former assistant coaches or players and he requested that reporters refrain from discussing the topic with his players. That has not stopped concerned individuals from questioning the eligibility of the players who left, however.

“I saw Polito’s father in (a Thousand Oaks supermarket) yesterday,” another father of a Thousand Oaks player said Monday. “He was wearing a Canyon cap. I wanted to ask him if he loved this store so much he had to come back to shop.”

However, the living arrangements of the Politos, Robleses and Shubins have passed the scrutiny of the William S. Hart Union High School District, of which Canyon is a member.

Canyon Principal Michael F. Allmandinger was instructed by the district to investigate, and Southern Section administrator Bill Clark familiarized him with eligibility regulations. A district child welfare specialist made unannounced visits to the Canyon Country homes of the three families and all passed muster.

The families must have known that transferring would put them under a microscope. Canyon Coach Harry Welch believes, however, the inquiries have gone too far.

“The unfounded rumors continue. It is bordering on harassment and character assassination,” he said. “It is malicious, underhanded and despicable.

“I received three calls today questioning me why Fred Polito’s sister still attends Thousand Oaks High. Fred Polito does not have a sister. These families don’t deserve the mistreatment people are attempting to send their way.”

One question persists, however. The families apparently have conformed to the letter of the rule, but have they violated the spirit, changing residence primarily to further the athletic aspirations of their sons?

Polito concedes he moved because of problems at Thousand Oaks coupled with his desire to play football at Canyon. The Robleses say that in addition to dissatisfaction with the Thousand Oaks football program they moved because Canyon Country is closer to the Sun Valley fire station where their father, Joe Robles, works as captain.

Both families have rented homes in Canyon Country and neither has sold its home in Thousand Oaks; the Robleses have renters and Polito’s grandparents live in their house.

By the time Polito announced his decision, the Robles brothers already had won starting positions at Canyon. They spent July attending morning summer school classes at Thousand Oaks and driving to Canyon for afternoon workouts.

Shubin’s father, Steve, insists his family’s move is coincidental to the others, saying, “I would say this on my children’s lives. Brian was not recruited by the Canyon football program.”

Shubin, a junior starting defensive back and reserve quarterback who might miss tonight’s game because of a back injury, began attending Canyon last spring after his family moved to the school’s attendance area.

Polito and the Robles brothers are especially close to Paul Gomes, a Lancer assistant of 14 years who was fired with two games to play in the 1992 season after a dispute with Richards. His subsequent lawsuit against the Conejo Valley Unified School District was dismissed in June but he plans to appeal “to get all the details out in public,” he said.

Gomes paved the way to Canyon along with Mohr, a 12-year Lancer assistant who was a Thousand Oaks co-captain in 1976 with Gomes. Mohr left after last season and when Richards refused to pay his coaching stipend, Mohr took him to small claims court and won a judgment.

Canyon Coach Harry Welch hired the pair in April along with Gomes’ brother, Mike, another longtime Thousand Oaks coach who now is a Canyon sophomore team coach. Mohr has since been hired at Canyon as a resource specialist in the special education department.

“I plan on being at Canyon for a long time,” Mohr said. “I have learned so much here.”

Paul Gomes is similarly sold on the Cowboy program.

“The level that every kid is expected to achieve at Canyon makes everyone better,” he said. “The word complacency is not allowed to exist. At Thousand Oaks we were in the same realm a few years ago, but it slipped.”

For years, Thousand Oaks has been Canyon’s ideal foil. The Lancers, usually ranked and always respectable, test but rarely topple the Cowboys, toughening them for league play in the process.

Canyon has posted a 12-1-1 record against Thousand Oaks since 1979, losing only in 1987, the year Thousand Oaks won a Southern Section championship.

This time, the folks at Thousand Oaks and Canyon agree on only one thing. The game tonight probably will be the last between the teams because of the animosity built over the past year.

For the Gomes brothers and Mohr, who until this season spent almost their entire playing and coaching careers at Thousand Oaks, the emotions are conflicting.

“You just don’t sever those ties and figure they are done,” Paul Gomes said. “Obviously I’ve developed strong bonds with kids at Thousand Oaks. It will be exciting to see what they do in action and, at the same time, exciting to see what we do in action at Canyon.”

For the players who transferred, emotions must give way to performance.

Jimmy Robles will line up against a certain Thousand Oaks lineman who he said particularly loathes him for defecting. “I won’t start anything but I won’t back down from anything,” Robles said.

Joe Robles still has several close friends on the Thousand Oaks team. He doesn’t expect any favors. “It will be pretty intense,” he said. “A lot of emotion, a lot of penalties.”

As for Polito, a 5-foot-8 fire plug whose greatest assets are corny intangibles such as heart and desire, he longs for some peace.

“I have nothing against anyone on the (Thousand Oaks) team, but there are a few grudges there that haven’t been worked out,” he said. “If they hold something against me, so be it.

“I can’t wait until the game is over because things will ease up, a lot will cool down. It’s just weird.”