COMMUNITY COLLEGES / MITCH POLIN : Harbor Considered Dropping Football

If sanctions against the Harbor College football team had not been softened, would it have led to the end of the program?

It might be a moot point because the team’s probation has been reduced from two years to one by the Western State Conference. But Harbor athletic administrator Charlie Bossler said the thought of dropping the program crossed the mind of administrators after the Sept. 25 brawl with Pierce.

“In speaking to some people, we had really seriously considered ending the program,” Bossler said. “It was the (WSC) commissioner (Aviva Kamin) who told us, ‘Don’t do it.’ Then when she gave us the two-year sentence, I felt like we were really being held up against a wall for everyone to see.”

Bossler said a two-year probation could have been a death knell for the program.

“That’s just devastating to a program,” he said. “It’s like a death penalty. I call it the (intensive-care unit) treatment.”

It is a severe penalty when you consider that the recruiting cycle for a community college is only two years. That’s the equivalent of placing an NCAA program on four-year probation.

A two-year penalty would have made it difficult for Harbor to recruit and keep players.

“We have a hard enough time recruiting in the area with the Long Beaches and the El Caminos and I just don’t see how we could have remained competitive,” Bossler said.

After the two-year probation was announced Friday, it didn’t take Bossler long to learn how difficult it might be for Harbor to recruit.

“Even one of my best friends from another college said to me, ‘Sure, we would use it against you,’ ” Bossler said. “That’s just the way it is in recruiting and we would’ve probably done it too if the tables were turned.”

As it was, Athletic Director Jim O’Brien said there were some rough moments for the program in the days after the brawl.

“After this happened, the entire athletic department had to convince our president (James Heinselman) that we could conduct ourselves in the (proper) manner,” he said.

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If you think 1993 is a bad year, talk to El Camino Coach John Featherstone.

Off the field, Featherstone had to deal with last month’s ruling that El Camino must forfeit eight victories from the 1992 season because it used an ineligible player.

On the field, the Warriors are off to one of their worst starts in Featherstone’s nine seasons as coach.

They have lost three of four games after being ranked sixth a state preseason poll. The past two losses to Rancho Santiago and Palomar were especially difficult to accept.

The Warriors lost to Rancho Santiago, 37-36, on a touchdown as time expired two weeks ago, and Palomar scored on a 59-yard pass with 14 seconds left for a 45-38 win on Saturday.

The Warriors had taken a 38-37 lead against Palomar, the nation’s top-ranked team, on receiver Dameon Porter’s diving 34-yard touchdown reception with 1 minute 9 seconds remaining.

“It’s been a hard-luck season, that’s the best way to say it,” Featherstone said. “When you lose two in a row like that, it’s pretty hard to take.”

Featherstone said the Warriors’ morale remains positive.

“We think we’ve recovered from it,” he said. “We’ve had good practices and I’ve tried to put it in perspective for (the players).”

The next two games against Fullerton and Grossmont will probably go a long way toward determining El Camino’s fate.

“You can feel for (the players) all you want, but the true test is how hard they’re willing to work to win,” he said. “We’ve simply got to win a game again and we’ve got to win a game again on the road. We used to be a team that could always win on the road.”

The Warrior defense has struggled, giving up an average of 34 points. The defense was depleted before the season by the loss of six players for various reasons, including defensive backs Shannon Henry and Nacio Jennings and lineman Troy McMahon.

“You just can’t lose those kind of players and expect to survive in the Mission Conference,” Featherstone said. “The thing that scares me is we don’t have a lot of depth. We started out with 105 players and we’re down to about 60.”

Featherstone was encouraged that the defense held standout Palomar quarterback Tom Luginbill to only 21 completions in 53 attempts for 303 yards--his worst game of the season.

But with a difficult schedule ahead, Featherstone needs victories more than encouragement.

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Although Southwest is winless in three games, the Cougars are ranked third in the Western State Conference in defense.

The same cannot be said for the offense, which has scored only 19 points.

“We look like world-beaters on offense for a few plays and then something always happens to get in our way,” Coach Henry Washington said.

Washington believes Southwest will correct its offensive problems.

“We’ve played three games that we thought were on a par with anyone,” he said. “The players are still up. They can see what the problem is and our spirits are still high. It’s just a matter of getting a little more consistent out there.”

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It will be a reunion for coaches when Southwest visits Compton on Saturday afternoon.

Three former assistants of Washington’s are on the Compton staff.

Co-coaches Aaron Youngblood and Art Perkins and receiver coach Don Abram were Cougar assistants in 1991, when the team finished 9-2 and won the Southern California Bowl over Antelope Valley--the only bowl victory in school history. Youngblood and Perkins are in their first year as co-coaches at Compton, having taken over for Lalo Mendoza.