Reseda Coach Wants Taft Counterpart Suspended

Reseda High football Coach Joel Schaeffer called for the suspension of Taft Coach Troy Starr in the wake of Taft’s victory over Reseda.

After Friday’s game, a 39-13 Taft victory, Starr admitted he ran up the score and claimed that Schaeffer had done likewise in the past--even though Starr wasn’t coaching in the region at the time.

“It was disgraceful behavior,” said Schaeffer, who had declined to comment until Monday. “At the very least, they should suspend, if not terminate him.”

Starr on Monday faxed a three-sentence statement to Reseda in which he apologized to Schaeffer’s players for “inappropriate decisions” at the end of the game.

With 39 seconds remaining in the Northwest Valley Conference game and Taft holding a 31-13 lead, Taft completed a double-pass play for a 70-yard touchdown and executed a two-point conversion. Following the score, Taft recovered an onside kick.

As the Toreadors lined up for that onside kick, Assistant Principal Tom Abraham approached Starr on the sideline and said, “Troy, don’t do this.”

Starr then screamed: “Don’t . . . tell me what to do.”

Repeated phone calls to Abraham, also the school’s administrator in charge of athletics, were not returned Monday. Starr said that he had not been disciplined regarding the incident, but declined further comment. Schaeffer refused to accept the apology since it did not address Starr’s remarks about the Reseda coach.

“I would never accept (the apology) because there’s nothing in it about his accusations concerning me,” Schaeffer said. “This whole (apology) sounds like he’s got his (neck) in a ringer.

In his postgame remarks, Starr, 31, accused Schaeffer of repeatedly running up the score in the mid-to-late 1980s, when Reseda was one of the top teams in the now-defunct City Section 2-A Division.

Reseda won the 2-A title in 1986. Starr didn’t begin coaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District until 1987, when he was an assistant at Carson. He joined San Fernando as an assistant the following year and took over at Taft last season.