Schools Dump No-Handshake Sports Policy

A Ventura County high school sports league that created international controversy last month when it banned post-game handshakes by student athletes announced Tuesday that the policy is being rescinded.

The no-handshake policy was adopted in an attempt to curb violence that had plagued games this season in the Marmonte League in eastern Ventura County plus Agoura in Los Angeles County.

For the final few weeks of the spring season, the eight high schools in the league will be free to engage in the traditional symbol of post-game sportsmanship, the schools’ principals said.

Jim Christianson, league president and principal at Agoura High School, attributed the turnabout to the crush of media attention and controversy the policy created. “We don’t think we did anything wrong. We still think there’s a better way,” he said.

“But this has caused more furor than anything that should be causing furor.”

The policy was implemented in the wake of several scuffles that broke out after Marmonte League basketball games, including one in which a player threw a punch during a post-game handshake.

Christianson insisted the league only wanted to ban coaches from ordering their teams to shake hands after games. It was never, he said, meant to stop players who wanted to shake hands after games from doing so on their own.

However, the league’s original decision was widely interpreted by school officials and students as being a complete ban, one that was bemoaned as the death of sportsmanship. On Tuesday, for example, Kathryn Scroggin, principal of Simi Valley High School, said she understood the policy as a complete ban.

Most students on the practice field after school Tuesday at Camarillo High School applauded the turnabout.

“No one was getting in a fight just because of shaking hands,” said senior Eric Jue, 17, who plays second base. “I think it shows good sportsmanship to shake hands after a game.”

First baseman Jay Nirenberg, 18, agreed.

“Sometimes there’s bad blood between the two teams,” he said, “but that comes out in the game, not when they’re shaking hands. I’ve played varsity for three years and I’ve never seen a fight.”

The policy was rescinded as a result of a telephone vote taken Monday and Tuesday among the league’s eight schools. Christianson said the vote was six principals in favor of the change and two abstaining, but he declined to identify who abstained.

Administrators and coaches at the league’s campuses said they had been inundated by calls from news organizations throughout the nation and around the world about the policy, believed to be the broadest of its kind. The issue drew national attention from varied news organizations, including Sports Illustrated and the BBC, after it was reported in The Times.

The high schools in the league are Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake in the Conejo Valley Unified School District; Royal and Simi Valley in the Simi Valley Unified School District; Adolfo Camarillo and Channel Islands in the Oxnard Union High School District, and Agoura in the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

During its brief life, the policy was disregarded by students at some campuses, although one coach was reprimanded for permitting his students to shake hands. The architect of the policy, Camarillo Principal Terry Tackett, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Many school officials appeared to be relieved at the outcome.

“It’s probably a move in the right direction. We put a tourniquet on a paper cut,” said Thousand Oaks athletic director Jim O’Brien, calling the publicity the policy generated “more interesting than Al Capone’s vaults on ‘Geraldo Rivera.’ ”

Said Westlake baseball Coach Rich Herrera of the turnabout: “I think it’s great. I think they made the right decision.

“I could understand where the principals were coming from, but I think the coaches are responsible enough to control their players. To punish every sport for a handful of instances, that’s what I couldn’t understand.”

On the practice field, pitcher Ryan Bourget, 16, called the whole controversy “stupid.”

“I guess it’s tradition to shake hands after a game,” he said. “I don’t like shaking hands after a loss.”

Special correspondent Maia Davis contributed to this story.