Official Says Block Parties Were Illegal

Granada Hills High baseball players don’t get swatted.

But that doesn’t mean Highlander Coach Darryl Stroh doesn’t wish he had the option.

Responding to reports that police are investigating the discipline practices of Simi Valley High baseball Coach Mike Scyphers, Stroh on Wednesday recalled a time when corporal punishment was considered routine--even in public schools.

“When I first started we had swats in classes,” said Stroh, who is in his 25th season as Granada Hills coach. “I was sorry to see it go. It was a wonderful way of encouraging attitude adjustment. But it’s not allowed by our leaders of today.”

Scyphers, who also is the subject of an internal probe by the Simi Valley Unified School District, was removed as coach on Tuesday because of a police probe for “possible financial improprieties, improper discipline practices and other conduct which may have criminal application.”

School officials, district administrators and police have declined to divulge specifics about their investigations, but Scyphers said Simi Valley players have been questioned about “the block,” a system of discipline he instituted after he became coach of the Pioneers 16 years ago.

When a Simi Valley player violates a team rule, teammates bid for the opportunity to swat that player once with a wooden paddle.

Such actions are not only uncommon, they also break the law, a state education official said.

The state education code bans “willful infliction of, or willfully causing the infliction of, physical pain on a pupil.”

Among the actions specifically prohibited by the code are “paddling, swatting, grabbing, slapping, pinching (and) kicking.”

That also applies among students, according to Milton Wilson, a school psychologist with the California Department of Education in Sacramento.

“If a coach has other kids swat each other . . . that’s in violation of the educational code,” he said.

However, former Simi Valley players staunchly defend their coach and “the block.”

Andy Hodgins, a two-time All-Marmonte League player for Scyphers in 1988-89, said he has never heard a Pioneer player--past or present--complain about the severity of the paddling.

“I guess when it comes down to the fine print of the law it’s probably illegal,” said Hodgins, who was an academic All-American at Cal State Northridge. “But it kept the team in line.

“Guys got hit before practice and they practiced. It wasn’t like they were laid up for three days. It stung and that was it.”

Parents of Simi Valley players demonstrated their support of Scyphers and his disciplinary measures by signing and circulating a petition at Wednesday’s game against Thousand Oaks.

The petition read in part:

“We the undersigned parents are aware and consented to the block as a means of disciplinary action. We are also aware of the fun and camaraderie the boys shared in taking the chance for paddling each other.”

“All of us parents should go to jail, too, because we were aware of it,” said Irene Michael, whose son Jeff is a senior first baseman. “We happen to be of the school that says spare the rod, spoil the child.”

Before Jan. 1, 1987, when corporal punishment in California public schools was banned, paddling was a fairly common form of discipline.

Scott Drootin, co-coach of the Calabasas High baseball team, recalls that Kennedy High’s 1981 City Section championship team adopted a self-imposed form of discipline similar to “the block.”

“The kids controlled the whole thing,” said Drootin, who was an assistant coach. “The kids kept the money for their own team party.”

Drootin wrote Scyphers’ uniform number, 2, inside of his hat as a tribute to the Simi Valley coach before Calabasas’ game against Moorpark on Wednesday. He described disciplinary systems like “the block” as a “fun and fantastic way to get the rules right.”

He also said he would never institute such a system at Calabasas. “Too many parents are lawyers,” he quipped.

Drootin said he verbally communicates team rules, a system also used by Moorpark Coach David Rhoades, Calabasas’ Frontier League rival. Rhoades said he does not physically discipline players, but he considers Simi Valley’s system hardly a revelation.

“I’d heard about what Simi does for years,” Rhoades said. “I read about it in one of those baseball magazines. My impression of it is that it’s a system that works for him and has worked for a while. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue.”

Rhoades, whose Moorpark team is ranked eighth in the region by The Times, said he has been an instructor at baseball camps that employed similar disciplinary methods. “If you forget your glove or you’re late, you would go through what was called the tunnel of love,” Rhoades said.

“You had to crawl through the legs of your teammates and as you went through they slapped you on the butt.”

Fine systems in which players are docked small amounts of money for minor infractions still are relatively common, as they are in major-league baseball.

Mike Maio, who guided El Camino Real to the City 4-A baseball title last season, fines his players. “Just like the major leagues, only the numbers are much smaller,” he said.

The money usually goes toward an end-of-the-year team party.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Steve Henson and Vince Kowalick contributed to this story.