NOTEBOOK : Locke Coach Says He Didn’t Know He Was Breaking Any Rules

Locke High football Coach E. C. Robinson said he didn’t know that he was breaking any rules when he visited the home of an athlete outside the school’s attendance area.

Robinson said he visited the home of James Tillman, who is playing on the bee team at Fremont this season, at the request of the player’s father last summer to watch a videotape of his son.

The visit violated California Interscholastic Federation rules despite consent of the parent. The Locke football team was placed on probation Sept. 14 for one year by the City Section’s Interscholastic Athletic Committee.

“I understand the mistake I made,” Robinson said last week. “Next time I’ll tell the parent to bring the player to come visit Locke instead.”

The investigation was sparked by allegations from Fremont High that Robinson had enticed Pathfinder players to attend Locke with offers of free shoes. Locke defeated Fremont, 32-21, for its first victory of the season Sept. 24.

“The reason players want to come to Locke is because they want to be in a winning program,” Robinson said.

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Standing tall--Despite having a relatively short team, Verbum Dei High won the Southern Section Division IV-A basketball title last season. The Eagles expect to be even stronger this season with the addition of Jamaal Johnson, a 6-7 junior transfer from Fremont.

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Just for kicks--Former Cal State Los Angeles soccer player Juan Carlos Sanchez finished his rookie season with the Anaheim Splash of the Continental Indoor Soccer League. Sanchez scored three goals in 12 games for the Western Division champion Splash (20-8), which reached the league semifinals. In his best game, Sanchez scored two goals in a 12-8 victory over last year’s league runner-up, the San Diego Sockers.

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On the run--Salesian High placed three runners among the top nine to win the Division IV title in the Bell-Jeff cross-country invitational at Griffith Park Sept. 24.

Eduardo Santillan ran the 2.9-mile course in 15 minutes, 47 seconds. Freshmen Marcos Aguirre and Andy Cortez were sixth and ninth, respectively, in 16:22 and 16:39 for the Mustangs, who totaled 60 points to outdistance Maranatha (104) and Flintridge Prep (108) . . . Marisa Avendano of Cal State L.A. finished second in the Nebraska Kearney invitational, covering the 5,000-meter course in 18:23. The sophomore also won the Aztec Invitational in San Diego and the Whittier Invitational for the Golden Eagles, who are ranked third in NCAA Division II . . .

Sylvia Mosqueda, 28, has been named an assistant cross-country and track coach at East Los Angeles College. Mosqueda set community college national records in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters competing for the Huskies in 1985.

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Blast from the past--City football teams have struggled in intersectional competition during the first three weeks of the season, winning only five of 29 games.

That was not the case 30 years ago today, Oct. 2, 1964.

A Fremont team led by quarterback Joe Dawkins, who went on to play at Arizona State and with the New York Giants, defeated Santa Barbara, 13-7.

Los Angeles High, which went on to share the 1964 City title with Gardena, beat San Marcos 39-12. Junior fullback Charles Moch, the defending state 220-yard dash champion, led the Romans with four touchdowns. The team also included All-American UCLA linebacker Mike Ballou and Hal Griffin, a Rhodes scholar at UCLA.

Correspondent Will Etheridge contributed to this report.