Is Proposed Move of Football Classic a Smart Play?

It’s a little early to be writing about football. The baseball strike just ended and the Lakers are still playing basketball. But a big topic out on the Eastside is the next football season.

They’re thinking of moving the annual game between the Eastside’s two archrivals, Garfield High in East L.A. and Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights, to the 104,000-seat Rose Bowl. Since the early 1950s, the game has been played before sellout crowds at the 22,000-seat stadium at East Los Angeles College.

No other regular season high school game in Southern California draws more fans than the 68-year-old rivalry between Garfield and Roosevelt.

Supporters of the proposed move to the Rose Bowl say it’s a natural sign of growth. So popular is the annual contest between the two schools--dubbed the East L.A. Classic--that as many as 7,000 people are turned away each year from the stadium. Moving the game to Pasadena would generate more revenue for the schools and enable more spectators to watch the Bulldogs and Roughriders in action.

On the other hand, traditionalists say the strong emotional ties to the Eastside will be lost if the game is moved out of East L.A. Noting that Garfield and Roosevelt already net an estimated $35,000 apiece from the game, opponents say there isn’t a need to make more money.

“If it ain’t broke,” they say, “why fix it? Don’t move the game.”

The proposed move is easy to understand. It’s yet another expression from an often misunderstood area of L.A. that it belongs--that the Eastside isn’t some faraway dangerous place to be equated with Iraq. It’s just across the L.A. River from the rest of the city.

Eastside residents are quick to growl when someone innocently asks, “Is it safe there? How can you live there?”

“Of course it’s safe,” they bark back. I’ve even caught myself issuing a retort to offenders, especially if they live west of La Brea Avenue: “I’d rather be there than on the Westside.” Of course, I don’t always mean that, but the community pride I have for East L.A. provokes me to challenge anyone to come over to my side of town and discover it.

Very few events in the fall evoke more pride in the Eastside than the annual football game between Garfield and Roosevelt. It’s a fierce rivalry that separates households, friends, neighborhoods and even churches. So prickly are the feelings at the game that Richard Alatorre, although a Garfield grad, gets heat from the Bulldogs because he nurtures strong ties to Roosevelt. Ever the politician, he knows that Roosevelt must be cared for--the school is in his council district. Garfield is not.

Yet the game is played in a friendly atmosphere. No major disturbance has ever disrupted it.

So in the spirit of showing the rest of L.A. that the Eastside belongs, a group has proposed moving the game to the Rose Bowl. A date has been picked, Oct. 16, and Coca-Cola has signed on as a major sponsor of the move. More sponsors are being sought because the rental to play at the Rose Bowl on a Saturday afternoon could go as high as $150,000.

“With added revenues, and the never-before media exposure, there is no end to the positive impact it will have on both high schools,” says Fred Sanchez, chairman of the East L.A. Classic.

But for those whose bond with East L.A. is unshakable, the proposed move amounts to another insult to the Eastside.

Robert Carrillo, an administrator at Mt. San Jacinto College’s Menifee Valley campus in Riverside County and a Roosevelt grad, argues: “Moving the game defeats the whole purpose of the rivalry. I had a lot of good friends who went to Garfield. It’s a familia thing. We all come together for the game. You take it out of East L.A. and you take away something from it.

“Hell, I’m not from Pasadena. I’m from East L.A.!”

The proposed move to the Rose Bowl is certainly one way to show Greater L.A. about the community ties and the family values on the Eastside. But a better way is to keep the game where it is and let East L.A. revel in what it already knows. It is a part of L.A. and it doesn’t need to go to Pasadena to prove it.

The money being sought from potential Rose Bowl sponsors could instead be used by the schools to turn the annual game into a weekend extravaganza to attract even more people to East L.A. The two schools, and East L.A. College--which was forced to give up football--can benefit.

Transfer the L.A. Marathon to Van Nuys? Ha! Take the annual Armed Forces Parade out of Torrance? Never!

Move the Garfield-Roosevelt game out of East L.A.?

No!