JUST PREPS : Too Much of Good Thing : Love of Soccer Leads Many Recent Immigrants to Ignore CIF Rule

Some of the athletes have come here to escape war and poverty in such places as El Salvador and Guatemala.

But they aren’t like the other teenagers in their new country. Their clothes are often poorly made, they don’t own a car, they speak almost no English.

They are shunned by many of their classmates.

But on the soccer field, they are in control. Futbol is their world.

The newcomers can gain acceptance through soccer, according to Garfield High Principal Maria Tostado.

“This is the one sport that they can shine in,” Tostado said. “This is the sport that is truly theirs.”

It is part of their community’s culture, and many want to play the game as often as they can. That means playing club soccer against the best competition they can find.

Their high school says they can’t.

The California Interscholastic Federation doesn’t allow athletes to play on club teams during the same season they are playing on their high school teams, but many athletes are risking their eligibility and their teams’ playoff chances by violating the rule.

At last year’s boys’ City Section playoffs, Dorsey, Franklin and Roosevelt high schools had to forfeit games. They were put on probation, their coaches were replaced and several athletes lost their eligibility because they had played club soccer during the high school season.

It can be a difficult rule for players from Mexico and Central America to understand. At home, they played whenever they wanted, and the Sunday afternoon games were always big events in their communities.

Indeed, weekend soccer games are a regular pastime throughout the Latino community.

Why would anyone keep them from soccer? What harm does it cause? Why should they obey a rule that makes no sense?

Some don’t.

“You can go to any school in the city and find players playing in outside leagues,” Roosevelt High Coach Jose Louis Lopez said. “It is their passion.”

Lopez, who retired from coaching 14 years ago after leading Roosevelt to two city championships in the mid 1970s, has returned this season. He knows the rule and says he wants to abide by it, but he can’t go home with his players. He can’t be with them on Sunday in the park, where they play their club games.

“I know many of these kids on this team are playing in the leagues,” Lopez said at a preseason workout in which his team practiced on a dirt field, laughing and singing as players shot at wooden benches that served as makeshift goals.

“Let the commissioner come here and ask my players if they are playing [in outside leagues]. They will tell the truth.”

Lopez called Nils Eric Hernandez over to prove a point. He is one of Roosevelt’s best players, a 17-year-old with thick legs and a faint mustache.

Hernandez said he played in the “Sunday leagues” because the competition is good. The players are usually older and more experienced, and that will help him make El Salvador’s national team one day.

Hernandez counted how many of his teammates were playing in outside leagues. “Most of them,” he said.

Richard Chavez, assistant principal in charge of athletics at Roosevelt, said now that the high school season has begun, Hernandez no longer plays for a soccer club.

But that doesn’t mean he likes the rule against doing so. And, although it is being debated up and down the state, there is little chance that it will be repealed.

Hal Harkness, former City Section commissioner, said that in 1990, a poll of City Section coaches showed that 92% were in favor of keeping the outside competition rule.

“It’s a coach’s rule,” Harkness said. “They want it because they want to be the only coach instructing the kid.”

But the competition is better in club soccer, and, in many cases, so is the coaching.

“Most of the high school coaches don’t know anything about soccer,” said Raul Dorantes, editor of the monthly soccer publication El De Portista. “A lot of club coaches played professionally in their countries. They came here with everybody else, looking for a better life, but they aren’t coaching in the high schools because of the language barrier.”

But, like the high school kids, soccer is their passion and they want to pass it on to another generation of players. Jack Baptista is the soccer coordinator for the Metropolitan League, which has 98 clubs and 1,900 players. He is also a high school referee.

Baptista said it is common for him to see players competing for their high schools on Tuesday and for their club teams on Sunday afternoons. And it’s no secret.

“I will tell the coach that I’ve seen their players competing in the leagues,” Baptista said. “But I will not turn the player in to the CIF. That is not up to me.”

There are complaints from school officials that the leagues have not cooperated with them in enforcing the rule. “It is not up to us to police our leagues for the CIF,” Baptista said.

Baptista also said he has seen some talented high school players play on semipro teams, which pay some of their players. But he says that is rare. Most high school players aren’t developed enough to make money in soccer.

He acknowledged that club teams pressure talented high school players to compete on their teams.

“They don’t care about the high schools or the rules,” Baptista said. “Their priorities are different. They’re trying to create the best team.”

Dorantes remembers trying to take a picture of a group of athletes for a story when one player quietly backed away.

“He told me he didn’t want to be in the paper because he played for his high school,” Dorantes said. “He didn’t want to be identified.”

But what is best for the athlete?

Tostado, who has been the Principal at Garfield for eight years, said many of her 4,800 students--most of whom are Latino--are emotional about the game.

She said, however, that she likes the rule and worries what would happen if it were lifted.

“My father was a coach, and I’m a big believer in athletics,” Tostado said. “I think it’s important to keep them off the streets. But I don’t think they should be playing all night. It’s like the pitcher’s rule in baseball. Overuse isn’t healthy.”

Everyone agrees that the rule is almost impossible to enforce.

The athletes who were disqualified at last year’s City Section playoffs had played the whole season without being caught. It was only after the playoffs began that rival coaches turned in opponents’ players to Barbara Fiege, the City Section commissioner.

“Do I think this is a good rule?” Fiege said. “No I don’t. [But] if the rule is not changed, will I continue to enforce it? Yes, I will.”