Playing Heady Games : Hair Has Long Been a Flash-Point Between Coaches and Their Players

A basketball player dyes his hair pink and stirs a commotion. A soccer player dyes his hair blond and barely raises an eyebrow. Another athlete grows his hair to a length that is considered fine for football, but not for baseball.

Discipline defied or students exercising their rights? A recent hubbub over hairdos of high school athletes has coaches crying foul and players contending the fuss is much ado about nothing.

Adam Kopulsky, a Birmingham High junior varsity basketball player, irked his coach and created headlines by dyeing his hair pink. Kopulsky arrived at practice last month with a colorful coiffure and was benched by Coach Al Bennett faster than you can say Vidal Sassoon.

Bennett’s stand ultimately was supported by the Los Angeles Unified School District, which last week issued a policy statement supporting coaches’ authority in such cases. Within days, Kopulsky conformed, dyeing his hair blond, closer to its natural brown.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Bennett said this week, adding that he has been inundated with calls from print and broadcast media. “It’s over and done with.”

Yet the question remains: Does a coach’s authority include governing a player’s appearance?

The issue is the crux of a lawsuit filed last fall in Ventura Superior Court on behalf of Oak Park High junior varsity football player Robert Green, who claims he was subjected to discrimination and harassment because he refused to cut his hair in compliance with coaches’ wishes.

During an era in which flamboyance of professional athletes fuels the desire for personal expression among young players, reactions to the issue of hair today among high school athletes have been widespread and predictably polar.

Even Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls, noted for his ever-changing florescent hair, piercing jewelry and tattooed torso, reportedly sounded off to Chicago reporters in support of Kopulsky.

“The coach doesn’t have the right to tell a player how he should wear his hair,” said Caleb Westbay, a senior halfback on the Royal soccer team. “He’s there to teach us soccer, not teach us how to dress or anything.”

Westbay says he dyed his hair blond solely to attract attention. He bristles at the notion of being told how to groom.

“I get bored with myself really easily, so I just bleached it,” Westbay said. “Anything to jazz yourself up a little bit. I knew my coach wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

Royal Coach Kevin Corley responded far differently than Birmingham’s Bennett.

“I didn’t even blink,” Corley said. “If a player feels a different hairstyle makes him play better or feel better, that’s fine with me.”

Corley, 33, who sported shoulder-length hair as a player at Royal, said creativity and expression among players is a unique cultural aspect of soccer.

“Some of the most-famous players in the world wear long hair, spiked hair, dreadlocks. . . . “ Corley said. “I like to encourage that kind of individuality.”

Yet despite his personal policy, Corley said he believes a coach should have the final say in the matter.

“I’d have a hard time telling a kid to cut his hair,” Corley said. “But I don’t have any problem with coaches who do have codes.”

Corley would appear to be in the majority, as far as his brethren are concerned.

High school coaches, many of whom for years have enforced so-called “hair rules,” have applauded Bennett’s stance, citing a paramount need for discipline and conformity.

Brent Newcomb, longtime football coach at Antelope Valley, prohibits players from wearing hair longer than three inches. Newcomb won’t hesitate to reach for a ruler to measure the length of a player’s hair.

“I back that Birmingham coach 100%,” Newcomb said. “It’s a team sport. It’s not an individual show.”

A school policy at Crescenta Valley prohibits athletes from having facial hair, and boys are required to keep their hair trimmed.

“Off the eyes, off the neck, off the ears,” said John Goffredo, Crescenta Valley’s boys’ basketball coach. “And nothing distinguishing that attracts attention. They don’t get their uniforms until they get their hair cut.”

Lou Cvijanovich, who began coaching basketball at Santa Clara in the 1950s, for years required players to have crew cuts. Cvijanovich said he no longer enforces the edict, but tradition remains.

“It’s just automatic that before the first game, the kids go into the weight room and shave their heads,” Cvijanovich said.

Rules regarding athletes’ hair often are vague and vary from school to school, coach to coach. Dean Crowley, commissioner of the Southern Section, said the office has no rule regarding hair, preferring to leave the issue to coaches, schools or school districts.

But Crowley, who coached in high school for eight years, made his personal feelings clear.

“It pains me to see kids with pink hair,” Crowley said. “When I was coaching, I was known as ‘The Butch-Haircut Coach.’ Those were the days when you told kids to get their hair cut and they did.”

Coaches say that high school athletics is an extracurricular activity intended to teach students more than the fundamentals of the game. Learning to abide by the rules of a system, they claim, is part of preparing for life as an adult.

“I know why they’re doing it,” Newcomb said. “Kids look at Deion Sanders and guys with earrings and nose rings and bandannas and towels hanging out all over the place.

“But they’re not in the pros. This is still high school and discipline is still important.”

Crowley said schools should provide athletes with an official code of conduct, spelling out rules regarding hair and conduct. But few do, Crowley said.

“I do believe it’s important that kids learn discipline on our high school athletic teams,” Crowley said. “But kids should know before the start of the season what the expectations are.”

In the absence of official guidelines, a coach’s custom typically governs. At some schools, attitudes toward hair differ drastically between programs.

Long hair among football players has evolved into something of a tradition at Thousand Oaks.

Brandon Jackson, a Times All-Ventura County running back, played last season with his hair protruding from the back of his helmet. Teammate Greg Gallup, an all-county linebacker, also wore his hair long. Neither player butted heads with Coach Mike Kelly.

“I just don’t feel that long hair is a distraction today,” Kelly said. “Pink hair? I don’t know how I’d react to that. But, personally, long hair doesn’t bother me.”

For Gallup, however, every day was a bad hair day as a member of the school’s baseball team last season.

He says former Coach Jim Hansen repeatedly pressured him to visit a barber.

Gallup, a reserve infielder, defied the coach but spent most of the season on the bench.

“Every day he kept threatening to tie it in a rubber band and he said he was going to cut it,” Gallup said.

“I don’t know if it was really a rule or anything. I figured, as long as I wasn’t playing much, I’d sit there and grow my hair long.”

Jackson, who at one time during the football season sported a Mohawk, said he considers himself fortunate to have played for a tolerant coach.

“Other coaches try to take more charge,” Jackson said. “It might even be a power thing, discipline and everything. But it shouldn’t be.

“As long as it doesn’t affect your play, that’s all that matters.”

Nevertheless, Jackson said he would lose his long hair immediately if his coach insisted. Gallup and Westbay reluctantly agreed.

“If the coach told me to cut it, I’d be kinda bummed, but I’d do it,” Jackson said.

Westbay, who helped guide Royal to a Southern Section Division I championship last season, said he would “feel betrayed” but still would conform with Corley’s wishes.

“I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to argue, so I guess I’d dye it back,” Westbay said. “I love the sport too much to quit over my hair.

“But I’d be like, “What’s the problem? This is who I am.’ ”