Is La Canada’s Roster Loaded? : Coach Lou Bilowitz Says It’s Good Luck but Some Question How Team Was Built

The La Canada High boys’ soccer team has won a Southern Section-record 49 consecutive games, but that streak apparently isn’t the only one enjoyed by Coach Lou Bilowitz.

He also seems to be benefiting from a string of good fortune.

La Canada (24-0), which will play Corona on Saturday at Gahr High in the Southern Section Division IV championship game, has seven players who have earned Division I scholarships. Among them are three players who live outside the school’s attendance area and two others who moved from Texas, where they already were nationally renowned age-group players.

Bilowitz, 48, says his program--which is on the brink of posting back-to-back undefeated seasons--was built entirely within the rules. He scoffs at whispers from opposing coaches that some of his best players have been recruited.

“They didn’t come here because of me,” he said. “They came here because of each other.”

But could any coach possibly be that lucky?

Several area coaches familiar with the La Canada program wonder.

“The biggest thing that always bothered me and other coaches is we can’t line up with [La Canada] because we draw from kids in our area whereas [Bilowitz has] . . . kids from all over,” said Coach Steve Riegler of San Marino, a Rio Hondo League rival. “If you’ve got [seven] kids or whatever going D-I they didn’t all magically appear.”

Bilowitz flatly denies accusations of recruiting.

“This is a freak group of kids who have played together in club [soccer] for a long time and wanted to be together [in high school],” said Bilowitz, who has a record of 178-12-20 as La Canada’s varsity coach. “As soon as I saw them I said, ‘This is going to be an unhappy time for Louie Bilowitz,’ because I knew what everybody was going to say.”

At the center of the controversy seems to be Bilowitz’s involvement with the California Flyers, a club soccer organization with La Canada players on several of its teams.

Bilowitz helped found the club in 1985, but by Southern Section rules he is not allowed to have any administrative or coaching involvement with players who have eligibility at the high school where he coaches.

From 1985 through ‘89, Bilowitz was on the Flyers’ board of directors, but he said La Canada High players were not involved in the club until he left his administrative duties after suffering a heart attack.

Bilowitz, in his ninth year as La Canada’s coach, says his current involvement with the club is restricted to coaching the Flyers’ 11-and-under team.

However, there is an indisputable tie between La Canada and the Flyers, whose teams often practice at the school. Six La Canada seniors play on the club’s under-19 team that has won consecutive age-group titles against an international field at the prestigious Dallas Cup tournament.

Six other La Canada players are on the Flyers’ under-17 team.

With its highly skilled players, national tournaments and high-caliber coaching, club soccer is more intense than high school competition and is often a stepping stone to a college career.

Several high school teams in the region have small groups of players who play on club teams together, but La Canada has the highest concentration of players from one organization.

Two of La Canada’s best players are senior defenders Derrick Dyslin and Gaston Haupert, who also star on the Flyers’ under-19 team. Dyslin and Haupert both began their high school careers in Texas, moving to California for different reasons.

Dyslin’s father, John, was transferred from his job in Houston to Woodland Hills in the summer of 1994. Haupert had moved to La Canada almost exactly a year earlier, following his club coach, Milan Dovedan, who had taken a job as the Flyers’ primary organizational coach.

Haupert lives with the family of La Canada forward Nick Andrus and is the legal ward of Andrus’ father, Brian.

John and Nita Dyslin are the legal guardians of Josh Henderson, who moved from Texas with the Dyslin family. Henderson last year was the Southern Section Division IV player of the year. He went on to star as a freshman for Duke, an NCAA Division I finalist.

The Dyslins say Derrick originally was enrolled at Oak Park, which was the closest high school to John Dyslins’ work that was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for exemplary academics. But when Derrick and Oak Park football Coach Dick Billingsley were unable to work out a way for Derrick to play both football and club soccer, the family looked to the next closest school on the USDE’s list--La Canada.

Dyslin played both sports at La Canada until quitting the football team early last fall to concentrate on soccer.

“The boys have always suffered from high-profile attention because they’re very good and when they’re on the same team it makes it very successful,” Nita Dyslin said. “There’s been bitching and moaning but we had to move somewhere.”

La Canada students living outside the school’s attendance area must be issued a release permit by their school district and an entry permit by the La Canada Unified School District. Priority for such transfers are most often granted to students seeking to enter a program or curriculum not offered by their local school, La Canada Athletic Director Randy Boal said.

Families moving into the La Canada attendance area are required by the district to present proof of residence, such as a lease agreement, before they enroll. Students wishing to participate in athletics must then immediately provide “support materials” such as utility bills. Students not involved in athletics are given 45 days to provide those materials.

Chap Early, a La Canada senior midfielder who has accepted a scholarship offer from California, lives in Los Angeles near Eagle Rock High, where his father is a teacher. Early said he enrolled at La Canada as a freshman in part because of the school’s Japanese language program.

“We don’t really care what people say about us because at a shallow glance it might appear [improper],” Early said. “But if you look, everything is legal and there hasn’t been any recruiting. There wasn’t anyone going out and bringing us in, it was us coming together.”

Such a convergence helps the players involved, but coaches like Glen Appels of St. Francis don’t believe it benefits high school athletics.

“With situations like this you start to lose focus on what high school soccer is all about,” Appels said. “Kids need to learn life lessons playing soccer and that means competing and losing and winning. We’re supposed to be giving them a chance to compete on equal terms.”

Where La Canada plays, it dominates.

During their undefeated streak, the Spartans have won by an average of more than five goals. Their largest margin of victory was 18 goals, and only four times have opponents lost by only one goal.

“Right now we’re just shooting to go out with a bang, to make history,” said Dyslin, a fullback. “A lot of teams are kind of in awe or nervous to play us. They come out kind of timid.”

And for good reason. La Canada was recognized as the top high school team in the nation for 1994-95 by the National Soccer Coaches’ Assn. of America. This season, the Spartans have scored a Southern Section-record 140 goals while allowing six, which has tied a section record for defense the ‘94-95 La Canada team shared with Esperanza’s ‘83-84 team.

Appels, the St. Francis coach, recalls watching what he considered an odd reaction by La Canada players after the Spartans defeated Cathedral City, 3-1, to win the Division IV title last year.

“I thought La Canada was upset they didn’t get the record [for goals allowed], it seemed to ruin the championship for them,” Appels said. “I was a little surprised they didn’t enjoy it more, but when you reach a level where you’re that good I guess those things become important.”

Burroughs Coach Mike Kodama, regional chairman of the NSCAA, came away thoroughly impressed after watching La Canada play twice this season.

“When you look at that team there’s everything you could want in terms of soccer ability,” Kodama said. “They can do almost anything they want to.”

La Canada, the Rio Hondo League’s only champion since the 1987-88 season, has been among the strongest teams in the region for nearly a decade. The Spartans have advanced as far as the Southern Section semifinals five times in Bilowitz’s nine years as coach and he recently was one of two high school coaches honored by the NSCAA for their work in 1995.

Bilowitz said his hands are full and that trying to juggle responsibilities in the Flyers’ organization with his job as La Canada’s coach probably would aggravate his health problems. In addition to his 1989 heart attack, he was hospitalized because of a bleeding ulcer earlier this month.

However, Costa Nicolau, coach of the Occidental College men’s and women’s soccer teams, says Bilowitz contacted him in 1993 through a district commissioner of the California Youth Soccer Assn.

Nicolau said Bilowitz later met with him and Colm McFeely, Notre Dame High boys’ soccer coach, and asked if they would consider coaching several teams if the Flyers’ organization, which was disbanded at the time, made a comeback.

Bilowitz recalls the conversation differently. He said he rebuffed a proposal by Nicolau and McFeely that they coach while he handled administrative duties.

“They met with me . . . but getting back into the administration of a soccer club was not my thing,” Bilowitz said.

Dovedan was ultimately hired to run the club and neither Nicolau nor McFeely ever worked in the Flyers’ organization.

Bilowitz, a walk-on coach, receives high marks from his players, their parents and school administrators. His office in the basement of the school’s gymnasium is crammed with soccer memorabilia. Team pictures, awards, newspaper clippings and a mannequin clad in a La Canada uniform all command prominent places.

“He coaches for us more than any other reason, it’s not like a job to him,” Derrick Dyslin said. “Lou has his goals and wants us to reach them but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t and everyone respects him for that.”

Bilowitz, who never played soccer, offers frequent disclaimers about his hand in producing La Canada’s juggernaut.

“Teaching individual ball skills is the weakest part of my ability to train kids, but fortunately they should already have them at this age,” Bilowitz said. “My strength is getting kids in the right positions and teaching them how to read and play the game.”

On offense, every La Canada player is encouraged to attack with the ball, a change from last season when the high-scoring Henderson was the focal point. And despite their balanced scoring, the Spartans still have a pair of snipers in senior forwards Nick Andrus, who has scored 37 goals, and Jason Cropley, who has scored 31.

On defense Bilowitz preaches strict man-to-man coverage in every area of the field, an unusual and demanding strategy that his players execute with few flaws.

After Palmdale, the Golden League champion, lost to La Canada, 5-1, in December, Falcon forward Merrick Henry was left shaking his head over the way the Spartans smothered his team’s potent offense.

“We’d try to attack and the ball would just go back down to our end,” Henry said. “[Dyslin] wouldn’t leave me. I was trying everything but once one of them picks you there’s no getting away.”

Glendale Coach Loi Phan, whose team lost to La Canada, 7-0, early this season, doubts the Division IV title will elude the Spartans.

“Everyone’s gung-ho to play them until they actually do,” said Phan, whose team was a Division III playoff participant. “After the last time, I told my kids, ‘This is the best team you will ever see in high school and you just played them. One day you can tell people that.’ ”

Despite La Canada’s recent run, Bilowitz says he derived more satisfaction from his earlier years with the team.

“I felt I had more input as a coach and that I was more responsible for their success,” he said. “This is a terrific team with or without me.”

Which is one reason Bilowitz says he is looking forward to next season.

“This will all die down next year when people see it’s an all home-grown team,” Bilowitz said. “And they’ll say, ‘Maybe Louie didn’t do the recruiting, maybe the kids went there on their own.’ ”