Father of Taft Player Held in Verbal Clash

Many people knew Ronald Clebanoff was unhappy with his son’s junior varsity baseball coach: the staff at Taft High School, where the Woodland Hills man came to demand the coach’s firing; opposing teams, which saw him charge onto the diamond to dispute the coach’s calls; and the school security guards who finally escorted him from a game last Monday.

What was unexpected was that his unhappiness would result in his arrest by Los Angeles Unified School District police Thursday.

Although quarrels between parents and coaches are commonplace in youth sports and usually go no further, the Woodland Hills father was booked on suspicion of making verbal threats against Taft coach Edmund Gunny and several other school officials. Clebanoff, 38, remained jailed Friday with bail set at $150,000 and arraignment scheduled for Monday.

Taft High School Principal Rick Berz said the decision to seek criminal charges against the father of a 15-year-old freshman, although “quite unfortunate,” was made because of a series of increasingly unpleasant confrontations between the father and the coach that began late last month.

Clebanoff and his family could not be reached for comment.

From the start of the season two weeks earlier, Clebanoff and a few other parents had expressed alarm about Gunny’s treatment of players, which they felt was “abusive,” Berz said.

But instead of working with school administrators to resolve the dispute, Clebanoff became increasingly dissatisfied with the school’s response, Berz said.

On March 26, Clebanoff came to the school to meet with the coach, Taft’s athletic director and an assistant principal. The attempt at peacemaking ended with the father screaming at the school officials, the principal said.

The tensions escalated further on April 15, the day Taft had an away game at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. Peter Dhanes, Birmingham’s junior varsity coach, said Clebanoff heckled Gunny from the stands.

When the game was over, Clebanoff came onto the field to argue with the coach, according to Dhanes. When Birmingham administrators asked Clebanoff to leave the field, he screamed at them, Dhanes said.

After that game, Gunny filed the first of two complaints with LAUSD police, accusing Clebanoff of threatening to harm him.

LAUSD Det. Joe Preciado said the second threat was made Monday after Taft played Chatsworth High at Chatsworth. When Clebanoff showed up and refused requests by school administrators to leave, campus police escorted him from the premises, Preciado said. But after the game, Clebanoff showed up at Taft to confront Gunny again, the detective said.

After interviewing Clebanoff at the West Valley Police Station on Thursday, Preciado arrested him on suspicion of making “terrorist threats.” The charge, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison, is defined as threatening to kill or do bodily injury to someone in such a way that the victim has reason to believe the threat is real, regardless of whether or not the suspect intends to act on it.

Preciado said he felt there was enough evidence to charge Clebanoff based on “the way Mr. Gunny felt and presented the reports. He was in fear.”

Gunny refused to comment on his complaints Friday, saying only that he regretted the whole situation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond said prosecutors would decide by Monday what charges, if any, to bring against Clebanoff. The district attorney’s office could dismiss the case, seek additional charges, or refer the matter to the city attorney for misdemeanor prosecution.

In the meantime, Taft Principal Berz said the school has already interviewed 16 of Gunny’s 18 players to determine whether there are grounds to support Clebanoff’s contention that the coach mistreats his struggling team. The results of that investigation were mixed, Berz said.

With a 2-10 record, team morale is low, but “in our investigation, we have not come up with what is abusive,” he said.

“There are things the kids are unhappy about, things they don’t agree with the coach on,” Berz said. “Sometimes, a student athlete has to be to called to task on something, but I have no evidence of our coach ever using four-letter words.”

Player Pete Koomprapun, a junior, said he would not characterize Gunny’s behavior as abusive.

“He didn’t really yell at anyone unless they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do. If they were goofing around or not doing their job, that’s when he would yell and get upset,” Pete said.