Engilman Drops Appeal of City Section Suspension

Jeff Engilman, Sylmar High’s fiery football coach, will not continue to challenge his two-game suspension by the City Section--despite being told he was likely to eventually win on appeal.

Engilman, the region’s winningest football coach this decade, said he was trapped in a Catch-22.

The California Interscholastic Federation has told City Section officials that Engilman was denied due process when section officials failed to inform him that he could be sanctioned before suspending him for the first two games of this season.

But even if he wins the appeal, Engilman leaves his program--rather than himself--open to sanctions.

The gamble isn’t worth the risk, Engilman said.

“I wasn’t happy about it, but I wasn’t gonna hurt the kids either,” he said.

The end of Engilman’s three-month legal battle against the City leaves the coach right where he started: Anywhere but on the sidelines during the Spartans’ first two games, against Taft a week from Thursday night and Chatsworth the following week.

Engilman was suspended--and Sylmar received a one-year extension of an already-existing probation--after the coach was found to have had a brief conversation with San Fernando High transfer Derrell Daniels in the Spartans’ weight room last spring.

Although he was cleared in a hearing of allegations that he recruited Daniels and Taft transfer Donald Carpenter, the City Section rules committee decided Engilman’s contact with Daniels on Sylmar’s campus was in itself a violation.

Engilman, who guided the Spartans to the City 4-A title in 1992 and ’94 and is 68-7-1 in the ‘90s, did not attend the two-hour hearing.

After the sanctions were announced June 13, Engilman hired an attorney and sought to appeal the ruling.

After hearing the case, CIF attorney Andy Patterson notified City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege that Engilman should be granted an appeal.

“[Patterson] recommended that since Jeff Engilman was not present at the original meeting when the rules committee made their decision, and since he was not aware that sanctions could be levied against him, he should be given an opportunity--not to restate the case--but to question the committee’s decision in penalties,” Fiege said.

But while informing Sylmar assistant principal Dan Wyatt that the appeal would be granted, Fiege also warned that the committee could decide to punish the program instead of the coach.

Advised that a court battle would probably be both lengthy and costly, Engilman withdrew his appeal.

“They thought that, in the long run, I’d eventually win,” Engilman said. “But at what cost? My house? My sanity?”

Fiege said the City has learned its lesson and due process will apply the next time a City Section coach comes under fire.

“We’ve learned that every single thing needs to be spelled out,” Fiege said. “In every case, such as this, we know more and more to dot our I’s and cross our T’s.

“We’re not a court of law here. We’re an educational institution trying to do the right thing for the kids.”