Grant Gets Bad Taste of Hollywood

Hollywood has left its mark on the Grant High football team--or, more specifically, on its football field.

HBO Pictures and Dakota Entertainment used the Grant football field and track for filming about three weeks ago, leaving behind a 15-foot wide, five-inch deep trench in the grass near the west sideline. The damage ran the length of the field, making it unfit for competition.

The production company paid for reseeding of the large trench, but the field is not ready for play because the new grass is extremely soft.

Grant Coach Bill Foster offered to play Marshall at Valley College on either Thursday or Saturday night, but Marshall refused to play a night game.

So the game will be played this afternoon at 3 at Monroe High.

Foster is hoping the field will be ready Sept. 27, when the Lancers play San Fernando.

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Wary coach: For personal as well as professional reasons, Hart assistant Dan Houghton hopes the top-ranked Indians will beat No. 4 Thousand Oaks in tonight’s football game at College of the Canyons. Houghton is a resident of Thousand Oaks.

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All broke up: Santa Paula’s Aaron Pettitt, a linebacker and fullback, figures to be one of the Cardinals’ leading tacklers but he already leads the team in another category: Broken equipment.

After one game, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound senior is working on his second helmet and third facemask. He unknowingly played much of Santa Paula’s opener with a helmet that Cardinals Coach Hoppy Mumford said was bent out of shape by a crushing hit.

“Aaron doesn’t say a word, hardly,” Mumford said. “If you didn’t change his equipment for him he wouldn’t worry about it. You could give him some old cardboard thing to put over his head.”

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Football history: The game matches two struggling football teams that opened their seasons with losses, but when Simi Valley plays at Moorpark tonight, a historic rivalry will be renewed.

The two oldest schools in Eastern Ventura County will meet for the first time since Nov. 4, 1960, the week John F. Kennedy was elected President.

Simi Valley won that game, 45-7, but Moorpark held a 10-4-1 series advantage from 1945-60. The teams had been playing since the 1930s, but records were not kept.

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Another offensive loss: Here we go again at Buena High.

Last season, Coach Rick Scott lost a top offensive player when running back Brady Phelps inexplicably quit the team during the season.

Phelps returned this season and rushed for 70 yards in 13 carries in last week’s opener against Westlake. The Bulldogs, however, were without standout wide receiver T.J. Stafford, who quit a week earlier.

Stafford, who tied a school record with 56 catches as a junior, joined the school’s water polo team.

“I doubt I’ll get a water polo scholarship, or anything,” Stafford said. “I’m playing just for fun. It’s nothing against Coach Scott or anything.”

Scott, in his ninth season at Buena, described Stafford’s departure as “frustrating.”

“I guess it’s tough for me to deal with because I’ve never had a real problem with kids quitting,” Scott said.

“Fortunately, I’ve been in programs that have been fairly successful. But kids quit.”

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Big man bolts: When St. Bonaventure High defensive lineman David Bernal scooped up a Paraclete fumble last Friday, there was doubt whether he would return it eight steps, let alone 81 yards.

But Bernal, 6 feet 1 and more than 300 pounds, not only covered that distance and scored, he did it in a personal record time.

“We were watching the video and we timed him running the last 40 yards in 4.9 seconds,” said St. Bonaventure Coach Jon Mack, who had previously timed Bernal at no faster than 5.0.

“Those size 14 feet move a little faster when someone’s chasing them.”