Reseda High Mourns Eric Hoggatt

To the measured, subterranean beat of “Days of Our Livez,” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the 1,800 students of Reseda High filed quietly into the school’s football stadium midafternoon Friday for their melancholy lesson.

It was sixth hour, and the pleasures of the weekend beckoned. But though a ruthless sun slicked their foreheads, they sat at near-perfect attention in the bleachers, listening to teachers and fellow students memorialize Eric Hoggatt.

The subject was death. The workbook was the mostly unfamiliar sense of loss stirring inside them.

Hoggatt, a senior running back on the Regents football team, died in his bed some hours after Reseda’s game against Chatsworth on Sept. 12. He was found by his mother the next morning. He was 18.

From a podium before a blue awning set up on the 50-yard line of the field where Hoggatt had played his last game, speaker after speaker sought to immortalize him in terms that might resonate in the students’ adolescent world.

“He showed us all that there was more to school than just books and homework, but there is laughter, friendship, and also fond memories that we will have all the rest of our lives,” said schoolmate Gabriela Gangas.

David Enowitz, coach of the Reseda basketball team, which the deceased probably would have captained this year, praised Hoggatt for having had “such an engaging personality and such a positive outlook that people were drawn to him.”

Enowitz pledged to keep Hoggatt’s spirit close to the Regents basketball program.

“We will dedicate our season to Eric, taking his white home jersey bearing the number 12 to every game this year, because, though he will not be with us physically, he’ll be in our minds and in our hearts, inspiring us to do our best, as he always did. After this season . . . his number will not be worn by another player as long as I’m the basketball coach at Reseda.”

Recent Reseda graduate Ebony Woods instructed the students to raise their left hands, “and now turn to the person to your left and hug them. Now turn to the person behind you and tell them you love them.”

Afterward, when the students had settled themselves again, the soft sound of sniffling in the bleachers contended with the indifferent whoosh of traffic on adjacent Reseda Boulevard.

Football coach Joel Schaffer, whose players have dedicated the rest of the season to their dead teammate, called Hoggatt “the epitome of what every coach expects from his athletes.” Football captain and quarterback Jamal Washington called him “the joyfulest person on the campus of Reseda.” Basketball teammate Amir Pourlak asked God to bless Hoggatt, “and let him look down on us with a great big smile.”

Some members of Hoggatt’s family have expressed unhappiness over the school administration’s failure to notify them after last week’s game that Hoggatt had left play early because of dizziness and numbness in his extremities. The family, including Eric’s parents, Verna and Michael Hoggatt, attended Friday’s memorial, however, sitting in honored places beneath the blue awning. Their lawyer, Martha Woliung, also attended.

Hoggatt’s cousin Gerald Guidry thanked the students on behalf of the family.

“This has been an extremely, extremely difficult week for the family,” said Guidry, a tall, heavyset man of 30 who works as a pest control technician. “It’s been a difficult summer. This is the third death we’ve had in the last 3 1/2 months. But having you out here is definitely a support for the family . . . . We will never forget your tears and condolences.”

Guidry invited the students to attend Hoggatt’s funeral, to be held at 2 p.m. today at Forest Lawn Mortuary in Hollywood Hills. He also announced that Eric’s twin brother, Mike, and younger sister, Julia, who had transferred from Reseda to other schools, had decided to return “to carry on the legacy of their brother, and to be able to have each and every one of you as a friend.”

Then, as student-singer Brandi Barber struggled against her emotions to vocalize “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” three clumps of helium-filled balloons in the school colors of blue and white were released. The balloons--97 of them, for Hoggatt’s Class of ‘97--fled quickly to the sky and sailed over the goal post in the football field’s east end zone.

“You are now dismissed for the weekend,” Principal Robert Kladifko announced.

As students trooped out of the bleachers, small knots of them briefly forming to exchange tearful hugs, Guidry said that the expressions of grief from the students were “extremely helpful” to the family. He made a distinction, however, between the students and the school’s administration and staff.

“We’re still having trouble dealing with this staff denying everything and telling certain lies,” he said. “They didn’t even get hold of the family to give condolences ‘til Thursday,” when some faculty members visited the Hoggatt home in South-Central Los Angeles, he said.

Guidry called the family’s filing of a lawsuit against the school “definitely a possibility. Anytime you have a situation where answers haven’t been given and you think there may be negligence, there’s always a possibility.”

Attorney Woliung said the family’s chief interest now is in learning the cause of Hoggatt’s death, which is still under investigation by the Los Angeles County coroner. She said until that is determined, talk of legal action was premature.

Kladifko said the school has established a memorial fund and that staff members and students’ parents have already contributed more than $500. The fund, he said, would be turned over to the family to use as it wishes.

Outside the stadium, the principal dismissed a suggestion that the memorial tribute might help head off a lawsuit by the Hoggatt family.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with that,” he said. He said details of the event had been planned by members of the student government, the football team and the basketball team.

“What we wanted to do was give our whole student body this experience. It’s a fact of life that people live and people die, sometimes tragically. I think the memorial they experienced today they’ll remember the rest of their lives.”

* THE GAME: Reseda High wins emotional contest, 21-20. C1