Championship Games Scheduled for Coliseum

The Los Angeles Coliseum will be host to the City and Southern sections’ major division football championship games this season.

The Southern Section returned to the Coliseum last year after a long absence, holding its Division I final between Loyola and Bishop Amat there. The game, which was locally televised, drew 14,136 and was well received by coaches and players.

Bill Clark, the Southern Section associate commissioner, said the Division I game will be played at the Coliseum on Dec. 14.

The City Section plans to hold a doubleheader with its Division 4-A and 3-A games at the Coliseum on Dec. 13. The section hasn’t held a championship game there since 1988.

“There isn’t a better place for our schools than the Coliseum,” said Barbara Fiege, City Section commissioner. “They consider it an honor to play there.”

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Nick Enriquez, a standout football and baseball player at Glendora who broke his neck in a swimming accident in August, has been offered a full scholarship to USC.

The offer was made through USC’s Physically Challenged Athletes Scholarship Fund, which was started by Associate Athletic Director Ron Orr in 1981. Orr, an All-American swimmer at USC in the mid-1970s, started the program when his college roommate, swimmer Mike Nyeholt, was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident in 1981. The program is funded by the annual “Swim With Mike” swim-a-thon, which has raised $1.5 million. Thirty athletes have been offered scholarships since it started.

Enriquez, a junior, has been paralyzed from the neck down after diving into a sandbar on the ocean floor in Newport Beach. He is currently in rehabilitation at St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton. Doctors are optimistic his condition will improve.

Orr said as long as Enriquez meets the school’s academic entrance requirements, the scholarship is his.

“This means so much to Nick it’s hard to explain,” said Mary Enriquez, his mother. “It offers him a lot of incentive. And it makes him proud.”

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Because hundreds of fans, many with tickets, were turned away at the gate before the San Pedro-Harbor City Narbonne football game Oct. 4 at Daniels Field, extra seating has been installed, boosting capacity 700 seats to 3,900.

“We figured about 300 people were turned away, so the extra seating should help tremendously,” said Pat Moretta, San Pedro’s vice principal. “We’ve been told the portable bleachers will be replaced with permanent seats for next season.”

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A change in the timing rules at football games this season has caused such confusion that Southern Section administrators have told member schools to ignore the change if they so desire.

The National Federation of State High School Athletic Assns. adopted a rule after last season that called for the clock to remain stopped on all changes of possession until the next snap. Previously, the clock started as soon as the ball was spotted and ready for play.

The new rule has lengthened many games, in some cases 30 minutes or more. The extra time has resulted in added costs for many schools, who pay bus drivers, security and medical personnel on a hourly basis.

Dean Crowley, Southern Section commissioner, is allowing schools to use a seldom-invoked emergency clause to revert to the old timing rules. Both schools must agree on the change before the start of a game.

City Section schools have not been given the option to ignore the new rule.

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The Inglewood football team will forfeit two victories and a tie for using an ineligible player, Nickey Gates. Gates, a transfer from Fairfax, didn’t have enough credits for eligibility.

The Sentinels, who compete in the Southern Section’s Bay League, are 0-5.