Burbank High Bounces Back From Scandal

The football office at Burbank High School is in the basement of the boys’ gymnasium, down a short flight of stairs, through an unmarked door.

A few school desks are scattered around the narrow room and the walls have been painted bright blue and white in an attempt to dress up the place. Still, the office feels tucked away, kept out of sight.

“Personally, I don’t think anyone in Burbank cares if we win a single game as long as we don’t get in any trouble,” second-year Coach Gary Willison said.

For now, sportsmanship is more important than winning. Instead of teaching football, he spends most of his time preaching common decency.

Two years ago the program suffered an embarrassingly public scandal when a 50-year-old school fund-raiser was accused of having sex with a player. At the same time, the coaches faced allegations of recruiting violations. The school board president resigned.

Lost in all the headlines were the players themselves. By most accounts, the team had fallen into disarray.

Some players were coming to practice drunk or high on marijuana, former and current team members say. Some were stealing equipment and setting fires in the locker room.

Willison was hired to clean up the mess. Tall and square-jawed, with blond hair to his shoulders, the former USC defensive tackle is physically imposing but calm by nature. Patience, it seems, is a requisite for the job.

“Have things improved?” he said in his office the other day. “Well, if you get up and leave your wallet or keys on the table, most of these kids won’t steal it.

“Most of them.”

*

Some people insist tales of Burbank’s past are overblown. Among the players, coaches and administrators interviewed, however, the majority describe a team in turmoil during the 1994 and 1995 seasons, the tenure of former Coach John Hazelton.

Hazelton arrived full of promises about league championships and college scholarships, his players said. But then the Bulldogs started losing, winning only three games in two seasons. “None of the players respected Hazelton,” said Jason Edwards, a former defensive back. “He would tell us to do this or that, and we’d be like, ‘Yeah, right.’ We did what we wanted.”

Even Hazelton estimates half his players “ran afoul of the system,” skipping classes and practices. He recalls walking into the locker room and finding a linebacker sprawled across the trainer’s table.

“What are you doing?” the coach asked.

“I’m drunk,” the player replied.

Players often ducked out of school to party, said Mario Chelsea, a former running back. Once practice began, players would hop the fence in the middle of drills to talk to girls who walked past.

Such transgressions rarely brought punishment from the coaches.

“They could have suspended [the troublemakers], but we would have gotten beat even worse,” Chelsea said. “I think the coaches were just trying to get through the season.”

Several players recall entering the locker room before a game and seeing teammates huddled around a videocassette recorder normally used for game films. The machine was playing a pornographic movie.

The coaches were shut away in their office.

“That’s how it always was before games,” former player Edwards said. “We were scattered everywhere.”

*

Shortly after Hazelton’s arrival, rumors circulated about players transferring to Burbank from other schools.

“We knew a couple of guys weren’t supposed to be here,” said Juni Williams, a senior running back this season.

It wasn’t the first time Hazelton had been linked to possible wrongdoing. In 1991, he was part of a Montclair Prep football program placed on probation for rules violations.

At Burbank, the rumors led to another investigation. But that was the least of the team’s problems.

After the 1994 season, a 17-year-old player visited the home of fund-raiser Salle Dumm. He later told police that Dumm served him alcohol and seduced him by promising to raise money for the team. Dumm claimed the player forced himself on her while she was drunk and asleep.

Word spread quickly. Hazelton and one of his assistants, John Greaves, were charged with failing to report child abuse. The school board president, Joe Hooven, resigned amid charges of a cover-up.

A year slowly passed.

A Southern Section report found Hazelton and Hooven “may have exercised undue influence on [students] to transfer to Burbank” and that Greaves may have assisted, but no punishment was handed down.

Hazelton and Greaves entered pleas to lesser charges in their criminal cases and, like Hooven, left Burbank High.

In September 1996, the charges against Dumm were dismissed after a Superior Court jury deadlocked. The player filed a civil suit against Dumm and the district. It was dropped.

But the controversy was far from over.

*

Gary Willison played for the Burbank Bulldogs in the early 1980s and remembers his hometown as something idyllic. In those days, he says, young men were eager to play for the team, to follow in the cleated footsteps of their fathers.

Upon returning to his alma mater in 1996, Willison found that football was no longer king on campus and that drugs and crime were daily threats. He expected a losing team but was startled by the blatant disregard for authority. Ten-thousand dollars’ worth of equipment was missing, including new helmets and jerseys.

Still, he accepted the head coaching job for an annual $2,400 stipend and took part-time work as a campus supervisor, what he calls “a glorified security guard.”

Not that far past his playing days at 6-foot-4 and 255 pounds, the new coach had the size to intimidate but chose stealth instead.

“Willison would check up on us in class to make sure we were there,” Edwards said. “He wouldn’t try to make it obvious, pretending he was just there to talk to the teacher, but we noticed.”

Some players resented being spied on, but Willison also would pull them aside to talk about life on and off the field.

“Hazelton didn’t care,” said Vardan Mkhitarian, a senior tight end. “Willison likes to talk to people about what’s going on. That’s cool.”

Even as he kept them in class, they continued to come late to practice, continued to shout at referees, continued to draw personal fouls. Willison had to remind himself of the task at hand.

“These kids have been through so much,” he said. “My job is 25% football and 75% counseling. We dealt with them as human beings rather than players.”

*

Ninety miles up the coast, Hazelton has put distance between himself and the past.

“This is paradise,” he said of his new job as defensive coordinator at Santa Barbara High. “I’ve been treated with great respect. That’s all you can ask for.”

While the former Burbank coach accepts some blame for the team’s troubles, he denies recruiting players and believes he was made a scapegoat by “alcoholic assistant coaches, friends of deposed school board chairmen and old women who go after children.”

The school failed to pay for qualified assistants, Hazelton says. He claims there wasn’t enough help to enforce his long list of team rules.

“Very often I was the only guy there, running around,” he said. “Never have I worked so hard at a job. I was there 10 hours a day, handled all the equipment, all the fund-raising. I did my best.”

Hazelton also claims he left Burbank with a positive job review and asks a reporter to call his former supervisor. But that supervisor declined to comment, as did others who worked with Hazelton.

“I’m moving on,” said Greaves, now a Montclair Prep assistant. “Because of the situation that happened at Burbank, I have no comment on the past or the future.”

Many players--even some of his critics--say Hazelton took too much blame and agree he was undermined by his own staff members.

“Some coaches are more screamers and yellers. Coach Haze was more mellow,” said Carlos Baker, now a star receiver at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “I think he got a bum rap.”

Said Reggie Williams, a senior cornerback this season: “When Haze was here, he looked over us a lot. He just didn’t know how to bring out the best in his team.”

One player who did not comment was the former lineman involved in the Dumm scandal.

In March, he smashed his pickup truck through the front window of a local Mexican restaurant.

*

Rain turned Burbank’s practice field soggy this week, so the Bulldog offense took to the gymnasium in full pads and sneakers, squeaking through a series of plays.

Willison gently goaded, clapping his hands, calling out “Good job” or “Suck it up.” Despite a 1-8 record, despite the all-too-recent scandal, the team was optimistic about its chances for an emotional win against rival Burroughs tonight.

“With Willison, it’s going to keep getting better and better,” said Donny Pyne, a sophomore expected to start at quarterback. “People are working harder in practice. In school, the players are more polite.”

Said current player Mkhitarian: “The seniors, we’re kind of spoiled. But the freshman are so disciplined. As soon as we leave, in two or three years, [Willison] will get things turned around.”

After practice, the coach retreated to his office and squeezed himself down into a school desk. He handed a player $5 to go buy a six-pack of soda.

“Two years ago I wouldn’t even try that,” he said. “The $5 would be gone.”

These days, administrators praise the character and integrity of the football team and the players are committing fewer personal fouls on the field.

“We’ve got a great group of kids,” he said. “We have kids who will treat you fair.”

Even so, he is growing weary of his work. “Baby-sitting,” he calls it. He dreams of the day when the job is more Xs and O’s.

“I want to get back to football,” he said.

The player returned with the soda, giving Willison a reason to smile, if only for a moment.

“Next year’s got to be football.”