Poly Team Faces New Test of Faith Amid Forfeitures

The Poly High football team persevered through years of losing.

Young and undersized, kids from a working-class Latino neighborhood, they put their faith in the old-fashioned notion that there can be valor in the struggle, not just in victory.

That perseverance won them fans across Southern California after The Times described the team’s unflagging dignity. It eventually won games, too, three startling victories that had Poly headed toward the playoffs.

Now comes another test of faith.

The Parrots learned Friday that they had used an ineligible player, an affable, burly lineman who is one of the team’s emotional leaders. The victories will have to be forfeited.

“This is part of life,” one of their coaches told them. “Some things are unfair.”

The players cried and prayed. Some were angry.

“My heart stopped,” said Ramon Ayala, a senior linebacker. “How could they do that to us?”

John H. Francis Polytechnic is an ordinary school in a neighborhood marked by older homes and salvage yards. Some of the players are immigrants new to football.

At midseason, the Parrots were 0-6 and had not won a game in almost two years. But their rookie co-coaches, Bobby Mesa and Lee Jackson, continued to preach that the scoreboard was not the only measure of a team.

The coaches had created a mandatory study hall for players in danger of failing. They demanded the team be attentive in class and wear ties to school on game days. Players who stuck with the program began to show improved attendance and grades.

“The things we’re doing here are going to build backbone,” Mesa told them. “Things like showing up every day, just like you’ll have to show up for a job.”

After an Oct. 17 article in The Times, the team received dozens of telephone calls and letters. There were handwritten notes and neatly typed pages, messages of sympathy and encouragement.

“As I go about our city, I find reason to believe that a beautiful new America is growing in our land, and your kids are part of that vision,” a Los Angeles man wrote.

A Tarzana woman said she was a “mother of three daughters who would love men like these” to be her sons-in-law.

And there were donations. A Sun Valley real estate agent gave $2,000. An alumna from the class of 1966 sent a $100 check. A national cable network featured the team on its Sunday morning sports show.

This outpouring was followed by an unexpected winning streak. Poly beat North Hollywood and Grant, two teams with losing records, on successive Friday nights. Then came a stunning victory over Monroe, which was 6-2 at the time.

The Poly players considered this change of fortune a reward for their faith.

“We did our best, working hard, doing whatever the coaches told us,” said Albert Diaz, a 5-foot-8-inch senior running back. “We did what it took to win.”

Said Ayala: “We had heart.”

No player showed more spirit than George Lomavita, the lineman found to be ineligible.

Lomavita was the team’s warrior, a stocky New Guinea native who wore a lava-lava, a traditional skirt-like cloth, over his hip pads at the weekly pregame meal.

He shouted in his native language during games because, he believed, “it brought power to me and made the other team scared.”

Early in the season, when Poly would be down by five touchdowns at halftime, it was Lomavita who jumped up and exhorted his teammates to have some fun.

“Everybody loves George,” said Leo Molina, a sophomore fullback.

But the lineman ran afoul of a California Interscholastic Federation rule stating that a player has only four years of eligibility once he enters the ninth grade.

According to the Poly coaches, Lomavita took two years to get through the ninth grade. He played as a 10th-grader at Grant High, then skipped a year of school to be with his ailing grandfather in Hawaii.

When Lomavita returned, he enrolled at Poly as an 11th-grader. But four years had passed since he had first entered ninth grade.

The matter came to light after Grant administrators contacted Poly this week. Jackson questioned why the rival school had waited so long.

No matter, district officials ruled that nothing could be done about Lomavita’s eligibility this late in the season.

Had Poly asked for a hardship waiver in September, the player might well have been granted an extra year on the field.

“We had no clue,” Jackson said. “We thought this was his last year, and we were going to apply for hardship next season.”

The coaches realized too late that they should have checked Lomavita’s record more closely. This time it was the young coaches who had a painful lesson to learn.

With no option but to forfeit, Jackson and Mesa fretted over how to break the news to their players. They gathered the team after practice.

“Doesn’t matter what they do to us, doesn’t matter if they say we’re 0-10,” Mesa said. “We never measured ourselves by wins and losses, and we’re not going to start now.”

Jackson watched his players for a reaction. He worried about Lomavita and how the others would treat him. It would be a gauge, yet another one, of the team’s faith and maturity.

The big lineman broke down in tears. One by one, his teammates came up. Some offered words of support.

“I told him it wasn’t his fault,” said Ayala, the senior who had felt his heart sink at the news. “He was part of us.”

Others said nothing. They simply hugged him.

“I could see that he was hurting. I could see it in his eyes,” Molina said. “That’s why everybody’s giving him so much love.”

Amid the disappointment, Jackson felt a tinge of pride. In a way, his players had passed the biggest test of their young lives.

“The things they said and did,” the coach said. “You can see why we’re so proud of these guys.”