If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Play Hole Card

Why do coaches, administrators and parents who have suspicions about an ineligible player repeatedly wait until the last minute to step forward with their allegations?

They could save a lot of pain and disappointment by immediately making their concerns known. But again and again, they wait to see if a team’s fortunes have a direct effect on their own. If so, they step forward. If not, they keep quiet.

Poly High football players are the latest victims of this continuing sports phenomenon.

The Parrots have to forfeit three hard-fought victories because Grant High officials waited until the 10th week of the football season to alert the City Section office that one of its former players might be ineligible at Poly.

Grant Coach Bill Foster said he made the call to the City Section this week. He said he didn’t realize the player in question was at Poly until after the two teams played on Oct. 31. But why didn’t Foster and Grant officials immediately make their concerns known instead of waiting until just a few days before the City playoff seeding meeting?

“Maybe it could have been earlier, but I can’t go around researching who played where,” Foster said.

Poly officials admit they should have uncovered that junior lineman George Lomavita was in his fifth year of high school. They erred in not looking closely at his transcripts. The coaches knew he was a transfer student. They should have double-checked his eligibility.

But someone from Grant should have made a courtesy phone call earlier to Poly administrators warning them to take a close look at Lomavita’s eligibility.

That’s exactly what Poly officials did last summer when they heard a former Poly football player was trying to transfer to Sylmar. The phone call alerted Sylmar officials. The player ended up going to another school instead of trying to use a false address.

“That’s the way it should be, but it usually isn’t,” Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman said.

It’s hard to believe no one at Grant knew until the eighth week of the season that Lomavita was playing football at Poly. His photo ran in the local newspaper early last month. His cousin attends Grant. He visited Grant numerous times.

“I feel so bad for our kids,” Poly football Coach Lee Jackson said. “They feel robbed.”

The City Section Interscholastic Athletic Committee is scheduled to discuss at its next meeting what to do with last-minute eligibility allegations that come up around playoff time.

Last basketball season, Fairfax High was ousted from the playoffs because of an ineligible player. The allegation was made after the Lions’ playoff victory over Manual Arts.

In girls’ volleyball last season, unbeaten Van Nuys was pulled from the playoffs because of an ineligible player. The allegation surfaced just before the playoffs began.

Everyone knows what’s going on. It’s part of sports tradition, digging up dirt on the opposing team, keeping it on file, then exposing the ringer when needed.

It has happened before and will happen again. That doesn’t make it right.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at (818) 772-3422.