Fundamentally Sound

High school sports serve as a rite of passage for the athletes who play them, the student, friends and families that gather to watch them and the sportswriters who cut their professional teeth covering them.

High school football games in Los Angeles date to 1896, but it wasn’t until 1934 that the Los Angeles City Section was born.

The Southern Section was established in 1912 and held its first athletic competition in 1913.

This story is not an attempt to document the achievements of every outstanding athlete, coach and team that made a mark, for there are far too many to chronicle here.

Rather, it is a history lesson of sorts told by current and former Times staff writers who have written about Southland prep athletes. Most of the writers graduated from Los Angeles-area high schools. And while many have gone on to cover college and professional sports as beat writers or columnists, all maintain indelible images of the prep athletes they watched, covered and, in some instances, competed with and against on the playing field.

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Ten coaches are charter members of the California High School Sports Hall of Fame. I watched three of them while covering prep sports in the South Bay from the late 1970s until the early ‘90s.

Gene Vollnogle, a former standout lineman at Fremont and Pepperdine, built Wilmington Banning and Carson into football powerhouses before retiring in 1990 with 10 City Section titles and a then-state record 289 victories.

Kye Courtney guided Hawthorne to an unprecedented seven state track and field titles between 1983 and ’89 before retiring in 1993.

And then there is John Stevenson, the legendary baseball coach at El Segundo who is still going strong.

Stevenson, a 1951 graduate of Redondo High, made El Segundo synonymous with baseball, winning a state-record 865 games and six Southern Section titles since he began coaching at the school in 1960. His former players include Hall of Famer George Brett, who hosted Stevenson during his induction ceremonies in July, and former major league pitchers Ken Brett and Scott McGregor.

Beginning his 41st season of coaching, Stevenson shows no signs of slowing down.

Always a teacher first, Stevenson embodies the positive aspects of high school sports. And while it is noteworthy that he has accomplished so much during the century that is nearing its end, it is comforting to know he will be influencing young athletes into the next one.