WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT

High school sports serve as a rite of passage for the athletes who play them, the students, 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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Strange, but the people you come to admire don’t often get shoe commercials. Sometimes, they don’t even get a championship ring.

Ted Hettinga and I grew up together, played Little League together and played basketball and baseball together at San Clemente High. Hettinga was big; in fact, “Big Lug” is almost too perfect a description. By the time was a senior, he was 6 feet 6 and 225 pounds. Still, he didn’t even play varsity basketball until he was a senior. That was the year he ran into a star, a can’t-miss guy.

Corona del Mar was moved into our league beginning with the 1976-77 season, and the Sea Kings had Alex Black, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound brick building. He had a five o’clock shadow by noon and his eyes were stuck permanently on glare.

The first meeting was a battle at Corona del Mar High. Hettinga played Black to more or less a standstill. We lost by three. The next time, in our gym, it wasn’t even close.

Our season ended in the playoffs’ second round, a stunning last-second loss to San Luis Obispo. Black and the Sea Kings won the Southern Section title.

I interviewed Black a few years ago for a look-back story. He had earned a scholarship to Nevada, but washed out. He bounced around to a couple schools, but never made it. He ended up with a drug problem, which led to prison. I did a story on how he had rehabilitated himself and reunited with his wife and kids.

A couple years later, he died.

Meanwhile, Ted attended Saddleback College, where he was the other big guy next to Kevin Magee, later an All-American at UC Irvine. Hettinga earned a basketball scholarship to Northern Arizona, but a stress fracture in his foot cut short his career. He turned to coaching and became pretty good at it. His Coconino team in Flagstaff was 31-0 in 1988-89 before losing in the state title game.

Two years ago, he moved his family to Boise, Idaho, and took a job coaching basketball at Capital High. His team went 21-6 the first season and reached the state playoffs. It was the first time in 20 years that Capital had won 20 games. Last season, Capital went 22-6 and finished third in the state.

Really, though, who needs a championship ring?