Two-Sport Athlete Keeps Elevating Goals

Most parents and coaches don’t want their teenagers on skis or snowboards during football season for fear that aninjury may sideline them.

Not Norma Mann. She was more concerned that her son, Eric, would be injured playing football, thus jeopardizing his skiing aspirations.

He’s a 6-foot-3, 190-pound tight end-defensive end for Mammoth High, which lost to Arrowhead Christian last week in the Southern Section Division XIII final.

Eric took one day off to rest after 14 weeks of football, then was back on the slopes at Mammoth Mountain to resume training as one of the United States’ best 17-year-old skiers.

He sat out the first two races of the season to maintain his football commitment and lost out on a chance to practice on the course for the Salt Lake City Olympics in February.

He has no regrets.

“We set some history for the school,” he said. “It was a great season.”

Mann has been skiing since he was 2 and gliding on plastic skis. He was born in Mammoth, and his father, Clifford, was a ski racer.

His high school physical education class is skiing. He leaves school at 1:30 p.m. and spends the next three hours on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain. He has a ski coach and workout schedule. He has traveled throughout the country for races and competitions, skiing such places as New Hampshire, Vermont, Utah, Oregon, Montana and New York.

When he’s racing on a downhill course at 70 to 80 mph, protected only by a helmet, boots and a ski suit, he’s almost a blur.

“It’s a rush,” he said. “There’s nothing like it. It’s pretty cool.”

No one would ever question his courage seeing him zoom down a slope, but football offered another opportunity to display his coolness under pressure.

“I’ve been skiing my whole life, so it comes almost second nature,” he said. “You’re nervous in the gate, but once you’re out there, you don’t even think about it. It’s pretty comparable to this last football game to being in some ski races.”

Playing football in Mammoth is different. For the last two weeks, players had to be bused to Bishop for practice because their field was under four inches of snow.

Mammoth qualified for its first section football final, and the players were thrilled for longtime Coach Tom Gault, who had been commuting daily to Carson City, Nev., to undergo treatments for prostate cancer.

“It’s definitely brought us together,” Mann said. “We root for him. He doesn’t like to tell us anything about it. You can tell sometimes when he’s tired. He put all his attention on us, which is pretty cool.”

Mann has a 4.28 grade-point average and is applying to colleges near ski areas. His goal is to make the 2006 Olympic team.

“He’s as talented a person as I’ve worked with,” said his ski coach, Greg Needell.

He’ll be competing today in a giant slalom race in Lake Tahoe, only a week after football season ended.

His mother can finally relax.

“People say all the time, ‘I can’t believe you let him ski,’ ” Norma said. “I say, ‘No, it’s football that scares me.’ In football, there’s guys ready to take him out at any moment. In skiing, he gets to do it himself. When the chips are down, he usually pulls it out.”

There were so many people trying to attend the Fairfax-Westchester boys’ basketball game last weekend that dozens were stranded outside Westchester’s crowded gym.

“We had faculty tell me they were waiting 45 minutes and couldn’t get in,” Fairfax Coach Harvey Kitani said.

Westchester won, 86-84, with the Charlotte Hornets’ Baron Davis and two Clippers in attendance.

The schools are scheduled to play again Jan. 8 at Fairfax and Jan. 25 at Westchester. Fairfax’s gym can seat only a little more than 1,000.

“There’s a suggestion to change the venue, but then you lose your home-court advantage,” Fairfax Athletic Director Judi Edwards said.

Fairfax will offer presale of tickets, beginning Monday, at its student store. Tickets cost $6. That may be your only chance unless, perhaps, you’re Jack Nicholson.

“I’m not saving a spot for him,” Edwards said. “He’s never invited me to sit next to him.”

Reseda Cleveland’s first-year football Coach Craig Cieslik has hired Lydia Dubuisson to coach linebackers next season. She’ll be one of the few women coaching high school football. She was defensive coordinator for Cieslik last season on the junior varsity team. She was student manager at Texas A&M.;

“From the day I was out there, they’ve always treated me like a coach,” Dubuisson said of Cleveland players....

The East-West all-star football game matching the best players in the San Fernando Valley will be held June 1 at Van Nuys Birmingham High....

Robert Landrum, the starting tailback at Encino Crespi last season, has transferred to Chatsworth....

Jeff Young, who coached West Hills Chaminade to consecutive Southern Section Division III-AA basketball championships, has expressed interest in the vacant Mission Hills Alemany coaching position....

It was an embarrassment that the Los Angeles Unified School District’s own television station, KLCS, didn’t bother to broadcast the City championship football game last week at the Coliseum.

It produced the most exciting ending of the high school football season.

What’s the point of owning your own TV station if you don’t cover one of your district’s biggest events?

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com