Sports Jump-Starts Another Sommers

Milk and love aren’t the only ingredients vital to raising a successful child. Add sports competition to the list.

At least that’s the secret of the Sommers family from Agoura Hills.

Bob Sommers was Southern Section basketball player of the year in 1959 at San Marino High and received a scholarship to Stanford. He married Kathleen, an Occidental College student, 35 years ago, and they have produced a family of achievers.

Son Bob, 32, was a football manager at UCLA and became an attorney. Son John, 30, cleared 18-1 in the pole vault, graduated from UCLA and became an attorney. Daughter Julie Anne, 24, was a cheerleader at UCLA and became a first-grade teacher.

Caroline, the last of the Sommers children, is a 17-year-old senior at Agoura High. Last year, she won the Southern Section Division II championship in the high jump. Two weeks ago, she cleared a career-best 5-8. Not bad for someone who juggles her practice time between high jumping and cheerleading.

“Cheerleading is too good for me to give up,” Caroline said. “And I don’t want to give up track because it’s what I love.”

Giving up sports would be considered treason in the Sommers family. Their idea of a family gathering is water skiing at Lake Powell in Utah or snow skiing at Mammoth.

“It’s what we were all brought up on,” Caroline said. “You always have something in common and get to share this wonderful experience.”

Separated by 15 and 13 years from her brothers, Caroline sometimes endured their wrath.

“If I was watching cartoons, they didn’t want to watch it,” she said. “They’d chase me out of the room and they’d take away the remote control and I’d be scared because they were so much bigger than me.”

Caroline, who has grown to 5 feet 11, can hold her own these days with her 6-4 and 6-6 brothers. They can’t match her tumbling routines as part of Agoura’s nationally recognized spirit squad. And they also might have trouble going over a high-jump bar.

Caroline, like her siblings, has used sports to enhance her education.

“Everything I do I have to be the best and that definitely comes from sports,” she said. “You learn about teamwork, interacting with other people and getting along with people who aren’t anything like you.”

Bob said sports was always encouraged but never pushed upon his children. The proof is none ever became basketball players like him.

“The only thing I can say is it’s a little bit in our culture,” he said. “There are a lot of opportunities at a young age to put kids in sports. They got exposed to it. I think sports is a fabulous thing for families to do.”

Caroline is planning to follow her brothers and sister to UCLA, compete in the high jump and become a veterinarian.

Bob, chairman and co-founder of Symark, a software company in Westlake Village, is so convinced about the values learned through sports that he uses it in finding prospective employees.

“If someone has an athletic background, it’s a plus for getting hired here,” he said.

He might want to interview his family members.

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The decision of eighth-grader Aaron Ware to play football this fall at new Oaks Christian High in Westlake Village instead of Loyola is a bombshell that could prompt other standout athletes to enroll at the school.

Ware will be no ordinary freshman. He’s a running back with tremendous speed and great football instincts.

“He’s going to be the real deal,” said his brother, Matt, a Parade All-American defensive back from Loyola headed to UCLA.

Coach Bill Redell of Oaks Christian doesn’t want to hype Ware, but he admits, “I think someone of his caliber puts your program on the map.”

Ware, 5-10 and 170 pounds, ran 100 meters in 11.27 last year on Harvard-Westlake’s track. He has gotten faster and stronger. He hasn’t played tackle football in two years.

With Ware on the field, Oaks Christian shouldn’t have trouble filling up its stadium or attracting talent.

“I really think a lot of players are going to be coming there,” he said.

The powerhouse down the street--Westlake High--shouldn’t fear the Lions. But with Ware in town, they’re going to have to get used to sharing the spotlight.

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Will the Internet people who judge high school football players please refrain from ridiculous evaluations.

The latest example involves junior running back Lorenzo Booker of St. Bonaventure.

This was the comment from a so-called Internet recruiting expert: “Booker is probably the best running back prospect we’ve seen come out of the state since Lompoc’s Napoleon Kaufman 10 years ago.”

Does that mean he’s already a better prospect than Justin Fargas of Notre Dame, DeShaun Foster of Tustin or Tyler Ebell of Ventura?

Before declaring Booker the Heisman Trophy favorite for 2005, let’s see if he can improve as much as Ebell did during his senior year, whether he can inspire teammates to reach a higher level, as Fargas and Ebell did, and if he can excel in the classroom.

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Two reminders to coaches and athletes: Practice on Sundays is prohibited. Athletes are not allowed to use school equipment, such as a pitching machine, even if they are practicing on their own.

Athletes are not allowed to play on outside teams during the high school season, like a Sunday adult league. If it happens, players will be declared ineligible and their teams would have to forfeit games.

Last year, Birmingham was eliminated from the City Invitational baseball playoffs because three players participated in an outside league. . . .

Aaron Levin, a sophomore pitcher for Calabasas’ junior varsity, has struck out 21 and walked none in 14 innings this season. . . .

Jonathon Brewster, former Notre Dame infielder, has moved into the starting lineup as a freshman at USC. He’s batting .307. . . .

Danny Phillips, former Chatsworth outfielder, hit a triple for the Colorado Rockies in a spring training game Monday against Arizona. Phillips will start the season in the minor leagues. . . .

One of the best track meets of the season is scheduled for 5 tonight at Birmingham matching the Patriots against Taft.

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Eric Sondheimer’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422 or eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.