Some High School Football Games Will Be Played

High school administrators grappled Wednesday with the decision whether to cancel this week’s football games as they tried to reconcile their desire to acknowledge the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon with their wishes to restore a sense of normalcy.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has canceled all athletic events at its 49 high schools “out of respect” for victims of the tragedy, said Barbara Fiege, the section’s director of athletics. Fiege said the decision was made by Superintendent Roy Romer and 11 local district superintendents.

Nancy Connis, the superintendent of secondary schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, faxed a letter to the principals of its 29 archdiocesan and parish high schools requiring the cancellation of all athletic events this week, said Tod Tamberg, media relations director for the Archdiocese.

Connis also requested that 22 other private Catholic schools in the counties of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura cancel their games, though she cannot require compliance, Tamberg said.

Coaches at Orange County’s private Catholic schools--Mater Dei, Santa Margarita and Servite--were preparing their teams Wednesday afternoon to play this week.

“We all assume we’re [playing], unless someone tells us differently,” said Santa Margarita Coach Jim Hartigan, whose Eagles play Los Alamitos tonight at Long Beach Veterans Stadium.

Servite hosts Orange Lutheran tonight at Fullerton High, and Mater Dei plays at Mission Viejo on Friday.

The Southern Section, the governing body for 405 football programs in Southern California, does not possess the power to prevent its member schools from holding athletic events, said media relations director Thom Simmons. As a result, the decision whether to play is being made by schools and school districts.

While a majority of Southern Section games tonight, Friday and Saturday will be played as scheduled, several school districts, including the Anaheim Union High School District, have canceled games.

Anaheim school district Superintendent Jan Billings said principals voted overwhelmingly to call off all athletic contests through the weekend “in reverence to the tragedy.”

Administrators in the Huntington Beach Union High School District canceled games tonight but not those Friday or Saturday.

Huntington Beach Marina, which was supposed to play Newport Beach Newport Harbor tonight at Westminster High, will move its game to Saturday, according to Marina Athletic Director Paul Renfrow.

Other school administrators decided it would be best to play the games. Etiwanda’s game against Rialto Eisenhower at 7 tonight at Chaffey College will be played.

Etiwanda Athletic Director Brice Sunderland said he and Eisenhower Athletic Director Roger Reupert conferred and “thought that when these things happen, the more business-as-usual you can keep it, the more positive it’s going to be for everyone involved. We want to acknowledge what happened, and we’ll have our moment of silence.

“But we thought this is a time we can take some people’s minds off it and play some football.”

Several of the weekend’s best matchups have been canceled, including a game tonight between Newhall Hart and Ventura St. Bonaventure.

Top-ranked Long Beach Poly’s game Friday against defending City Section champion Wilmington Banning also will not be played.

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Times staff writers Gary Klein, Martin Henderson and Bob Roh-wer contributed to this story.