Public, private schools at odds

Storm clouds seem ready to appear again in 2008 when it comes to the relationship between private and public schools.

At least one league is expected to make a proposal to have separate playoff divisions for private and public schools.

Mike Herrington, the football coach at Newhall Hart and a member of the Southern Section football advisory committee, said “inequity concerns” are fueling a movement to take action.

He said private schools with no attendance boundaries are taking advantage of the increasing media exposure through television and the Internet to attract athletes no matter where they live.

“It exposes them to a wider base,” he said.

Adding to the unease is that private schools, determined to develop winning athletic programs, are beginning to loosen the purse strings in order to lure top coaches away from public-school programs.

Santa Ana Mater Dei pulled off one of the biggest hires this past year in snatching away Kevin Kiernan from Fullerton Troy to coach its girls’ basketball program. Last year, North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake convinced Matt LaCour, the baseball coach at Woodland Hills El Camino Real, to leave the City Section behind.

Sun Valley Village Christian hired Jeff Cortez, an alumnus, away from Lancaster to run its football program. San Juan Capistrano JSerra hired Jim Hartigan away from Clovis West to coach football. San Juan Capistrano St. Margaret’s hired Harry Welch from Canyon Country Canyon as its football coach.

“I never thought I’d be back at Village,” Cortez said. “I had always heard what Village teachers were paid. Things have been set up to attract quality people.”

LaCour had returned El Camino Real to baseball prominence, guiding the Conquistadores to the 2005 City Championship, when Harvard-Westlake made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Although the money is good, LaCour said equally important is the freedom that comes with coaching at a private school.

“The bureaucracy of getting things done is tough,” LaCour said of the City Section. “The best thing about a private school is your boss is there every day and knows what you’re doing.”

Kiernan insisted that money was not the main reason he said goodbye to coaching girls’ basketball at Troy, where his record was 317-32 and included three state titles and eight Southern Section championships.

“I left for a variety of reasons,” he said. “It was my time. We had done a lot of good things. I felt it was a big challenge [at Mater Dei] and the tradition was great.”

Mater Dei’s upgrade of its athletic facilities has schools in Orange County feeling pressure. Its $18.2-million athletic center includes a gym that resembles a college arena. There’s also a new aquatic center named after a home builder, the Rod Dedeaux Baseball Stadium and an all-weather field for soccer. Santa Margarita and JSerra also have growing athletic facilities.

“Their financial resources are much greater than public schools,” Placentia El Dorado Athletic Director Carl Sweet said.

But Mater Dei President Patrick Murphy said public schools receive millions of dollars from the state and his students all pay tuition, though financial aid lessens the burden for many.

What’s clear is that jealousy and animosity are growing.

The latest sign of the deteriorating relationship involves Chatsworth baseball Coach Tom Meusborn and his former assistant, LaCour.

LaCour recently hired away Meusborn’s pitching coach, Chad Redfern, who was an unpaid assistant at Chatsworth, a seven-time City Section baseball champion.

“I don’t think good friends do that,” Meusborn said.

Meusborn said he no longer considers LaCour a friend even though the two vacationed together last summer.

Said LaCour: “I regret the fact he’s upset, but I don’t feel we did anything wrong.”

It’s just the latest example of the private-public school squabbling that must be resolved because there are good people on both sides trying to make a difference.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com