Tiny View Park growing in athletics, academics

Going from obscurity to celebrity can happen in a blink of an eye, or even the bounce of a basketball.

View Park Prep, a tiny charter school located in South Los Angeles and in its second season of fielding a varsity boys’ basketball team, appears ready to win the first City Section small-schools basketball championship in March.

At least that’s the likely scenario based on how well the Knights (13-8 overall, 5-1) have been playing in their first season in the tough Coliseum League, where they defeated 16-time City champion Crenshaw, 97-92, last week and earlier knocked off another traditional power, Fremont.

Their coach, James Wilkes, was the 1976 City player of the year at Dorsey and went on to play at UCLA and in the NBA. Assistant coach Dane Suttle was an All-City guard at Fremont and became Pepperdine’s all-time scoring leader.

The fact View Park’s high school and middle school is located on Crenshaw Boulevard, in the heart of Los Angeles’ basketball paradise, helps explain the team’s early success.

“It’s like a gold mine,” Wilkes said. “There’s always been a lot of talent in this area.”

Except View Park doesn’t draw only from South Los Angeles. The high school, which has 354 students and was launched in 2003, is open to anyone who wants to go through a lottery process. Ditto for its middle and nearby elementary schools. A waiting list that tops 3,000 for grades K through 12 keeps growing because the school’s test scores rank among the best in the state among schools with a majority African American student body.

“I want to have a great athletic program, but we’re a great academic institution first,” said Michael Piscal, the school’s founder.

Word began to spread early about View Park’s academic and athletic ambitions, so much so that advisors to a high-profiled center who moved to the Southland last summer from out of state allegedly tried to shop him to View Park.

Piscal said he would have none of it, reminding his coaches that even promising athletes must go through the lottery to gain admittance. Piscal said he dismissed several employees more than a year ago for allegedly trying to manipulate the lottery system.

“We’re proud of our athletic program, but we’re keeping it in perspective,” he said.

The school’s eight-man football team won the Southern Section large-schools championship last fall, and its girls’ basketball team is 11-3, leading the Crosstown League with a 6-0 record, and could win the City Section small-schools title.

“You have well-rounded human beings when you develop the mind and the body,” Wilkes said. “The school is tough. They have to earn everything they get.”

It’s all part of the changing educational environment in Los Angeles, where dozens of charter schools have opened in recent years, with many more to come, and athletics is becoming an integral part of school offerings.

The idea of improving academic performance by having smaller class sizes is catching the attention of parents who are losing patience with the status quo of low test scores. They are enthusiastically enrolling their children in a seemingly experimental academic environment, and if athletics comes with it, then that’s even better.

At View Park, there’s a dress code for students, tutoring is available on Saturdays, and parents must volunteer 40 hours each school year, whether it’s in the classroom, cafeteria, library or gym.

One major problem charter schools are encountering is a lack of sports facilities on campus. They are forced to rent gyms and fields at a cost of thousands of dollars. View Park’s basketball teams use USC’s North gym and practice at a nearby park. The school is hoping to buy property to open another high school and build a gym.

View Park’s success in boys’ basketball comes from having several veteran players, playing good defense and scoring quickly. Senior point guard Demaun Lewis is a terrific court leader and boasts a 3.9 grade-point average. Senior center Corey Hyde, who is 6 feet 6, is unselfish and a strong rebounder.

The team was helped immensely by the addition of junior guard Jason Pruitt, who was a key player for Division III state champion Lakewood Artesia last season and is the younger brother of USC guard Gabriel Pruitt. Pruitt scored a career-high 42 points against Crenshaw.

Pruitt was able to transfer to View Park because a younger sister was admitted through the lottery. Siblings and children of employees can bypass the lottery.

Pruitt was academically ineligible late last season at Artesia, and View Park’s emphasis on academics seems to be helping.

“This school is smaller,” Pruitt said. “I can focus on my grades.”

Hyde remembers how his friends treated him when he enrolled at View Park four years ago.

“In ninth grade, I used to get laughed at. ‘View Park, what’s that?’ ” he said.

Now, people in the neighborhood are gaining respect for what View Park is trying to accomplish.

“It’s good to know we’re setting the foundation,” said Hyde, part of the school’s first graduating class. “After we graduate and they see what colleges we get into, it will inspire others.”

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