Compton golf event is like sports without the cavities

You write Kobe, Britney or something about sex in the first sentence, and you’ll get one of the most viewed stories on the newspaper’s website.

You write about Willie Forge, and well, Willie’s got a ton of friends, but he’s just a father, married, divorced and friendly with the same woman for 53 years, the two of them raising three children in Compton, two growing up to be dentists, the other a lawyer.

Nothing sexy there, and none of the kids are named Kobe or Britney.

If a friend of Willie’s, Geoff Strain, doesn’t e-mail and mention Willie and Lizzie’s success as parents, which really does overshadow anything done on the court, field or diamond, oh well. It’s a life well-lived, all right, save the very worst thing that can happen to a family.

A few years ago Willie’s golfing partner just sat there one night and died. Hours later, sometime in the middle of the night as he recalls, Willie got a phone call.

“My daughter wanted me to wake up,” Willie says, so she could tell him his golfing partner, his son James, had died of a heart attack at age 42.

“I woke up the wife, and you know how that goes, she was hollering and screaming, but I just couldn’t see it. Didn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it.

“I was devastated,” he says, son James leaving behind a wife and young daughter as well. “I wanted to grow old with him and carry on.”

He’s crying a few days later when his mother arrives from Birmingham, Ala., and tells him to knock it off. Mom’s like that, 92, no need for a cane or anything else, member of the same church for the last 72 years.

She says, “No reason to cry. You and your son did so many things together and cared so much for each other. Just look around the church and the number of people here touched by your son.”

So Willie stops crying, his energy directed then to keeping his son’s memory alive by doing what he does best -- playing golf and helping kids.

He has already raised three good ones, moving to Compton in 1958 to start a family after putting time in earlier with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League and playing under Buck O’Neil.

“A catcher,” he says, holding up his hand to show gnarly fingers going here and there. “I used to barnstorm with Johnny Podres in the Navy, and Lou Johnson and I were teammates.”

James, the middle child, grows up to be an athlete too, Terry Donahue recruiting him to play tight end for UCLA. James graduates and eventually moves on to dental school at UC San Francisco.

James’ sisters, Joni and Toni, also go to UCSF, at one time all the Forge children attending school together on scholarships.

“I had a good wife,” Willie says when asked about raising kids. “She was a schoolteacher, and she was just beautiful.”

They have their disagreements when it comes to raising kids, but he usually wins. Or so he thinks.

“The one who ruled the roost was my mother,” Joni says. “People ask all the time why we did so well. They were just great role models.”

Some might call it old school, but Willie says, “It’s just school. I had rules in my home. I had the kids on a study program and I don’t mean a TV program. I had a room in the house set aside to study.

“When the kids were 17, I’d tell them they’ve got one more year. They had to get a job or go to school, but they were no longer going to live with us. My wife thought it was the cruelest thing, but once they went to college, we couldn’t get them to come back and stay one night with us.”

And so it goes, each of the kids racking up awards, Joni and James sitting on the state dental board at the same time.

“I feel real proud,” Willie says, while also ticking off Toni’s accomplishments.

Joni learns at some point she cannot have kids, but Willie is quick with the solution.

“Listen, there are a lot of kids in this world who need to be adopted,” he says, and now Mom and 10-year-old son Tyler are inseparable.

“When Joni went before the judge for the adoption, there must’ve been 40 kids in the courtroom getting adopted,” Willie says. “To see all that love in one room was just incredible. James bought pizza and balloons for all the kids to celebrate, and every year that judge sends a letter saying he never saw anything like it.”

MOM AND son were close, enjoying movies together. James and Willie would play golf, and they were “buddy-buddy on the course,” Willie says, “but still father-son off it.”

Willie has had his hand in the Compton Par 3 Golf Course since 1959 when he helped build the nine-hole layout atop the rubble dumped from the construction of Highway 91.

Today he manages it, good pal John Dawson doing much of the work, of course, and what a place -- only $5 to play, $6 on the weekends.

“It’s going to make a difference for these kids,” Willie says, the doors thrown open free to kids every Saturday, clubs, balls and lessons included.

The work continues, this time in honor of his son, a 14 handicap, who never could beat Dad -- Dad a 3 and never giving strokes.

“Nothing comes easy,” Willie says, and funny he should say so while joining Joni’s crusade in making it as easy as they can for other kids to enter UCSF’s dental school.

“A lot of kids just need someone to make the way for them,” he says, “so we’re going to try and give two scholarships this year.”

In what began as Joni’s backyard auction, the family will now stage the second annual Dr. James O. Forge Memorial Scholarship Golf Tournament on May 16 at Rio Hondo Golf Course in Downey, $125 per golfer -- (562) 633-6721 -- and a slap on the back from Willie.

“We’re not all put here to live to be 90 or 100, and when you see children here only for a short time, it’s hard to understand,” Willie says. “I don’t know what the Lord had in mind when he took James, but I believe he was put here for a purpose.”

--

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.