Bye Forced on Kennedy Irks Coach

It’s fairly obvious to George Contreras why his Westlake High football team failed to make the playoffs last season. And he’s taken steps to prevent a repeat scenario in 1987.

In the process, however, he has given Kennedy the brush off, angering Kennedy Coach Bob Francola, who claims his team has been jilted.

While not ducking the issue, Contreras admits he’s ducking Kennedy. Westlake missed the Southern Section playoffs last season, in part because of a 56-12 regular-season loss to Granada Hills, a Valley 4-A League team.

“To be quite blunt, I think the key thing that kept us out of the playoffs last year was the Granada Hills game,” Contreras said. “I don’t think our kids were the same last year, confidence-wise.”

So, rather than play another strong Valley 4-A team such as Kennedy, the Warriors scheduled an away game with Santana, near San Diego.

Francola said Westlake is reneging on its end of a bargain between the Marmonte League, of which Westlake is a member, and the Valley 4-A.

“We’re in the business of playing football and we’re unable to take our act on the road,” Francola said of the bye his team will receive. “It seems like everyone wants to play El Camino. It doesn’t seem like anyone wants to play San Fernando or Kennedy.”

The odd number of teams (seven in the Marmonte, five in the Valley 4-A) and the proximity of the leagues seemed to provide a natural bond for interleague games. The leagues’ coaches agreed, playing five games last season, with the Valley 4-A winning three.

For some teams, the cooperation has extended into 1987 with five interleague games on the schedule:. El Camino Real plays Camarillo, Channel Islands and Simi Valley; Granada Hills plays Thousand Oaks, and Cleveland (Valley 4-A) plays Newbury Park.

Francola believes the leagues agreed last season to a two-year pact. But when the City Section football schedule was released, Francola found the word bye next to Kennedy on Oct. 30 where he expected to find Westlake.

“We had a contract with the Marmonte League for two years, and all of a sudden they don’t want to play,” Francola said. “I’m a little upset we’re not playing Westlake like we thought we were.”

Contreras, along with other Marmonte League coaches, argues that there was no contract, only the option to play their Valley 4-A counterparts if the schedule permitted.

Simi Valley Coach Dave Murphy backed Contreras, saying he thought the Valley 4-A would be realigned by this season, rendering any such agreement obsolete.

“There was no contract whatsoever, as far as I know,” Murphy said. “The way I understood it is that no one had to play anyone, ever.”

Kennedy isn’t the only Valley 4-A League with scheduling problems. San Fernando also will play an eight-game schedule and nearly faced a seven-game season.

The problem stems from the L.A. schools’ start date of Sept. 15, which is a week later than in most years. That pushed the football season back a week, creating conflicts with Southern Section schools.

San Fernando’s bye falls on the last week of the season, by which time the Southern Section’s regular season will be over. With Southern Section teams either having completed or involved in the first round of the playoffs, and the remaining 48 City schools matched with each other, there was no one left to play San Fernando.

“We got the schedule in January and we’ve called all over,” San Fernando Coach Tom Hernandez said. “We checked out of state, up north, Vegas, Arizona. We’ll go anywhere but there was no one to play.”

Because of the late start, San Fernando had to reschedule its first four games. Crenshaw was moved from the third week to the fourth, and Manual Arts, Dorsey and Compton were added to the schedule. Hernandez didn’t arrange the Compton game until May, fearing that his team would play just seven games.

Hernandez is resigned to the eight-game schedule despite the problems it creates. If San Fernando qualifies for postseason play, the Tigers, who play their regular-season finale Nov. 13, will not play again until the playoffs start Dec. 4.

Hernandez faced the same situation in 1982, his first at San Fernando, and his team lost to Gardena in the first round of the playoffs.

“They were a better team than us but we were rusty,” he said. “We tried to keep the kids busy because you can’t go out and hit for 20 days. It’s a bad situation.”