The High Schools / Tim Brown : Contreras Vows Not to Be Lured Back Into Coaching by Bowls’ Appeal

As George Contreras settled in at Anaheim Stadium to watch Brigham Young upset Colorado, 20-17, Thursday in the Freedom Bowl, he could not help but notice BYU’s passing game. Crisp, efficient--truly something of which to take note. He probably jotted a couple of pass patterns on the back of his box of Milk Duds.

“Maybe we’ll put them into the 8-year-old Pop Warner League next year,” Contreras joked.

It has been a couple of weeks since Contreras announced his resignation as football coach at Westlake High and 6 months since he actually made the decision. But not being the leader of the program he built and nurtured for 11 years isn’t easy to swallow.

“There are things this time of year that make it tough,” he said. “Like the bowl games. I watch one and think, ‘I’d like to do that next year.’ Well, I’m not going to be there next year.

“I think I miss a lot of it already. It’s going to be tough. Come September, it will be even tougher.”

Contreras has even handed over the football weightlifting class to Dan Murphy, an 11-year assistant and Contreras’ choice to take over the program.

“One of the things I felt was important was for me to step back as fast as I could,” said Contreras, who left the program to be able to watch his 2 sons begin high school football careers.

“It’s the right decision for me,” he added. “I know it’s the right decision.”

Perhaps, but maybe he should stay clear of his television this weekend--that USC team has one heck of a defense.

Longer distance: She is the defending state champion in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, but Angela Burnham of Rio Mesa will compete in the 500-yard run, not the 60-meter dash, in the high school portion of the Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet at the Sports Arena on Jan. 20.

“I asked her if she wanted to run in the 60,” Rio Mesa Coach Brian FitzGerald said. “But Angela said she’d rather run the 500.”

Burnham, selected by Track and Field News magazine as the national female high school athlete of the year as a junior, might want to familiarize herself with longer sprint distances because FitzGerald intends to enter her in the 400 in some invitationals in the spring.

“We’re not going to ignore the short sprints,” he said. “But I’ve always felt that Angela could run a very good 400. Hopefully, we’ll see how fast she can run in that event this year.”

Though Burnham is the defending Sunkist 500 champion, she will not be favored. Also entered are Angela Rolfe of Dorsey, the defending state champion in the 400, and Roslyn Mack of St. Francis High in Mountain View, who finished fourth in the event at the state meet.

“It should be a great race,” FitzGerald said. “Angela (Burnham) has the most speed, but some of the others have more experience at that distance.”

Burnham ran 11.28 seconds in the 100 at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis in July. Her time was a national age-group record for 16-year-olds and moved her into third place on the all-time high school list.

Chandra Cheeseborough of Ribault High in Jacksonville, Fla., set the record of 11.13 in 1976.

Add Sunkist: The boys’ 2-mile could be the most talent-laden high school field in the meet. Entered are Bryan Dameworth of Agoura, Mike Williamson of Thousand Oaks, Jimmy Rodriguez of Santa Ana Valley and Scott Hempel of Walnut--all qualifiers for the Kinney national cross-country championships in San Diego earlier this month.

Dameworth, Williamson and Rodriguez placed 1-2-3 in the state Division I championships in Fresno in November and Hempel won the Division II title.

Dave Hartman of Canyon (7th in the state Division I meet) and Craig Lawson of Granada Hills (10th) also are entered.

Schwan song: Kurt Schwan, Westlake basketball’s leading scorer, had an inkling that things were going to get interesting Thursday when Alemany held the ball for 3 minutes on its first possession. As it turned out, things got ugly for Westlake.

The Indians beat the highly regarded Warriors, 34-29, for their second win in 10 games.

“It was a little frustrating,” Schwan said. “But we had our chances. We went down and threw up a lot of shots that weren’t part of our offense.”

Alemany slowed the tempo and refused to shoot until it absolutely had to. Brian Swanson led the Indians with 12 points. Schwan, who had averaged more than 20 points, scored 6.

“They had a spread offense,” he explained, “which is probably the only thing they could have done against us.”

Legitimacy questioned: After the Chaminade junior varsity was annihilated by Granada Hills, 103-54, and Bishop O’Dowd of Oakland, 65-29, in the Chaminade tournament this week, more than one fan questioned the legitimacy of the team as an entry.

Even stranger was the fact that the JV team received a bye for the first round of the championship bracket.

According to Mike Lynn, the Chaminade coach and tournament director, the withdrawal of St. Patrick High of Vallejo and Masada was responsible for the mismatches.

St. Patrick--scheduled to meet the Chaminade JV in the first round--withdrew from the tournament 2 months ago and Masada--scheduled to open against Manual Arts--informed Lynn on Monday that it was not fielding a team this season.

“Masada pulled out so late that there was nothing we could do about that bracket,” Lynn said. “And we called every school we could think of trying to get a replacement for St. Patrick, but everyone was booked.”

Lynn added that most teams’ schedules are finalized during the summer and there is a limit as to how many games a team can play during the season.

Therefore, even if a team pulls out of a December tournament in October, it is very difficult to find a replacement.

“There are so many holiday tournaments that it’s extremely hard to book another team if one team pulls out,” Lynn said.