Crescenta Valley Player Penalized Despite His Assist

Sixteen-year-old Alex Ghazalpour hangs out so frequently at a Glendale hospital--as an emergency-room volunteer--that he says the paramedics have nicknamed him “Ricky Rescue.”

But now, he’s trying to breathe life back into his own self-esteem.

Six weeks ago, Ghazalpour (pronounced Gah-ZAL-pour) was dismissed from Crescenta Valley High’s freshman-sophomore football team for arranging--immediately after a game against Glendale on Oct. 29--to have injured teammate Jesse Daggett transported to the hospital, where the player’s strained left thumb was placed in a cast.

What’s more, Ghazalpour says he wasn’t invited to the school’s annual football awards dinner on Dec. 6--and, although he played in half the team’s 10 games as a defensive end before he was sidelined because of a back injury, he didn’t receive his letter.

“I don’t want to slam the school, but I do feel better, now that everyone knows what happened to me,” he said. “And my head coach told me that this won’t stop me from playing football next year.”

Crescenta Valley Principal Kenneth Biermann said the punishment--considered harsh by Ghazalpour and friends--is warranted because Ghazalpour repeatedly disobeyed coaches’ orders to stop attending to teammates’ medical needs.

“It was the final straw,” Biermann said Thursday. “Our coaches had had enough. They had told him that he can’t take kids off the field and treat them as if he’s a medical attendant, which he is not . He’s been disciplined twice before.”

When asked to describe the discipline, Biermann declined. The decision to dismiss Ghazalpour from the team, the principal said, was made by Bob Canfield, the school’s boys athletic director, and the team’s coaches.

“I can’t understand why this is all being blown up so much,” Biermann said. Moments later, he added: “This should be no reflection on Alex. He’s really a good kid.”

For his part, Ghazalpour said he’d never been disciplined by the coaches before his dismissal from the team in early November.

“I never even got a warning,” he said Thursday. “The coaches would say, ‘Alex, go get ice.’ ‘Alex, go help him out.’ And I did. Believe me, if I had gotten a first warning, I would have stopped right there.”

The freshman-sophomore coach, Tony Zarrillo, declined to be interviewed. He referred inquiries to Canfield, who did not return telephone calls from The Times.

The “final straw,” Biermann said, occurred on Oct. 29 when Ghazalpour broke a Crescenta Valley rule by not advising coaches--and not heeding the school’s policy on transportation safety and liability--when he and Daggett arranged for a high school friend of Daggett to drive them from Glendale High’s stadium to the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, less than a mile away.

During that game (which Crescenta Valley lost, 41-3), Ghazalpour sat on the sidelines in street clothes because of an injury to his back.

Daggett, a sophomore fullback, linebacker and kicker, injured his thumb during the game’s second quarter and remained in the game only as a kicker.

Daggett said Ghazalpour “taped me up pretty good” and that afterward he told Ghazalpour, “My fingers are numb. This is killing me. You’ve got to take me to the hospital.”

They first went to Daggett’s parents, who operated a booster club booth at the stadium. There, Daggett said, the parents said they weren’t able to leave (the varsity game between both schools would soon start), but they granted permission in writing for him to be taken to the hospital. “They even gave Alex my insurance card,” Daggett said.

“Have you told the coaches?” Daggett said his mother asked. He said he and Ghazalpour had sent a teammate to tell them.

Looking back, Daggett said, “I’m glad Alex took me to the hospital. He was trying to help. Neither of us knew anything about a policy about transporting players.”

A Glendale Unified School District policy on transporting injured students to and from school events stresses parental consent:

“Transportation of an injured student away from school should be arranged by the parent consistent with the medical condition. An administrator or designee may transport, if necessary, to the source of care designated by the parent. An additional person should accompany the driver of the car transporting a seriously injured person.”

Three days after the game, Ghazalpour said, Canfield informed him that he had been dismissed from the team.

To Alex Ghazalpour--a sophomore who volunteers 16 to 20 hours a week at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, who is certified by the hospital to teach first aid and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), who earned a runner-up Youth Citizenship Award in 1992 from Glendale’s mayor for community service--his punishment and the controversy it has aroused will not discourage him from his ambition to become a doctor.

“At first, I always wanted to become a cop,” he said. “But when I started working in the emergency room, they brought in cops who had been shot. I’d rather help people as a doctor.”

At Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Sandy Contreras--who coordinates volunteers and is Ghazalpour’s supervisor--described him as “an exceptional volunteer. He’s really a role model--and very well-liked.”