Dorsey Band Has Much to Trumpet About

Their names were in the newspaper Monday, in small type with the other NFL seventh-round draft choices. Chris Miller, a USC wide receiver, was selected by Green Bay; Cedric White, a North Carolina A&T; defensive end, by St. Louis.

That didn’t make anyone’s day at ESPN. It did at Dorsey High.

Miller and White are the fourth and fifth players from the Dons’ 1991 City champions who have been drafted. The others already are playing significant roles with their NFL teams, Keyshawn Johnson with the New York Jets, Karim Abdul-Jabbar with the Miami Dolphins and Lamont Warren with the Indianapolis Colts.

Ava Shah called to make sure I noticed. I met Shah, Abdul-Jabbar’s mother, in 1991 when she was president of Dorsey’s booster club. If ever a team needed boosting, it was the Dons.

Because of some trouble on the field at Dorsey after the 1990 game between the schools, Banning chose to forfeit rather than play there the next season. The story attracted the media, local and national, who arrived with the idea that they could somehow use one school’s football team as a microcosm for South-Central L.A.

Shah set us straight, exposing the cliches.

She described a program begun in 1985 by Dorsey parents and the school’s football coach, Paul Knox, that emphasized two things to the players. One was that the team was the only posse they needed. The other was that football was a fun after-school activity but that education was a surer route to success.

Most players bought it. As pleased as Shah is about the football successes of her son and a few of his teammates, she said she is more proud that about 90% of Dorsey’s players attend college, even if they don’t go to play.

“There were a lot of negative things said about us, our school and our community,” she said. “We stressed to the athletes, ‘Even if nobody else loves you, you have to love yourself.’ ”

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One player who obviously took that message to heart was Johnson.

“Even when he was a skinny little kid who had to borrow a quarter for a Coke, he was bright and confident,” she said, laughing.

After reading his book, “Just Give Me the Damn Ball!,” Shah said she tried to decrease his helmet size.

“I told him his quarterback [Neil O’Donnell] ought to write his own book,” she said. “He could call it, ‘Just Catch the Damn Ball!’ ”

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Mel Kiper Jr. doesn’t know everything, but I hope he was right when he said Buffalo made the steal of the NFL draft by taking Columbia defensive end Marcellus Wiley with the 52nd pick. . . .

Wiley, from Gardena, rejected offers from big-time college programs because he wanted an Ivy League education. . . .

The Phoenix Coyotes’ Keith Tkachuk does everything on the ice--score, back check, referee. . . .

I guess he didn’t see that Brian Bellows was pushed into the crease. . . .

When Steve Rucchin’s goal was disallowed Tuesday night, the Mighty Ducks’ spirits sagged the way the Kings’ did after the Marty McSorley curved-stick incident in the 1993 finals against Montreal. . . .

Can the Ducks recover in time for tonight’s Game 5 at the Pond? Four years later, the Kings still haven’t. . . .

St. Louis’ Delino DeShields heard the familiar sound of boos each time he came to the plate at Dodger Stadium this week. Wasn’t it nice of the fans to make him feel at home? . . .

The Cardinals, who just completed a 10,300-mile trip, are lagging in frequent-flier miles behind Kasey Keller. He has flown 16,321 miles in recent days while commuting between goalkeeping jobs with the U.S. national team and England’s Leicester City. . . .

No wonder Keller kicked the ball into Carlos Hermosillo’s head Sunday, creating a goal for Mexico 39 seconds into the game. . . .

In the opening round of the 1991-92 NBA playoffs, the Lakers met Portland and the Clippers met Utah. . . .

Let’s hope the similarities end there. Not only did both L.A. teams lose, they each had to move a home game--the Clippers to Anaheim, the Lakers to Las Vegas--because of the unrest after the Rodney King verdict. . . .

Fuzzy, can’t we all get along? . . .

CNN, world famous for delivering breaking news, had Zoeller’s comments about Tiger Woods on tape for a week before broadcasting them. Network officials said they needed time to put Zoeller’s comments in context. . . .

Somehow, I think Peter Arnett could have found the right context more quickly.

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While wondering about those rumors that say the Kings are pursuing Jaromir Jagr, I was thinking: They should check into Tkachuk’s contract while they’re at it, Utah over the Clippers in three, the Lakers over Portland in four.