Weighing Risks, Rewards of Prep Sports

Watching his son and daughter leave the breakfast table and head off Monday to high school, Brian Hennigan couldn’t help but feel a glow of pride--and a new emotion, just a twinge really, a fleeting concern for their after-school safety.

It wasn’t guns or drugs or gangs that gave pause to the 45-year-old proud papa, a lawyer with one of the biggest and most prestigious firms in Los Angeles and a man not usually given to worries over things beyond his control.

It was the pole vault.

In the wake of freak accidents that have claimed the lives of three high school athletes on playing fields in the past two weeks, Hennigan, like other parents and coaches in and around Los Angeles, paused Monday to weigh the risks and benefits of prep sports--and to consider the bravado of youth and the tempering sensibilities of an adult.

Hennigan’s son John, 17, a senior, holds the Palos Verdes Peninsula High School record in the vault--soaring higher than some roofs to cross a bar, then hurtle back down, arms and legs akimbo. Daughter Kelly, 14, a freshman, is new to the event--but loves it, the sense of flying and freedom.

“One thing kids always have is a sense of invincibility,” Hennigan said. “One thing parents always have is a sense of reality and maybe apprehension.

“As they were walking out the door, it was almost as if I was thinking, ‘Hey, wait a minute--stop, don’t go.’ You tell them to be careful. But you really don’t want them living in fear.

“So,” he said, pausing and sighing, “you hope for the best.”

Ultimately, the three deaths, as well as those last September of two Southern California prep football players and a prep water polo player, could produce significant changes in high school athletics--driven perhaps by lawsuits or by insurance demands. But on Monday, coaches, administrators and other parents echoed Hennigan’s words, saying that--for the most part--the rewards of athletics outweigh the risks, especially in high school.

“It’s very, very traumatic, and you hate to see something like this . . . and you wonder how the parents can bear it,” said Irene Campeau of El Segundo, where the close-knit world of youth baseball and softball is a civic institution.

“But what better thing is there for [youngsters] at this age? What better way to keep them active, healthy and involved? What could be more wholesome?”

Campeau’s granddaughter, 17-year-old Nicole McAllister, was among the friends keeping vigil over the weekend at the hospital bedside of Kriston Palomo, a 16-year-old sophomore at St. Bernard Roman Catholic High School in Playa del Rey.

A star baseball player, Kriston died after his throat was crushed by the bill of another boy’s batting helmet in a collision during a game Saturday against Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance. Kriston, a first baseman, was attempting to catch a pop fly between home and first base when the batter, head down and headed down the base path, crashed into him.

On April 29, Heath Taylor, 17, died of severe head injuries when he landed on the edge of the pole vault mat and slid off, striking the back of his head on asphalt during a practice at Hart High School in Newhall.

A week earlier, Craig Kelford III, a Peninsula High School sophomore, died after a flying discus struck him in the head during a warm-up before a track meet at Peninsula against North Torrance High School.

After a memorial service Monday, the St. Bernard baseball team decided to continue its season, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced in a written statement. Funeral arrangements for Kriston are pending, the statement said.

Around Southern California baseball diamonds, many teams took time out from practice Monday--particularly in the South Bay, where many players knew the tall hard-hitting infielder--to offer prayers.

With his team gathered around, Inglewood High baseball coach Larry McEntee found himself struggling for words. “You all know what happened to Kriston . . . he was a wonderful kid,” he said before emotion stole his voice.

At the same time, the players made clear, the games will go on.

“I don’t think Kriston would want anybody to give up playing because of what happened to him,” Inglewood High pitcher Tony Gomez said. “He loved baseball.”

So do countless others.

“What happened to him was a freak accident, so I’m still going to play the same way I used to . . . all out and without fear,” said Matthew Coy, a pitcher and third baseman on the freshman team at Santa Ana Mater Dei High in Orange County.

Added Jose Sanchez, a senior outfielder at Fairfax High in Los Angeles: “Everyone has their time and when you’re out there playing, you’re thinking about winning.”

Much the same sentiments prevailed around local tracks.

John and Kelly Hennigan were teammates of Kelford. Despite sorrow over his death--and that of Taylor, a fellow pole vaulter--they have shown no fear for themselves, Brian Hennigan said.

“Neither has expressed any concern or apprehension,” he said.

Amanda Medal, 16, who hurls the discus and shot-puts for Canyon Country High, said she hopes God is looking out for high school athletes--but that she won’t be thinking about being extra careful the next time she competes.

“I’ll be thinking about throwing the farthest I can,” she said.

Coaches and principals left the bravado Monday to the kids. School officials, meanwhile, took a hard look Monday at safety procedures.

The California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section asked for incident reports on the three recent deaths, saying the reports would be forwarded to the National Federation of State High School Assns., the organization that writes high school athletics playing rules.

Rick Nathanson, the Calabasas High baseball coach, said: “I told the guys today, ‘That’s why I’m on you all the time like a nagging grandmother to do the little things right.’

“The guys always say, ‘Come on coach, I’m not going to hurt myself.’ But I say, ‘It only takes once.’ ”

At Narbonne High School in Harbor City, athletic director Tim Moriarty moved up to Monday a meeting with the school’s coaches that he had planned for next week about sports safety.

At a track meet last week at Narbonne, Moriarty said, he made sure beforehand that the shotput ring was properly fenced off and that no hard surface surrounded the pole vault pit. The recent deaths, he said, had heightened awareness to double-check, even triple-check, safety standards.

“I just pray every game that something freaky doesn’t happen,” Moriarty said. “We always want to provide the safest environment possible.

“I don’t know what else we can do, short of canceling sports. And that’s not an option we’re considering right now.”

Nor, said experts, should that option even be on the table.

“I don’t think you can eliminate risk from sport. Nor do I think you’d want to,” said Michael Clark, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University.

“It’s important to learn to balance risk and reward,” said Clark. “That’s a critical part of learning how to function in life. You can learn that from sport.”

And, said many parents, a variety of other lessons--valuable lessons for life that sometimes require a parent to push down those back-of-the-mind fears.

Amanda Medal’s mother, Mary, 34, said Kelford’s death was frightening. But she said she wouldn’t think of ordering Amanda to stop shot-putting or hurling the discus.

“It comes down to a quality of life issue,” Mary Medal said. “Playing sports has improved her self-esteem, her work ethic--she loves the camaraderie. We can’t be afraid of every risk or else we would never let our kids walk out the door.”

Steve Fenoglio’s son, John, plays third base and pitches for Garden Grove Pacifica High: “You can help kids protect themselves if you teach them basic, fundamental baseball. But you can’t stop freak things from happening in life.”

Jim Clark, a Westside attorney whose son Drew played a variety of sports at the Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City, said it was the support of teammates that has helped carry Drew through a recent battle with leukemia.

Now 19 and a freshman at Georgetown University, Drew was diagnosed as having the disease in August 1995, a few days before he was due to begin football practice. He’s currently in remission and “doing great,” Jim Clark said.

“The way his fellow athletes gathered around him, it was pretty amazing,” the father said.

“The support--because of the relationships forged in athletics--was just incredible. It meant everything to him and to his mom and me.”

Times staff writers Eric Shepard, George Dohrmann, Jason Reid, David Wharton, Greg Sandoval, Paige A. Leech, Michael Lazarus, Tris Wykes and Vince Kowalick contributed to this report.