Fighting Back

Put downs and punch outs take place every year in high school sports. Jibes from spectators to officials, coaches and players are a seemingly inherent part of the game.

Despite some recent high-profile incidents, this school year isn’t that different from any other, Southern Section and City Section officials say. Players taunt each other, coaches harangue officials, someone throws a punch. . . . Still, it might not be as bad as it appears.

“It’s getting better, but it will never be perfect,” said Dean Crowley, Southern Section commissioner. “We must still make strides to enhance the game. We must teach players, coaches and fans that how they conduct themselves is more important than winning.”

The Southern Section, which includes 505 member schools, formed a Sportsmanship Committee in 1994 and instituted the ejection rule--if an athlete is ejected from a game, he or she must also sit out the next one.

The Sportsmanship Committee created ethics codes for athletes and coaches. All student-athletes must sign the code, which has a last line that reads, “Win with character, lose with dignity.”

That sentence is not included in the coaches’ code.

Nearly every league has a sportsmanship award and some leagues hold sportsmanship symposiums. A sportsmanship symposium that would have involved more than 2,000 Southern Section students was planned for this fall, but it fell through at the last minute when the site became unavailable. The section hopes to make it an annual event.

The 62-member City Section also has an ejection rule and code of ethics players and coaches are required to sign. In addition, the Los Angeles Unified School District annually stages a Student Athletic Leadership Conference in September. The one-day conference is attended by team captains and includes a general session and smaller workshops.

“I would say things are better, in a general sense, than they have ever been,” said Barbara Fiege, City Section commissioner. “Ten or 12 years ago, we had numerous incidents.

“The schools and conferences are doing a good job of decreasing the negative nature of rivalries and making them friendlier instead of antagonistic.”

Thom Simmons, a Southern Section spokesman, said incident reports, usually involving altercations, have been reduced 25%-30% the last three years, and ejections are down 15%-20%.

“Coach ejections are way down, but we’re still concerned about player ejections,” Simmons said.

In the final game of the seven-game Dream Classic at Pauley Pavilion last week, for example, three players from Compton and three from Crenshaw were ejected following an altercation on the court that brought players from both teams off their benches.

But being a bad sport isn’t confined to players and coaches.

“I’m much more concerned these days about what’s happening in the stands than I am in the courts and fields of play,” said Dr. Russ Gough, professor of ethics at Pepperdine and author of “Character is Everything: Promoting Ethical Excellence in Sports.”

Mike Murphy, boys’ basketball coach at La Habra Sonora, said crowd behavior at high school games, from taunting to heckling, trickles down from the professional levels.

“The fans are worse now than ever before,” Murphy said.

During a boys’ basketball game between Crespi and Notre Dame last Friday, an official asked a uniformed security guard to help quiet a Crespi booster who was criticizing the officials too loudly.

Rich Fong, Crespi athletic director, said planning and having enough supervision is critical to maintaining crowd control.

“I can understand yelling and being boisterous,” Fong said. “But I cannot understand getting personal or referring to someone’s heritage. It’s almost like the brain goes into vapor lock.”

Though sportsmanship may not be what we expect all the time, it is not dead.

“Sportsmanship is very much alive and well in many quarters of amateur sports,” Gough said. “What we’re seeing among sports fans is not all that unique to sports. It’s just another unfortunate example of the no-place-for-second-place attitude that’s plaguing our culture.”

Unfortunately, that attitude sometimes spills into play.

There were two examples involving girls’ basketball teams last month. In both cases, the consequences were severe.

After losing a semifinal game in the Santa Ana Valley tournament in December, a Dominguez player punched a Westminster player while the teams shook hands. A melee ensued.

Dominguez clearly started the fight, according to tournament director Lionel Horn, but both schools suffered the same fate--disqualification from the tournament.

Similar altercations during the 1993-94 basketball season prompted Marmonte League officials to ban postgame handshakes between member schools.

The policy was adopted because scuffles broke out after several games, including one in which a player threw a punch while the teams were shaking hands.

But the league rescinded the ban soon after because of a backlash from critics who bemoaned it as the death of sportsmanship.

Sometimes, the antagonism between teams is incited by unruly fans.

Sheri Ross, athletic director at El Toro, suspended her school’s girls’ basketball team from the Huntington Beach Marina tournament in December for its fans’ behavior at a tournament in Santa Barbara days earlier.

A 15-year-old boy claimed he was attacked after the El Toro-Chino Don Lugo game by two El Toro supporters, who questioned the boy’s rooting for Don Lugo, according to the Santa Barbara Police Dept. The boy suffered a cut over an eye.

San Diego Rancho Bernardo High filed a complaint with the host hotel, alleging El Toro supporters harassed players and loitered in the lobby, according to tournament director Steve Kozaki.

“We didn’t take strong enough action in the past,” Ross said. “The past is done, and now we’re doing what we should be doing. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do--to take a stand.”

Ross’s action was applauded by her peers.

“That took guts,” said Jerry Jelnick, Corona del Mar’s athletic director. “Maybe it will show other parents [what] could happen.”

It certainly worked for El Toro.

The North Hollywood’s girls’ basketball team was the first home opponent of El Toro following the suspension, and Coach Rich Allen said he was impressed with the school’s response.

“It was the calm after the storm,” Allen said. “Everybody was on guard. It was like playing in a Mausoleum. Everybody was very respectful.”

Pete Bonny, athletic director at Huntington Beach Marina, said El Toro’s situation is unique.

“For all the games like El Toro, there’s 99 games where everything goes smoothly and everyone leaves with a good feeling,” he said. “You don’t hear about those games because it’s boring.”

One school will hear about it. Junior Eric Larson of Garden Grove Pacifica said he was writing a letter to Manhattan Beach Mira Costa, a team the Mariners beat this season. When Pacifica played in Las Vegas, Mira Costa--also at the tournament--was there in street clothes to offer good luck before and after the game.

“It’s good to know that people still know what sports are about,” Larson said. ‘I’m writing the letter to say thanks and we’re signing it as a team.”

Dr. George Selleck, a retired clinical psychologist, is founder and president of the nonprofit Sports For Life, which develops sportsmanship-type training programs, school curriculum and live workshops for athletes, coaches, administrators and parents. One of two books he wrote, ‘How to Play the Game of Your Life: A Guide to Success in Sports and Life,’ has been used by the NBA’s rookie transition programs.

“Sportsmanship is a character issue,” Selleck said. “It’s about hard work, respect for others, learning from your mistakes and accepting responsibility for your own behavior.

“Sportsmanship is the end point. Everyone wants it to be the starting point.”

Some leagues have taken to sportsmanship symposiums at the beginning of the school year, where as many as 30 students from each school (representing different sports, the band, cheerleaders, etc.) gather to discuss solutions to sportsmanship issues.

In the Marmonte League, schools are expected to compete for the league sportsmanship award just as enthusiastically as they might for a football or basketball title.

“I think the key [to sportsmanship] is when the coaches like each other and when the league gets along, you don’t have problems,” said Terry Dobbins, athletic director at Royal. “If something happens, we will head it off.”

In at least one sport, the method is working. The head of officials in Ventura County told Marmonte League athletic directors this week their soccer players have been issued fewer red cards this season than any other league in the region.

At Temescal Canyon and Elsinore high schools, both in Lake Elsinore, administrators use soccer tactics to warn offending fans. They issue yellow cards.

On the card is a message students came up with at the Sunkist League’s 1996 symposium. It reads, in part, “Be a fan, not a fanatic. We need your support and enthusiasm, not your criticism and yelling.”

“Sometimes people don’t realize they’re out of hand unless someone tells them,” said Roger Blake, Elsinore athletic director. “Adults are like kids--they don’t want to be embarrassed.”

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Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Gary Klein and Eric Sondheimer contributed to this story.