Simple Gesture Means Plenty

Some of the greatest acts of sportsmanship go unseen, unheard and unreported because people involved don’t seek recognition.

That was the intention of 14-year-old freshman distance runner Sarah Lopez of Hacienda Heights Wilson. Her gesture of sportsmanship would have remained secret if the adults who found out weren’t so moved.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Lopez insisted.

On the contrary, what she did could influence others in track and field and beyond.

It happened on April 22, soon after the conclusion of the freshman-sophomore 3,200-meter run at the San Gabriel Invitational at Walnut High.

On the second lap, Lopez inadvertently cut off Jessica Iida of Temple City while taking the lead and moving to the inside lane. The two briefly made contact, and Lopez ended up being spiked. When the race was finished, Iida had won and Lopez took fifth place.

But the starter decided to disqualify Iida. When Lopez found out, she located Iida and told her the starter was wrong. The two went to find him.

“He said he already made the decision and wasn’t going to change it,” Lopez said.

That’s when Lopez offered to give her medal to Iida.

“I asked her if she wanted to take my medal because she deserved it,” Lopez said.

At first, Iida rejected the offer.

Then Lopez threatened to just “throw it” away.

Iida finally accepted the medal.

Lopez didn’t tell her coach, Mark Fessenden, about giving up her medal. And it would have stayed that way if Iida hadn’t told her coach at Temple City, Michael Tomasulo, who wrote an e-mail a couple of days later to Fessenden and others, thanking Lopez for her “very classy gesture.”

Iida has come to appreciate what Lopez did.

“I guess a lot of people just want the medals,” Iida said. “They don’t care if they earned it. She really didn’t care about the medal. She wanted to do the right thing.”

The coaches for both schools were so impressed that they decided the act of sportsmanship was something to be talked about and not be hidden.

“There’s so much kid-bashing going on,” Fessenden said. “These are great kids out there, and given the opportunity, they will make the right decision.”

But Lopez didn’t want any attention.

“I preferred it to be just between me and her,” she said.

Fessenden, in an e-mail to colleagues at Wilson, wrote, “It is this type of act that goes far beyond the athletic performance but to the core of Sarah’s and many other of our athletes’ character. Many collegian and professional athletes could learn a very important lesson on character and humility from Sarah. These are the moments that remind me why I left industry to work with young people.”

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Scott Drootin of Newbury Park has become the Larry Brown of high school baseball coaches in the way he keeps winning championships at different schools.

He won three Frontier League titles coaching at Calabasas. He won three Mission League titles coaching at West Hills Chaminade. And this week, Newbury Park clinched the Marmonte League title after finishing in last place two years ago in Drootin’s first season.

Leading the way for the Panthers has been junior Andrew Lambo, who has hit 12 home runs and is 8-1 as a pitcher.

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Sixty-eight schools and organizations were on record opposing SB 1411, which was rejected by the Senate Education Committee in Sacramento this week. The bill would have allowed a one-time transfer for high school athletes without moving.

One high school was listed as voicing support for the bill -- Westchester. But Westchester’s administrators never endorsed the bill. Athletic Director Brian Henderson, on his own, wrote a letter to the committee recommending passage, saying, “Why is someone allowed to transfer to be on a better academic decathlon team and not provided the same opportunity to transfer to be on a better athletic team?”

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.