High School Athletics

Orange County high school athletics will undergo tremendous changes over the next few years, all based on a handful of decisions by school administrators. Leagues are reorganizing, athletic budgets have been cut and superintendents are pushing toward a county section as early as the 1994-95 school year. Decisions on those issues will shape athletic programs' futures for the latter part of the decade and, perhaps, into the next century.

Grant Rohach, the standout quarterback at Moorpark High, just got back after spending five days in Iowa on his grandfather's farm, helping feed cows and goats. "It's very quiet," he said. "There's not a lot of people. " It was one of the few breaks Rohach will get this summer, because high school athletes simply don't have time to stop training. "You wake up in the morning. It's not, 'I'm going to the beach today.' I have football," Rohach said. "It's just a continuous thing.

For the money she spent ensuring that her two daughters excelled at softball, Tommie Alcaraz could have paid for a two-bedroom condo or four years at Princeton--with money left over for a top-shelf Volvo. By the time the girls graduated from high school, Alcaraz and her husband, a construction superintendent, had dropped $161,000. On hitting, running and pitching coaches, sometimes four at a time. On club fees, road trips, cleats and bats. On what parents call "the machine."

The 53rd annual Mt. SAC Relays begin Thursday and run through Saturday, with hundreds of high school, college and elite-level track and field athletes participating at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. Thursday's "distance carnival" includes divisions of the 3,000-meter steeplechase and 10,000-meter races. Friday's schedule includes college events, which continue Saturday along with the meet's top international participants. Also on Saturday, high school competitors take center stage, with several individuals and relay teams coming in fresh off impressive performances at last weekend's Arcadia Invitational.

Just last week, the front-page story in the local paper--right up there in the top right corner--was headlined, "Hemet Kiwanis quits barbecue; Valley Kiwanis likely new host." And then the local football coach and his wife were arrested for allegedly providing sex to players. If a town can be turned on its head, this place is testimony: Probably nothing else could so rattle a community and attract out-of-town reporters like moths swarming to a spotlight. "It's like, Hemet is open to sex.

Harvard-Westlake High, one of the most prestigious academic schools in the region and a growing athletic power, has received a commitment of $400,000 over the next four years to promote girls' sports at the Studio City campus. The Wilbur May Foundation donated $100,000 to the school last summer and has promised an identical donation each year through 2000 for girls' athletics. "Then we'll look at it and see if it's going well," said Anita May Rosenstein, president of the foundation.

Kenneth J. Fagans, a 30-year resident of Balboa Island and a longtime commissioner of the organization that oversees Southern California high school athletics, died of a heart attack Saturday at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Fagans, who was elected to the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame in 1991, was 84. He was the commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section office from 1951 until he retired in 1975.

It's time to play ball at the Dana Hills High School Sports Field as the city plans to take down the fences surrounding the new and improved athletic fields today. Nearly six months after the $1.4-million state-of-the-art sports complex was first scheduled to open, the city has pronounced it complete and ready for use by Dana Hills students and staff, as well as the community.

Tour D'Aliso Viejo, a non-competitive bike ride through South County hills and canyons, will take place Aug. 27 to benefit the athletic program at Aliso Niguel High School. The bike rides, on 10-, 25- and 50-mile courses, will be followed by a fitness expo at the high school, 28000 Terrace View Drive. Information: (714) 548-4897.

Coming from far behind their male counterparts in almost all areas of sport, U.S. high school girls continue to make athletic strides in school, joining teams in large numbers and setting performance records every season, according to the Women's Sports Foundation in New York. Yet girls' participation "still lags behind that of boys, and girls' progress is also beginning to slow," said Kathryn Reith, assistant executive director of the foundation.

The TV networks could be scrambling for programming if the NFL lockout lasts into the fall, which is a good reason someone with a video camera should be showing up to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame scholar-athlete banquets to tape the inspiring stories of teenagers making a difference on and off the field. From Orange County to San Bernardino County, from the San Fernando Valley to the San Gabriel Valley, dozens of high school seniors are having their accomplishments recognized this month.

Male and female high school athletes are vulnerable to concussions, but a study finds that such head injuries may produce different symptoms between the sexes. The findings, to be published in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Athletic Training, were released Tuesday at the National Athletic Trainers' Assn. Youth Sports Safety Summit in Washington, D.C. Researchers collected data on 812 sports concussions suffered by 610 male and 202 female high school athletes over two years.

No doctor was waiting on the sideline when JaVion Hartford limped off the field in the second quarter. No trainer came over to examine his painful right knee. No one hurried to bring him ice. The linebacker from tiny Animo Leadership High sat alone on the bench until an assistant coach checked on him, followed a while later by the head coach, who could only guess that Hartford had suffered a hyperextension. "Don't try to be a hero," Coach Jamar Hamilton told him. "I don't want you to play.

Better medical care for high school athletes is an oft-stated goal, but trying to mandate it through legislation has been a political football in California for years. Nearly a decade ago, Assembly Bill 760 was passed, providing $500,000 to place certified athletic trainers at some schools. Before it could happen, though, the money was swept back into the general fund to help replace budget shortfalls. The California Athletic Trainers' Assn. has spearheaded several legislation drives since then, with the stated goal of "requiring licensure for all athletic trainers" and "for every school in California to employ one. " None of the bills has passed.

High school sports are becoming increasingly popular with teens, and with that comes injuries. A new study reveals that fractures are not to be taken lightly. They are they fourth-most-common injury and can cause players to drop out of competition and rack up medical procedures. The study, published recently in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine , looked at fractures that occurred among high school athletes at 100 randomly selected high schools around the country from 2005 to 2009.

Anthony Curran has been coaching pole vaulters at UCLA for 28 years, and he has never had an incoming high school recruit quite like Michael Woepse of Santa Ana Mater Dei. "He's the toughest, most aggressive kid I've ever seen in high school," Curran said. "He has more passion than anyone in the event." Woepse cleared 17 feet 6 inches last month in a dual meet, and on Saturday he could try for 18 feet when he competes in the Arcadia Invitational, where he went a season-best 16-9 last year.

They are on display at many high school basketball games in Southern California this season, providing a very '90s meaning to what used to be known as on-court marksmanship. Newfangled shooting styles or post moves? Hardly. In the tradition of pierced ears and bleached hair, tattoos are now all the rage for many high school athletes. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the basketball court, where sleeveless jerseys and shorts reveal the simple or sometimes extravagant body art.

For generations it has been one of the great American axioms, accepted truth on diamonds, courts and gridirons everywhere: Sports builds character, instilling the values of teamwork and good sportsmanship. But amid fresh headlines of alleged cheating in auto racing, continuing controversies over steroid use in baseball, track and cycling and ugly brawls among basketball players comes a nationwide survey suggesting a decidedly darker vision of sports.

The Los Angeles City Section high school sports program is facing $1.4 million in budget cuts for the next school year, Barbara Fiege, commissioner of athletics for the section, said Monday. The reduction in funding for athletics, which represents a 20% cut, is part of a wide-scale contraction required by the Los Angeles Unified School District because of losses in state funding. "The reality is, because of the economy and the budget restraints of the district, we can't avoid it," Fiege said.