High School Athletics

There were two minutes left in Friday night's football game between Garden Grove and host Westminster High School. In Garden Grove's last offensive play -- a long pass -- senior fullback Kevin Telles, 17, charged up from the 30-yard line to block his opponents. Then he abruptly fell, face down and motionless, on the 25-yard line. Several witnesses said he collapsed without sustaining a hit from another player. When he didn't get up, coaches from both teams rushed onto the field with the team physician as Telles began to convulse.

Coaching stipends are being slashed. Vice principals are being forced to double as athletic directors. Trainers' salaries are being eliminated. And that's just in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The sagging economy is pummeling high school athletic departments throughout Southern California, with nearly every school being hit in some way.

A troublesome thought found its way to Erwin Ramirez just before the championship match, as if sailing on currents of warm air inside the gymnasium, carried by the cheers of the crowd. How are we going to pull this one out? It wasn't the first time he and the rest of the Salesian High team had felt like underdogs. They seemed all wrong for volleyball, too short, most of them Latino kids from East L.A., where people don't grow up around the game.

It will be eggheads versus delinquents, overachievers versus might-have-beens, artists versus roughnecks. Except sometimes it may not be so clear which label goes with which boys' high school basketball team. Besant Hill School in Ojai was founded in 1946 by educators and philosophers who wanted to cultivate students' creative expression in the arts as well as their intellectual abilities.

The Office for Civil Rights from the U.S. Department of Education has begun an investigation of the William S. Hart Union High District following a complaint by a parent alleging that the district is discriminating against students on the basis of sex and disability within its sports programs.

Declaring that inequity issues between public and private school athletic programs have become too wide, the Orange County-based Century League has submitted a proposal to require separate playoff divisions for private and public schools for all team sports in the Southern Section. "It's going to be very controversial and generate a lot of talk, but I think it's long overdue," said Carl Sweet, athletic director at Placentia El Dorado High, which is a member of the Century League.

Beneath the bill of his sweat-stained baseball cap are scrawled three simple words: Go get it. As in go get the strikeout. Or go get the win. Kyle Petter, the ace of the West Torrance staff, slid a finger over those words -- "It's an expression that stays with me," he said -- then he peered out to the vacant ball field where he had just struck out 10 batters in four shutout innings. He grinned. "Yeah, go get it." As a sophomore two years ago, Petter was getting something else: poor grades.

Callie Nikoletich wasn't going to play softball this season. She was burned out on the sport, there was too much drama on the team, her back ached and her grades suffered. For seven months, she didn't play. Then came February. After a month-long full-court press by teammates, coaches and boosters to try to coax her back, Nikoletich relented. She returned to Long Beach Wilson's softball program and has been the center of its revival 14 years after the Bruins last won a Moore League title.

LAS VEGAS -- Lance Stephenson, a muscular 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard from Lincoln High in Brooklyn, N.Y., is branding himself like a new shoe being unveiled. He is high school basketball's most recognizable player, following a path blazed by O.J. Mayo and Sebastian Telfair. And he's enjoying every minute of it. "I love the media, because without the media I wouldn't be Lance," he said. Aided by Internet video showing his spectacular dunks and physical skills, Stephenson is the consensus No.