Washington High School

It's tough enough to lose a close basketball game on the road against a nationally ranked team, but imagine losing in overtime, knowing that your team would have won if a point had not mysteriously vanished during regulation play? Washington High girls' Coach Phil Chase is left with just that after losing to undefeated Brea-Olinda, 59-56, in overtime Saturday night in Brea. With Brea-Olinda, the sixth-ranked team in the nation, according to USA Today, trailing the No.

Seven years ago, Ward Serrill was introduced to Bill Resler, a warm and garrulous professor of tax law at the University of Washington who was about to begin his first year as head coach for the girls' varsity basketball team at Seattle's Roosevelt High School. He immediately saw cinematic potential. Resler had some unusual ideas about coaching, which he was about to put into practice for the first time.

Donald Bakeer has taught literature and drama at South-Central Los Angeles high schools for more than 20 years. A father figure to many of his Washington High School students, Bakeer, 48, wrote "Crips," a self-published novel recently released as the movie "South-Central." It is the story of a gang member who is transformed in prison after becoming a Muslim and later tries to keep his son away from gangs. Q: What are the prospects for racial peace here?

For every team such as Dorsey and Venice that's making a run at an undefeated season, there are those that can't seem to buy a victory, be they hopelessly overmatched or simply unable to catch a break. Los Angeles Washington was one of those unfortunate teams until Friday, when the Generals stopped an 18-game losing streak with a 13-9 victory over visiting L.A. Locke. It was Washington's first victory since it defeated University in Week 4 of the 2001 season.

Eric Brady, a 6-foot-8 sophomore forward who was heavily recruited while in high school, says he will transfer from the University of Washington after the 1988-89 season. "I just decided it was best for me to go someplace else," Brady told the Bellevue Journal American on Monday. Gonzaga University in Spokane has offered Brady a scholarship. Although Brady has yet to make an official announcement, he said he was 99% certain he will attend the West Coast Athletic Conference school.

A former teacher at George Washington Preparatory High School pleaded no contest Tuesday to misdemeanor sex charges for making child pornography videos. Rodney Blaine Anderson, 42, entered the plea just before a preliminary hearing on the charges was to begin in Los Angeles Municipal Court. He faces a 16-month state prison term when he is sentenced July 31 by Superior Court Judge Judith Champagne, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Ceballos said.

As on nearly every campaign morning lately, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, went to high school Friday, lauding education and denouncing drugs before a captive assembly in South-Central Los Angeles. "I hope we can have high schools like this all over America," Dukakis told students at Washington Preparatory High School, renowned for academic excellence under principal George McKenna. "This is what the future of America is all about."

Four chairs. Each draped with a black graduation robe. Each with a diploma on the seat. Each representing a student who once attended Washington High School. At center court of the school's Margaret Wilson Physical Education Center last week, the four chairs served as a grim reminder of young lives cut short by gunfire. Students, parents, city officials, businessmen and ministers gathered in the gym to address high school violence, a topic that Washington is all too familiar with.

Fernando Pullum doesn't make promises he can't keep. So when students in his Washington High School marching band learned last fall that they had been invited to play in the New Orleans' Mardi Gras parade next month, Pullum was reluctant to tell them start packing. But last week Pullum and his students began packing boxes after raising nearly $50,000 through bake sales, concerts and donations. "It's going great here," said Pullum. "The kids' spirits are very high.

SPOKANE, Wash. -- The way some people tell it, Gonzaga Coach Mark Few turned down the Washington Huskies' job offer, then turned around and turned them in for recruiting violations. There's a little more to the story, but it makes for a pretty lively rivalry as the teams meet tonight on Gonzaga's campus. This is the case of a 4,700-student Jesuit school from the West Coast Conference outdoing the state's two Pacific 10 universities.

The letters on the board are unfamiliar, as are the sounds that fill the classroom at Port Angeles High School. "Hshoooo," say the students, trying to imitate Klallam language teacher Jamie Valadez's gentle sound, like an exhalation of breath, like a light wind sighing in the cedars. The students are taking the Klallam language class for credit toward college-admission language requirements--just like French, Spanish, German and Japanese--under state legislation passed in 1993.

A former teacher at George Washington Preparatory High School pleaded no contest Tuesday to misdemeanor sex charges for making child pornography videos. Rodney Blaine Anderson, 42, entered the plea just before a preliminary hearing on the charges was to begin in Los Angeles Municipal Court. He faces a 16-month state prison term when he is sentenced July 31 by Superior Court Judge Judith Champagne, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Ceballos said.

Dan Spetner knows something about motivating students. In fact, he almost got arrested for it. While coaching Academic Decathlon students at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles several years ago, he had three run-ins with police. "They kept busting into my classroom because the lights were on at 3 a.m. They couldn't believe we were studying, not vandalizing." His decathlon win record is testament to his technique, and today he's the coach's coach.

TV & RADIO On Second Thought: The History Channel has canceled plans for a series of programs profiling American corporations such as AT&T, DuPont and General Motors that were to have been funded and controlled by the companies themselves. The growing cable network cited "recent concerns expressed which suggested the appearance of lack of objectivity surrounding this work-in-progress" as its reason for abandoning "The Spirit of Enterprise" series.

The Washington High girls' basketball team earned a spot in the record book with its 73-50 victory over Palisades in the City Section Division 4-A final Saturday at the Sports Arena. The title moved Washington into a tie with Locke for the most section championships at five. The first girls' final was in 1972. The outcome was never in doubt as Washington (23-4) took a 22-6 first-quarter lead and extended it to 38-21 at halftime.

At 17, Billy Brown has already garnered invitations to play before thousands. Now he and the other members of the Washington High School marching band and jazz ensemble have received another: to take part next month in the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. "From the way I'm dressed people might think I'm a gangbanger," said Brown, a lanky drummer who frowns with concentration as he practices.

Two Grant High School juniors were stabbed and a 16-year-old student was shot near the campus Tuesday, apparently because of animosity between Armenian and Latino students that led to scattered after-school fighting, school authorities said. Two boys of Armenian descent who were stabbed several times as they walked to their cars were being held overnight for treatment at Valley Hospital Medical Center, where they were listed in fair condition.

Citing health concerns, Al Rowe will not be returning as the Washington High football coach for the 1995-96 season, according to school officials. Rowe resigns after one year at the helm. Richard Harrison Mull was named as Rowe's replacement. Mull, 45, who has served as an assistant coach at Dorsey, Los Angeles and Culver City high schools, will also teach in the special education department.

Two Grant High School juniors were stabbed and a 16-year-old student was shot near the campus Tuesday, apparently because of animosity between Armenian and Latino students that led to scattered after-school fighting, school authorities said. Two boys of Armenian descent who were stabbed several times as they walked to their cars were being held overnight for treatment at Valley Hospital Medical Center, where they were listed in fair condition.