Three fellow Century League coaches have accused
Spartans' Kevin Reynolds of recruiting violations.
By Lance Pugmire
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 18, 2008
The Villa Park High boys' basketball program hadn't had a winning season in 20
years when Kevin Reynolds took over as coach more than a decade ago.
"Basketball was not a priority here," said Reynolds, a husky,
independent auditor who is paid an annual stipend by the school. "Our
mentality was that if we build up the program, kids will want to play for
us."
Reynolds' vision has been realized with 10 Century League championships in the
last 12 years, two Southern Section championship-game appearances since 1997,
and an impressive list of graduates who have played for major colleges.
But that success has also prompted complaints about the tactics Reynolds and
his staff have used to create an
Three rival Century League basketball coaches recently accused
"Every year I compete against [Reynolds] and lose by six or seven points,
and the difference repeatedly is the guys he brings in," Placentia El
Dorado Coach Ryan Mounce told The Times in an
interview, where he was joined by Tustin High Coach Richard Bossenmeyer
and Orange El Modena's Ryan Schmidt. "We just want a level playing field.
Kevin is unwilling to play at our level, and he's thumbing his nose at [the
California Interscholastic Federation]."
Two years ago, Bossenmeyer aired his concerns about
Reynolds denied breaking rules and said the Spartans' 92-8 run in league play
through 2006 led opponents to have a "misperception" about his
program. "I'm proud of what we do, and I don't apologize for our success,"
he said.
Though it is rare for coaches to point the finger publicly at one of their own,
accusations of rule violations are not uncommon in
"I'd like to think most are simply rumors, but in the situations where
there's credible evidence, we ask for the public's help to come forward with
that information and we will follow up," said James Staunton, commissioner
of the Southern Section.
That doesn't happen very often. Spokesman Thom Simmons said the Southern
Section has disciplined no more than 10 cases of undue influence in the last 10
years -- though the penalties can be severe, including loss of playoff
privileges or banishment from the section.
Section officials said the address of the Extended Stay America in Orange was
given by former all-league point guards Kyle Johnson, in 2004, and Kertd Elisaldez, in 2006, and
again last year in a transfer application by Huntington Beach Brethren
Christian player Jeff Jefferson.
"We told the school our concerns were that kids from various locations --
Pico Rivera [Elisaldez], Cypress [Jefferson] and
Sacramento [Johnson] -- had come to this same, one hotel," said Paul
Castillo, formerly the section's assistant commissioner for basketball.
Castillo, who has since retired, said he informed Villa Park Athletic Director
Tom Fox that he was "concerned about the use" of the hotel when it
came up for a third time in the
But the controversy surrounding
Mills' mother, Tracy, told The Times that she met privately on the Villa Park
campus with Reynolds, and that he told her Zach "would fit right in"
on his team.
Such a meeting would be a violation of high school undue-influence rules,
Simmons said, adding that the Southern Section has "an interest in finding
out more of the facts."
Tracy Mills said in an interview that the meeting was arranged by Prince Cassell, the director of her son's club team, after a
conversation in which she expressed frustration with the direction of
Esperanza's varsity.
"I really wanted Zach to change schools and [Cassell]
thought
Reynolds denied that a private meeting with Tracy Mills was arranged. Cassell, whose Southern California Aces use
"She approached me," Reynolds said, "and I told her she had to
speak to my [athletic director] or assistant principal. . . . I told her, 'I
can't talk about this.' . . . She kept peppering me with questions. She
initiated the conversation."
Gary Meek, Esperanza's athletic director, said he asked his coach, Jason Pietsch, to secure a letter from Tracy Mills detailing her
conversation with Reynolds but was told, "She's not going to do
that."
After learning of the situation from Meek, Villa Park officials contacted Tracy
Mills and received a "very apologetic" e-mail from her in which she
stated no school representative ever "contacted the son or initiated
contact,"
Later, Tracy Mills maintained that she had a private meeting with Reynolds and
that Cassell arranged it. "I know the
truth," she said. "I told the truth."
But, concerned that an undue-influence violation might leave her son subject to
a one-year suspension from athletics -- he is staying at Esperanza -- Mills
said she wants to "step out" of further attention to the matter.
Speaking generally, not specifically about the Mills case, section Commissioner
Staunton said, "Families should not be afraid to come forward to us if
coaches are making overtures to them. We want the coach to stop, and if the
parent is innocent the penalty falls on the coach and his school, not the kid."
Reynolds said he knows he has critics and describes the Mills situation as
"much ado about nothing.
"We've been down this road before," he said. "We get an
accusation, it gets researched and it's a nonissue."
What makes
In his letter to the Southern Section, Bossenmeyer
noted the more recent use of the hotel and argued that the addition of players
from elsewhere "cannot be strictly accidental or by coincidence."
Although a family may use an extended-stay hotel room as its valid address
inside a school's boundary as long as it has abandoned its former address, no
member of a school's staff may assist in the athlete's residential placement.
Elisaldez's father, Louis, said in a telephone
interview that he was pointed to the hotel by a member of the Spartans'
coaching staff after he informed the staff that rent on homes and apartments in
the school's attendance area were out of the family's price range.
Louis Elisaldez said the family paid $300 a week for
a one-bedroom hotel room with two beds. Asked whether his son had been courted
by Reynolds or any other Villa Park coach before he enrolled there, he declined
to comment, noting that his son played for
Jefferson, the transfer applicant from Brethren Christian, was not coaxed
toward Villa Park by anyone from the school, his father, Mark, said, adding:
"I sought them out." Johnson, the 2004 transfer from
Meantime, Villa Park is coming off a rare losing league season and opposing
coaches say they are wary of what could be coming next, pointing out that the
Reynolds-coached Villa Park summer team that played in Las Vegas in July
included point guard Timmell Thomas from the high
desert town of Adelanto, and 6-foot-5 forward Tony Adams, formerly of Pomona
Diamond Ranch High.
"Given [Reynolds'] history, you knew with
He said, "It's hard in a world where you're trying to teach kids there's
more to life than winning, to see the way the system works in this whole
sport."
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