Ethical decision brings painful end to Wasco dream season
WASCO: Community supportive of decision
| Friday, Feb 26 2010 08:36 PM
Last Updated Friday, Feb 26 2010 11:54 PM
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Wasco High School soccer coach Ian Hunter leads the team in a final pre-game talk before heading out for a team dinner in town. Hunter praised the team for its accomplishments this season and how they came together during the recent forfeit.
Raul Rangel got the first phone call early Friday morning. The Wasco High School athletic director had just reported a player had broken a rule, forfeiting the boys soccer Central Section championship to fierce rival Shafter, and it was hard to tell how people would respond.
That first phone call -- all the way from Taft -- was an old friend, telling Rangel how proud he was. Then the calls, e-mails and text messages came faster -- one from a rich Wasco widow, one from an old friend in Los Angeles and even some from people Rangel had never met. They all had one thing in common.
"I have not had one call from anybody that has been negative," Rangel said. "Every call and text and message that has come my way has been positive."
Rangel learned Thursday one Wasco player participated in a club soccer tournament in Las Vegas earlier this month, a violation of Central Section bylaw No. 600. He immediately called the section commissioner to forfeit both the championship game and the Tigers' two previous victories.
"I could have just pushed it under the carpet and we could have played the game," Rangel said.
That would have been wonderful in some ways, said Rangel, who had planned for a huge crowd for Friday night's game with barbecue tents and a drumline from Bakersfield College and accommodations for rooter buses from Shafter.
"You could have a horseshoe contest between Wasco and Shafter, between some of their farmers and some of ours and you'd fill the stadium," Rangel said. "It was quite an opportunity we had."
Instead, the team wore its black uniforms to school for a different reason. Posters and banners around campus proclaimed: "You're still our champions." The team also was honored Friday in the stadium, around the same time they would have played, with a crowd that never got a chance to win a championship cheering them as champions.
Also honored Friday was Shafter's team, which won the section title by default.
"I'm not enjoying it," Shafter coach Jorge Maldonado said. "It's not the way I wanted to win it. I'm happy for my boys; we worked hard and our goal at the beginning of the year was to get to the championship game, and we achieved that.
"But it's more bitter than sweet."
Maldonado said he reported a similar situation in the 2003 season, when he discovered several Shafter players were playing in leagues outside the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports. Those violations brought the Generals' league record from 10-0 to 1-9.
"I give kudos to Wasco for doing what they did," Maldonado said. "I went through the same thing. Most of us coaches, and I'm good friends with most of them, we're trying to do the right thing."
That is Wasco's solace. The part that hurt most, Rangel said, was the reaction of Wasco's players when he and coach Ian Hunter told them the game wouldn't be played.
"They start crying like babies. It is one of the most emotional things (I've) experienced," Rangel said. "They just broke down. They were hit between the eyes. It's just a hard, bitter pill to swallow."
But Rangel wasn't going to sacrifice his ethics. He calls himself "old school" and follows rules to a T.
"I would certainly congratulate the coach and the school's administration for showing the right kind of integrity," said Christopher Meyers, the Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics at Cal State Bakersfield. "I would think there's all kind of temptation there, both because it sounds like it's a relatively minor infraction as opposed to paying an athlete -- and because it's of great value for the school to participate.
"Part of what sports is supposed to teach us is fair play and integrity-based competition. Moving forward in clear violation of the rules would have sent the exact wrong message, the message that winning is more important than the rules."
Rangel said he had the full support of his administration in his decision. He first heard of the violation late Wednesday, when a friend in Bakersfield told him that one of Wasco's players attended the Las Vegas tournament along with several Mira Monte players and students from other schools. The students were asked to go by Mira Monte coach Ricardo Gutierrez, who also coaches the club team Central California Blues. Allegations of the trip surfaced Tuesday, but Mira Monte played its Division III playoff game against Golden Valley on Wednesday anyway. Golden Valley won 2-1.
Meanwhile, Rangel found a roster and some photos of the tournament on the Internet, then met with Hunter and with the student, whom he declined to name, at 6:30 Thursday morning. The player admitted to going to Las Vegas, and Rangel called section commissioner Jim Crichlow with the news.
"There was nothing else to do," Rangel said. "You can do one of two things: You can try to hide it and get away with it, or you can take your medicine."
