A football trade school

Sporting News, The, Jan 18, 1999 by Billy Witz

Though Long Beach Poly lacks the facilities and glitz of a big-time high school football program, it has produced plenty of NFL-caliber talent

The football office at Long Beach Polytechnic High School is a windowless, 10-foot by 20- foot room with pale yellow walls and a dingy linoleum floor that's barely large enough to hold two desks, a computer, a telephone, a file cabinet and a bookcase filled with a library of game films.

The weight room, a converted wrestling room in which half the lights are burned out, houses a dozen pieces of equipment that look many years older than the teens who use them.

The football field, which hasn't been used for a home game in nearly 10 years (home games are played at different locations, including Long Beach City College's Veterans Stadium and Woodrow Wilson High School), has bleachers for a few hundred fans, no lights and enough brown clumps of grass among the dirt to make it a seemingly perfect habitat for the school mascot--the Jackrabbit.

Yet, when it comes to producing football players, Poly boasts an embarrassment of riches. It has sent 38 players to the NFL, more than any other high school in the nation. The list includes Gene Washington, Tony Hill, Earl McCullouch, Stephone Paige, Mark Carrier (the Lions safety), Willie McGinest, Marquez Pope, Omar Stoutmire and Leonard Russell.

More nuggets could be on the way. There are as many as eight Division I-A prospects in the Class of '99, including five--quarterback Chris Lewis, running back Larry Croom, cornerback Darrell Rideaux and wide receivers Kareem Kelly and Samie Parker--who are considered among the elite on the West Coast.

"Nice equipment and a nice weight room isn't what it's all about," says Marques Anderson, a sophomore cornerback at UCLA and a second-generation Poly player who is one of 14 former Jackrabbits playing Division I-A. "It's about playing football. It doesn't matter if it's in a parking lot."

The formula for success, naturally, includes exceptional athletic talent and coaching, but what sets it apart is an atmosphere that imbues a sense of what it takes to become a football player. It is, in short, a fraternity or a trade school for football--a place to learn the craft and trade secrets.

"There's a belief system that I think is a big part of this thing," says Jerry Jaso, who graduated from Poly in 1968 and has been its football coach since 1985. "The number one thing is we've had great athletes--you can't be in the NFL without being a great athlete. But I think the thing we have going here is that (alumni) come back and actually work out with the kids. They get a chance to see what an NFL player is like. When our receivers are going against NFL guys, maybe they'll realize there's a fine line between them and that maybe they can make up that space with technique."

Jaso's emphasis on technique is a byproduct of his playing days at UCLA under Tommy Prothro. "We were smaller and not nearly as physical as USC, but technically we were really sound," Jaso says. "I told myself if I ever got the chance to be in a situation where you had superior athletes and you could get them technically and fundamentally sound, then you'd really have something."

An important cog in the system is Don Norford, an assistant coach and head track coach, who for many years has organized summer workouts for Poly alums who are in college or the NFL. Often, they bring friends.

Last summer, for example, Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Buccaneers cornerback Brian Kelly, Falcons linebacker Keith Brooking and Stoutmire, a safety for the Cowboys, were among the former Jackrabbits who participated.

"I'm so competitive, so none of that was overwhelming," says Kelly, who will attend USC if he earns a qualifying SAT score. "If going against an NFL guy or a college guy gets me better, that's what I want to do. The coaches are trying to get me prepared for the next level.... To me, Omar, Willie, all of them are regular people, successful people. I can talk about school, sports, my family, what I plan on doing after college. Most NFL guys never get back to the community where they were born and raised. For them to come back and give back represents good character."

Just as its facilities belie Poly's football team, the school itself is not easy to peg. It's located in one of the roughest parts of Long Beach, yet thanks to a magnet program had more students accepted to UCLA last year than any other school in the state. Its student population includes 40 percent Asian-American, 21 percent black, 17 percent white and 13 percent Hispanic, a diversity best represented, perhaps, by two of its alumni--Cameron Diaz and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

"You learn about everything here," Jaso says. "You've got all socio-economic levels, all races and you get a great education." In the eyes of Dick Lascola, who has run Scouting Evaluation Association--a Southern California scouting service--since 1976, Poly means something else.

"The guys who have scouted for me have a saying," Lascola says. "There's speed and then there's Poly speed. I always think of speed and great athletes. They put out kids who can really run."