1 day Ago By LA Times
Having covered high school sports in Southern California since 1976, when there’s a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, it makes me go back in time to when they were teenagers showing early signs of greatness before people knew their names.The City Section is holding its latest Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday, so let me offer some memories of several being inducted.It’s 1999.
Taft football coach Troy Starr is standing by the goal posts for a junior varsity game and pointing out a freshman receiver named Steve Smith, who’s too young to play on varsity. Starr insists the kid is going to be a phenom. Taft was already in the spotlight, having produced 1992 Olympic 400-meter champion Quincy Watts, so now the excitement is returning.
“I’ve never seen anything like him,” Starr said of Smith. “I’ve struggled to contain my excitement. Not only did I see him make outrageous plays catching the ball, but outrageous blocks.
”2025 CIF LA City Section Hall of Fame RSVP and Event Info! Induction of the Class of 2025 is on April 6 at the Odyssey Restaurant in Granada Hills. 11 am - 4 pm. Tickets on sale.
Reserve your seat now! Deadline is March 25. https://t.co/SUIom53dffpic.
twitter.com/acCTpBHl2P— CIF LA City Section (@CIFLACS) March 4, 2025Smith scored 27 touchdowns as a freshman receiver and safety on the JV team. He got to play varsity basketball because there was no age limit and immediately became a starter.
“People come to the game and go, ‘Whoa, who’s No. 11?’” assistant basketball coach Derrick Taylor said in 1999.The rest is history.
Smith, in three years of varsity football, set state records by catching 271 passes for 4,545 yards. He went on to star at USC and win a Super Bowl with the New York Giants. In 2023 he had his Taft jersey number retired.
He’s got two sons headed to the high school ranks. He’s long deserved to become a City Section Hall of Famer.It’s 1994, the senior year for El Camino Real pitcher Randy Wolf.
I had gotten to know the family well while visiting with his parents, James and Judy, at games. Suddenly, without warning, James died. I’m walking into an El Camino Real game and Randy is about to pitch.
He’s standing on the mound with the national anthem playing. Tears are streaming down my face thinking about what he’s feeling with his father gone.A left-hander who thrived under pressure, Wolf twice pitched at Dodger Stadium to deliver City Section championships.
By 1997, Randy and his older brother, Jimmy, an aspiring baseball umpire, were on their way to the majors. Randy played for Pepperdine, then was drafted in the second round by the Philadelphia Phillies. He made his major league debut in 1999 and played his last game in 2015, going 133-125.
It was so fun to watch him succeed, particularly when he pitched for his hometown team, the Dodgers, in 2007 and 2009.Reggie Morris Sr. was one of most influential basketball coaches in City Section history.
At Manual Arts he had to battle against the juggernaut of Crenshaw and coach Willie West, yet found the way to be the disruptor with a little help from Dwayne Polee.It was 1981 when Polee scored 43 points and led Manual Arts to an 82-69 win over Crenshaw in the City championship game before 14,123 at the Sports Arena. Crenshaw had won three straight City titles until Polee’s remarkable performance.
Then in 1988, after losing twice to Crenshaw, including in the 4-A City final, Manual Arts won the state Division I championship, eliminating Crenshaw in the regional playoffs.You have to remember those were the glory days of City Section basketball. The championship games would end around 11:30 p.
m. at the Sports Arena and watching the fans interact and go crazy was memorable itself.Morris put himself right in the middle of all the action and all the greatness, then passed along his coaching genes to his son, Reggie Jr.
, who is on his way to his own Hall of Fame coaching career.Fairfax had this coach, Steve Miller, who’d wear John Travolta-like attire from the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever.” Miller went to UCLA when John Wooden was coaching and even officiated practice games for him.
Before there was a shot clock, he had the audacity to have his team hold the ball for long periods of time without attempting a shot. The halftime score for a game against Locke was 4-2.He went on to win City championships at Fairfax and North Hollywood.
Dana Jones, his star player, scored 29 points and had 29 rebounds in the 1990 City 3-A final for North Hollywood against Fremont.Players wanted to attend North Hollywood so badly that there was a joke that the school’s zoo magnet program had become filled with basketball players instead of future doctors or veterinarians. He did produce one doctor who was a basketball player.
He also guided the North Hollywood girls’ golf team to a City title and once coached the triple jump for the track team. There’s nothing he couldn’t coach.Ryan Braun was getting hit after hit at Granada Hills High.
The Highlanders were competing in the toughest league in the City Section, the West Valley League, which Chatsworth and El Camino Real were dominating, so Braun was overlooked at times.Yet he kept finding ways to break through, including hitting a home run at Dodger Stadium in the 2002 City Invitational final.Braun succeeded at each higher level, first at Miami, then with the Milwaukee Brewers, with whom he won the 2011 National League most valuable player award.
Laurie Healy, then known as Laurie Romero, was the first dominating pitcher for softball power El Camino Real. In 1983 and 1984, she went 34-1 with nine no-hitters and 23 shutouts.Then she became a private coach, helping many others become great pitchers.
Then she became a mother, and her son, Ryon, was a star at Crespi and reached the major leagues.In 2009, Ryon acknowledged he was skeptical of his mom’s athletic achievements. “I always bagged on her, ‘Mom, you were never that good,’” he said.
“One day she pulled out these articles from back in the day. I was pretty impressed. She was legit.
She was the real deal.”Welcome to the City Section Hall of Fame to all those being inducted.Sign up for the L.
A. Times SoCal high school sports newsletter to get scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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