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New head coach Karl Dorrell observes a practice last week.

Karl Dorrell was confused. As a recruiter for the prestigious University of Colorado, he had always been welcomed wherever he went. But there he was at Crenshaw High School being told that the school would not be sending him any players. “Get the hell out of my school!” Crenshaw High School football coach Robert Garrett said he told Dorrell. “He thought I was joking. I was serious. I kicked his ass out.” Dorrell’s introduction to Garrett was a humorous and unusual one, since the two have since developed a healthy business relationship. Dorrell, who is now UCLA’s head coach, returned to Crenshaw on April 12, this time as an honored guest. It was later learned that Dorrell’s dismissal from Crenshaw had been the result of a miscommunication that occurred between Garrett and a former Colorado coach whom Dorrell had replaced. “It dawned on me at the time that you have to make sure these type of situations don’t happen in your own backyard,” Dorrell said. Earlier this year, Dorrell and the entire UCLA staff put on an all-day free clinic for inner-city high school football coaches that they hope to make an annual event. “The clinic was really something I thought would set a statement right away about trying to control those stereotypes and misconceptions about UCLA being the nice, pretty school over here in Beverly Hills and not really wanting to recruit the inner-city kid,” Dorrell explained. “I don’t think UCLA deserved that type of stereotype.” “We are going to get those kids, whenever possible, the opportunity to be a part of our program and our university,” Dorrell said.

Making The Cut That opportunity, however, depends largely on test scores and grades. Defensive line coach Don Johnson opened the clinic, not with pass-rushing drills but a lecture about NCAA eligibility requirements – 14 core courses, a 2.5 GPA and an 820 SAT score. One of the greatest areas of miscommunication and one of the greatest challenges for UCLA in recruiting inner-city youth are the school’s academic standards. Although a student may be eligible to play at a Div. I program, he may not be admitted to UCLA because an independent committee makes admissions decisions. This spring, non-athlete admits boasted an average weighted GPA of 4.24 and a 1333 SAT score. While the standards for athletes are certainly more lenient, they still exclude many athletes from high schools that lack encouragement or structure. “I think it has to start in the school system first. They’ve got to push people,” sophomore safety Jarrad Page said. “I know at my school they just let people get by taking just algebra. Some people, nobody in their family has ever been to college so they don’t know how to get there.” Certain Pac-10 schools, like Oregon State, which has seven players from the Compton/ Inglewood/ South L.A. area, take advantage of lower academic standards and their relative ease in admitting junior college transfers to get talent out of the inner city, particularly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Former Washington State head coach Mike Price even joked at last year’s Pac-10 media day that he enjoys stealing all the best talent out of California. “It’s the environment. They (other kids) don’t think they can make it out,” Oakland Tech graduate and redshirt freshman defensive lineman Thomas Patton said. “There is talent in Oakland, there are just distractions.”

Location, Location, Location Johnson said the staff continues to do the same recruiting in the inner city that they always have, but Dorrell has a greater presence in the community than previous UCLA head coaches. “Everybody is excited about the coming year. And secondly, I think they are excited to have a minority coach running one of the better programs in the country,” said Dorrell, one of only four black head coaches in the 117 Division I-A football programs. “Ultimately, it comes down to I’ve got to win my share of games.” On the 2002 roster, USC had seven players from Long Beach Poly and seven from the Compton/ Inglewood/South L.A. area. USC has an advantageous location for recruiting players from the L.A. inner cities. Just this year, for example, Manual Arts High School’s football team walked to the USC spring game. “There is a perception that UCLA is ‘out there,’ that it is a suburban school,” Johnson said. “I know a lot of people use that against us, that it is not curtailed for people from the inner city, and that is not the case.” For Long Beach Poly graduate and sophomore tight end Marcedes Lewis, however, location was precisely the appeal of UCLA. “Coming from Long Beach, it is a pretty rough area, and Westwood is considered the bourgeois,” Lewis said. “My friends say they don’t want to feel out of place. They say USC would be the better place because it is in South Central. I came to UCLA to get out of the hood, to make a better life for myself. Location was everything.” Dorrell refuses to believe that geography determines community. “The advantage you have is what you do within the community,” he said. “Anything that is positive like this, that can be a positive reflection for someone that is growing up, whether it is helping one particular kid or 10 more kids, it is worth doing.” That attitude is why Dorrell will never have to worry about getting kicked out of Crenshaw again.