'98 AWARDS: HANDLE WITH CARE.

Byline: CHRIS BRANAM Local

It was an offhand remark in the heat of the moment.

But when a local high school coach, incensed that the L.A. City Section all-star football meeting had ground to a halt, implied sports writers lacked compassion for the players they report on and write about, the message hit home.

The coach was angered by the comments made by the handful of sports writers on hand that the all-star team wasn't going to make the next morning's papers if the selection committee continued to bicker about minute points, especially at 9 p.m.

This was why coaches don't want the media picking all-star teams: lack of compassion? The secret, we guess, is out. So, in the spirit of the season and buoyed by the epiphany of this particular coach, we thought we'd give out some year-end awards. The following selections were made by a top-level secret committee, known as WCWRRD (We Care, We Really, Really Do):

Best performers of 1998: Ruben Douglas, basketball, Bell-Jeff; Michelle Greco, basketball, Crescenta Valley; Mike Kunes, baseball, Chatsworth; Kenny Carpenter, swimming, Crescenta Valley; Lauren Fleshman, cross country, Canyon; Courtney Guerra, volleyball, Royal; Kyle Boller, football, Hart.

Most inspirational performance: Kevin Lelles, Notre Dame senior cross country runner. Lelles was sidelined for three weeks with a stress fracture in his right ankle prior to the Southern Section finals. Knowing the Knights wouldn't qualify for the state meet without him, Lelles ran and finished seventh in Division IV.

Notre Dame went to state. So did Lelles, who didn't run but put his team above himself. Every young athlete could learn from Lelles about the concept of team.

Best performance, one game: Quartz Hill's Jodie Cox did it all in the Rebels' section quarterfinal softball upset of Righetti in May. Cox pitched 14 innings and had a two-run triple in the 14th that provided the final score: 2-0.

It was actually a game played on two separate days; rain delayed the action after five innings and the final nine were played the next day.

Best teams that came oh-so-close: Chatsworth baseball, second in City 4-A; Harvard-Westlake girls' basketball, second in Southern California Division III; Westlake baseball, second in section Division III.

Best coaching staff: Crescenta Valley baseball. Head coach Phil Torres and assistants Dave Mendoza, Darin Beer and Paul Biggs guided the Falcons to the Southern Section Division I championship - the area's first Division I title since 1975 - just two years after Torres was hired.

Best coaching job, one game: Taft football, City Championship. The Toreadors were embarrassed by Banning 41-13 in September. Then they went out and laid the wood to the Pilots in the rematch, 41-29 in a game that wasn't that close.

Best coaching job you didn't hear about: The Chaminade football staff, headed by Ed Croson. The Eagles, who had fallen on hard times and had only five returning players for '98, went 7-5, won the San Fernando League title and scored 169 more points than in '97.

Best-kept secret: Boller, the state record-holder for passing yards in a season, played the final two weeks with a sore back. He still had enough to lead Hart to the section Division II title. Boller's medical status was provided by Indians assistant coach Dean Harrington four days after the championship game.

Best career move: Jeff Weaver, who couldn't crack Simi Valley's two-man rotation in high school and went on to an All-America career at Fresno State, was a second-round draft choice in '97 by the White Sox. He gambled and returned to college for his junior year (he was draft-eligible the year before because it was his third year of college) and ended up being picked in the first round by the Tigers in June.

But where Weaver really hit paydirt was his choice for adviser - super-agent Scott Boras, who negotiated the Kevin Brown deal with the Dodgers.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--2) Hart's Kyle Boller, left, and Royal's Courtney Guerra, right, stood above the crowd.

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