CHATTER: CIVITA INSPIRES CANYON PLAYERS.

Byline: Gerry Gittelson Staff Writer

If inspiration is needed, football players at Canyon High of Canyon Country - seeded second for the Southern Section Div. II playoffs that begin this week - need look no further than volunteer assistant coach Mike Civita. Civita is a functioning quadriplegic who has survived - and flourished - despite a broken neck and shattered vertebrae suffered in a car accident 20 years ago.

Doctors told Civita there was no chance he would regain feeling in his arms and legs and that he would need 24-hour care for the rest of his life, but after six months in the hospital, Civita walked out under his own power and never looked back.

Now 41, he works 40-plus hours a week as administrative assistant to Canyon coach Harry Welch. He breaks down game video, handles the program's technological issues and serves as the Cowboys' public-address announcer for football, baseball, basketball and track and field.

``First of all, Mike Civita is such a motivation to me and all of us, because I don't think anyone has ever overcome more,'' Welch said. ``Yet he asks for less than anyone I've ever known. To me, he doesn't have a handicap. I treat him as a man because he is a man, and like most of the people around here, I don't give him any slack.

``Plus, he's honest and truly is a certifiable genius and technological wiz. I've never met anyone like him.''

Civita, quarterback Austin Civita's uncle, was a Canyon football player, then a fashion model and Hollywood scenemaker before the accident. He now walks with a slow, pronounced limp, but he's walking, and that's most important.

``People ask me all the time if I'm upset or depressed,'' he said, ``but, hey, by all rights, I should be in a box, dead and buried. People don't have the injuries I had - a broken neck, a spinal fusion, and destroyed gall bladder - and survive. I'm maybe one in 30,000 who was able to do so. So every day is a great blessing.''

--Last year's Agoura/Oak Park regional in the Southern Section individual girls' tennis tournament was the toughest of the four, producing both doubles finalists and a singles semifinalist at Seacliff Country Club in Huntington Beach.

This year's regional, which will be held at both schools Saturday, could be even tougher.

Joining the usual representatives from the Channel, Foothill, Frontier, Marmonte, Mission and Tri-Valley leagues will be the champions and runners-up from the Golden and Olympic leagues, which competed at The Claremont Club last season.

The top four singles players and top four doubles teams advance to the round of 16, scheduled for Dec. 1 at Seacliff. The semifinals and finals will be Dec. 2.

--Former Westlake High baseball standout Kevin Howard was the Arizona Fall League's leading hitter. Howard, a second baseman in the Cincinnati Reds' organization, batted .409 for the Mesa Solar Sox. He also had three home runs and 16 RBI in 25 games.

Hart of Newhall product Jamie Shields ranked second in the league in ERA (1.74). The Tampa Bay Devil Rays minor-leaguer was 2-1 with 29 strikeouts and two walks in 31 innings for the Phoenix Desert Dogs, who won the AFL championship.

--Alemany baseball pitcher/outfielder Jeff Pruitt singed with Cal State Northridge. Calabasas High girls' volleyball setter Alexa Sherman signed with Alaska-Fairbanks.

Erik Boal and Heather Gripp contributed.

Gerry Gittelson, [phone]

gerry.gittelson(at)dailynews.com