Published: Sept. 28, 2012 Updated: 3:39 p.m.
Tustin Pop Warner charges go beyond bounties
By KEITH SHARON / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Sometimes, to dominate the ultracompetitive world of Junior Pee Wee
football, you have to change the game.
And many of the changes you can make to get to the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Kissimmee, Florida, have little to do with what happens on the field.
For the Tustin Red Cobras, the 2011 Super Bowl tournament representative from the Western United States, some coaches changed, bent and broke rules regarding sign-ups and the team's roster – and encouraged the mostly 10- and 11-year-old boys to use weight loss techniques described by a professional trainer as life threatening — according to two members of the coaching staff and a parent of one of the players.
Thursday, National Pop Warner announced they will send an independent investigator to Tustin, and, until the investigation is complete, they will suspend the head coach, Darren Crawford, and president, Pat Galentine, of Tustin Pop Warner.
"They cheated in order to get to Florida," said a Red Cobras parent who did not want her name used to protect the identity of her son. "This is a powder keg of crap."
Her point of view is shared by a group of former Red Cobras who have now formed their own team in another league. The most outspoken in that group are former Red Cobras assistant coach John Zanelli and former Red Cobras equipment manager Paul Bunkers.
On Sunday, Sept. 23, the Register reported allegations that last season Tustin coaches paid cash to some players on their youth players for big hits and more cash for knocking star players on opposing teams out of games. Seven sets of Red Cobras parents and players have confirmed that coaches Darren Crawford and Richard Bowman targeted opposing players, offered cash incentives and paid several players for hard hits in games against youth teams from Yorba Linda, Santa Margarita and San Bernardino.
Crawford and Bowman said they've never given cash to players or encouraged them to make hits on or injure opponents for money. The coaches said the allegations were made by a disgruntled parent who convinced other parents and players to lie. Zanelli and Bowman have both been suspended by Pop Warner in the past year.
But Zanelli and Bunkers (who has not been suspended) are not alone in their claims. The Register contacted more than 20 coaches, former coaches, parents, attorneys, medical experts and players to report this story. Many coaches and players repeated allegations of bounties paid to Red Cobra players for clean football plays – and plays that put kids out of games.
Earlier this year, Zanelli and Bunkers were among six parents and four players interviewed by officials from the Orange Empire Conference, which is the governing body over 28 Pop Warner organizations in Southern California. Despite the parents' and players' claims, the OEC found no evidence of a bounty program.
The OEC, however, did look at other allegations by Zanelli, Bunkers and others, and found some of them to be true.
Crawford was placed on probation for misreporting a player's weight. The OEC suspended Bowman for half a season for a physical altercation with another parent while the team was in Florida.
This week, there has been a media frenzy that has enveloped the Red Cobras program with the Today Show, Good Morning America, ESPN, CNN, the John and Ken Show on KFI Radio, and several local television news outlets have been scrambling to get quotes from the Red Cobras players and parents.
Jeoffrey Robinson, an attorney representing Crawford, told NBC, "Mr. Crawford has stated he may have made errors in judgment unrelated to a bounty program and is willing to make any amends possible to make himself a better coach. I'm hoping if nothing else that these accusations will help all of us to focus on what we say to young kids, how we try to motivate them, and what can we do to make sure they play safely themselves."
Crawford could not be reached for comment on this story. Bowman said, "No comment." Attempts to reach Steve McGinnis, the president of the OEC, were unsuccessful.
•••
Before the 2011 season began, the Tustin organization, which includes teams for players from ages 7 to 14 in six tackle football divisions, changed its sign-up rules in an effort to build a super team, Zanelli said.
In 2011, in the Junior Pee Wee division, Tustin fielded three teams. In the past, Tustin had allowed any Junior Pee Wee player to pick any of the three coaches in the division. That's similar to how many Pop Warner leagues operate, splitting up the best players who sign up so all the teams in the division have a similar shot at winning.
But not in 2011 in Tustin. Instead of players picking coaches the coaches picked the players, and they shifted talent to the Red Cobras squad.
"They changed the rules so people couldn't end up on the team randomly," Bunkers said.
Tustin capped its Red Cobras roster at 22 players, which is also a strategic advantage. In Pop Warner, every player must play a minimum of eight offensive or defensive plays in the every game. By capping its roster, Tustin limited its number of "must play" players and maximized the playing time for more talented starters.
In Yorba Linda and Santa Margarita, for example, the Junior Pee Wee rosters had 28 or 29 players, so more "must play" players had to be on the field for more significant time.
(Many Pop Warner teams use "must play" players as wide receivers and position them where they aren't likely to be involved in the action. But because Tustin won by such lopsided scores, the "must play" Red Cobras players got a lot of playing time, and were not always stuck at wide receiver.)
One of the best players on the 2011 Tustin team does not live in Tustin. He played in Anaheim Pop Warner in 2009, but his parents asked for and received a waiver from Anaheim Pop Warner, allowing him to jump leagues.
That player, who became a star on the 2011 Tustin team, was 10 years old when the season began, so he was allowed, per Pop Warner's weight-limit rules, to weigh 105 pounds at the start of the season. A 10-year-old, 100-pound-plus player with speed is like gold in Junior Pee Wee football.
Pop Warner rules also allow "older/lighter" players to play, and these players also can be valuable on the field.
At the Junior Pee Wee level, older/lighter players are smaller (85 pounds or lighter) sixth graders who can play with bigger fifth graders (who weigh up to 105 pounds). It is the goal of every ultracompetitive Pop Warner team to fill its roster with older/lighter players. In Santa Margarita, for example, 15 of the 29 players were older/lighter. In Tustin, 11 of 22 were older/lighter.
In some cases, this rule allows seventh graders to play with fourth graders, and the Red Cobras had one of each.
The problem in Tustin was that one of the older/lighter players wasn't always as light as he needed to be.
In Zanelli's chronology filed with the OEC he referred to that 11-year-old as "Player X."
Player X's father did not return a phone call to discuss this story.
The chronology said Player X weighed more than 85 pounds on Aug. 1, 2011, the first day of football practice. He still weighed more than 85 pounds on Aug. 12, the day each player is officially certified by the league. At this point, Player X could have been immediately moved up to a bigger division, Pee Wee, where he would play with heavier kids.
But Player X was a key piece of the Red Cobra's formula to get to Florida, and the team sought – and received – a waiver from OEC that gave Player X until Aug. 27 to lose the required weight, according to Zanelli's chronology.
Many Pop Warner families are familiar with extreme weight-loss efforts by the children near the cutoff limit. Many boys in Pop Warner diet and, in some cases, take diuretics to lose weight.
Brad Davidson, owner of Stark Training in Irvine and the trainer of professional athletes like Sam Baker who was raised in Tustin and is now playing for the Atlanta Falcons and former Laker Matt Barnes, said extreme dieting for children is "crazy."
"At that age, the stress that dieting puts on the body is unbelievable," Davidson said. "You're stripping the body of electrolytes. The body becomes massively dehydrated. Strength and coordination will be affected. When you lose too many electrolytes, you can die.
"What's more important, a Pee Wee football game or your kid's health? They are putting these kids' lives in danger."
In the case of Player X, Zanelli's chronology says the 11-year-old wore a plastic suit to try to sweat off the weight. He sat in saunas. His teammates said he sucked on Skittles candy to create saliva so he could spit more often.
On Aug. 27, the day of Red Cobras' first regular season game, Player X said he was injured, did not get weighed and did not play.
Pop Warner rules allow players to remain eligible even as they gain one pound a week, up to nine pounds total, over the course of the season. So by the third game of the season, the weight requirement for Player X was 87 pounds. At each weigh-in, the player is allowed eight extra pounds for his pads. So the scale had to read 95 pounds (the boy's weight plus pads) or less for Player X to be eligible.
On Sept. 10, Player X showed up for the pre-game weigh-in as the Red Cobras prepared to play Santa Ana. Crawford and Bowman had arranged for him to wear shoulder pads with holes drilled in them and thigh pads that had been cut in half to make them lighter. Player X made the weight.
After the weigh in, the chronology says, Player X went into a bathroom so he could change into his heavier, safer pads out of sight of officials. Player X played in that day's game and the Red Cobras won 27-6.
It is unclear if Player X was ever certified by the OEC to play in games. It is clear he did not start the season at the proper weight, Zanelli said.
•••
On Sept. 17, the morning of the Red Cobras' game against Lakewood, Player X complained of chest pains and was taken to a hospital, Zanelli's complaint said. Player X missed the game against Lakewood.
"I told his dad to play in the right weight division," Bunkers said. "This isn't worth it."
Another parent said: "I felt sorry for that kid. I talked to his mother and said, 'I can't believe you're allowing him to do this.'"
If Player X wasn't able to slip away to the bathroom without being noticed, he would play games in the illegally altered pads, Zanelli said.
By the time the playoffs rolled round, the weight limit had risen to 94 pounds (102 in pads). Player X was still at the edge of the weight limit.
Before the playoff game against Yorba Linda, Player X weighed in successfully with his illegally altered pads. After the weigh-in his teammates formed a human ring around Player X so officials couldn't see him change into his safer pads, said one parent.
In the second playoff game against Santa Margarita, it was Player X who delivered the big hit of the game that gave the opposing running back a mild concussion. It was Player X, Zanelli said, who got paid after the game.
By the time the team got to Florida, the weight rules changed. The players didn't wear pads during weigh-ins. Player X spent time in the sauna before the first game. At the first weigh-in, he was too heavy. He left the facility and again sat in a sauna, Zanelli said. When he returned, a second scale was found, and he was allowed to be weighed a second time.
This time, Player X made the weight, Zanelli said.
The Red Cobras eventually lost in the semifinals of the Super Bowl tournament to a team from Washington D.C. But they finished the season with a 12-1 record.
Bunkers said that the Red Cobras coaches had gone too far to achieve their goal.
"The goal should be for the kids to have fun," Bunkers said. "But egos get in the way. Some guys are reliving their childhoods through their kids."
Register columnist Frank Mickadeit contributed to this report.
And many of the changes you can make to get to the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Kissimmee, Florida, have little to do with what happens on the field.
For the Tustin Red Cobras, the 2011 Super Bowl tournament representative from the Western United States, some coaches changed, bent and broke rules regarding sign-ups and the team's roster – and encouraged the mostly 10- and 11-year-old boys to use weight loss techniques described by a professional trainer as life threatening — according to two members of the coaching staff and a parent of one of the players.
Thursday, National Pop Warner announced they will send an independent investigator to Tustin, and, until the investigation is complete, they will suspend the head coach, Darren Crawford, and president, Pat Galentine, of Tustin Pop Warner.
"They cheated in order to get to Florida," said a Red Cobras parent who did not want her name used to protect the identity of her son. "This is a powder keg of crap."
Her point of view is shared by a group of former Red Cobras who have now formed their own team in another league. The most outspoken in that group are former Red Cobras assistant coach John Zanelli and former Red Cobras equipment manager Paul Bunkers.
On Sunday, Sept. 23, the Register reported allegations that last season Tustin coaches paid cash to some players on their youth players for big hits and more cash for knocking star players on opposing teams out of games. Seven sets of Red Cobras parents and players have confirmed that coaches Darren Crawford and Richard Bowman targeted opposing players, offered cash incentives and paid several players for hard hits in games against youth teams from Yorba Linda, Santa Margarita and San Bernardino.
Crawford and Bowman said they've never given cash to players or encouraged them to make hits on or injure opponents for money. The coaches said the allegations were made by a disgruntled parent who convinced other parents and players to lie. Zanelli and Bowman have both been suspended by Pop Warner in the past year.
But Zanelli and Bunkers (who has not been suspended) are not alone in their claims. The Register contacted more than 20 coaches, former coaches, parents, attorneys, medical experts and players to report this story. Many coaches and players repeated allegations of bounties paid to Red Cobra players for clean football plays – and plays that put kids out of games.
Earlier this year, Zanelli and Bunkers were among six parents and four players interviewed by officials from the Orange Empire Conference, which is the governing body over 28 Pop Warner organizations in Southern California. Despite the parents' and players' claims, the OEC found no evidence of a bounty program.
The OEC, however, did look at other allegations by Zanelli, Bunkers and others, and found some of them to be true.
Crawford was placed on probation for misreporting a player's weight. The OEC suspended Bowman for half a season for a physical altercation with another parent while the team was in Florida.
This week, there has been a media frenzy that has enveloped the Red Cobras program with the Today Show, Good Morning America, ESPN, CNN, the John and Ken Show on KFI Radio, and several local television news outlets have been scrambling to get quotes from the Red Cobras players and parents.
Jeoffrey Robinson, an attorney representing Crawford, told NBC, "Mr. Crawford has stated he may have made errors in judgment unrelated to a bounty program and is willing to make any amends possible to make himself a better coach. I'm hoping if nothing else that these accusations will help all of us to focus on what we say to young kids, how we try to motivate them, and what can we do to make sure they play safely themselves."
Crawford could not be reached for comment on this story. Bowman said, "No comment." Attempts to reach Steve McGinnis, the president of the OEC, were unsuccessful.
•••
Before the 2011 season began, the Tustin organization, which includes teams for players from ages 7 to 14 in six tackle football divisions, changed its sign-up rules in an effort to build a super team, Zanelli said.
In 2011, in the Junior Pee Wee division, Tustin fielded three teams. In the past, Tustin had allowed any Junior Pee Wee player to pick any of the three coaches in the division. That's similar to how many Pop Warner leagues operate, splitting up the best players who sign up so all the teams in the division have a similar shot at winning.
But not in 2011 in Tustin. Instead of players picking coaches the coaches picked the players, and they shifted talent to the Red Cobras squad.
"They changed the rules so people couldn't end up on the team randomly," Bunkers said.
Tustin capped its Red Cobras roster at 22 players, which is also a strategic advantage. In Pop Warner, every player must play a minimum of eight offensive or defensive plays in the every game. By capping its roster, Tustin limited its number of "must play" players and maximized the playing time for more talented starters.
In Yorba Linda and Santa Margarita, for example, the Junior Pee Wee rosters had 28 or 29 players, so more "must play" players had to be on the field for more significant time.
(Many Pop Warner teams use "must play" players as wide receivers and position them where they aren't likely to be involved in the action. But because Tustin won by such lopsided scores, the "must play" Red Cobras players got a lot of playing time, and were not always stuck at wide receiver.)
One of the best players on the 2011 Tustin team does not live in Tustin. He played in Anaheim Pop Warner in 2009, but his parents asked for and received a waiver from Anaheim Pop Warner, allowing him to jump leagues.
That player, who became a star on the 2011 Tustin team, was 10 years old when the season began, so he was allowed, per Pop Warner's weight-limit rules, to weigh 105 pounds at the start of the season. A 10-year-old, 100-pound-plus player with speed is like gold in Junior Pee Wee football.
Pop Warner rules also allow "older/lighter" players to play, and these players also can be valuable on the field.
At the Junior Pee Wee level, older/lighter players are smaller (85 pounds or lighter) sixth graders who can play with bigger fifth graders (who weigh up to 105 pounds). It is the goal of every ultracompetitive Pop Warner team to fill its roster with older/lighter players. In Santa Margarita, for example, 15 of the 29 players were older/lighter. In Tustin, 11 of 22 were older/lighter.
In some cases, this rule allows seventh graders to play with fourth graders, and the Red Cobras had one of each.
The problem in Tustin was that one of the older/lighter players wasn't always as light as he needed to be.
In Zanelli's chronology filed with the OEC he referred to that 11-year-old as "Player X."
Player X's father did not return a phone call to discuss this story.
The chronology said Player X weighed more than 85 pounds on Aug. 1, 2011, the first day of football practice. He still weighed more than 85 pounds on Aug. 12, the day each player is officially certified by the league. At this point, Player X could have been immediately moved up to a bigger division, Pee Wee, where he would play with heavier kids.
But Player X was a key piece of the Red Cobra's formula to get to Florida, and the team sought – and received – a waiver from OEC that gave Player X until Aug. 27 to lose the required weight, according to Zanelli's chronology.
Many Pop Warner families are familiar with extreme weight-loss efforts by the children near the cutoff limit. Many boys in Pop Warner diet and, in some cases, take diuretics to lose weight.
Brad Davidson, owner of Stark Training in Irvine and the trainer of professional athletes like Sam Baker who was raised in Tustin and is now playing for the Atlanta Falcons and former Laker Matt Barnes, said extreme dieting for children is "crazy."
"At that age, the stress that dieting puts on the body is unbelievable," Davidson said. "You're stripping the body of electrolytes. The body becomes massively dehydrated. Strength and coordination will be affected. When you lose too many electrolytes, you can die.
"What's more important, a Pee Wee football game or your kid's health? They are putting these kids' lives in danger."
In the case of Player X, Zanelli's chronology says the 11-year-old wore a plastic suit to try to sweat off the weight. He sat in saunas. His teammates said he sucked on Skittles candy to create saliva so he could spit more often.
On Aug. 27, the day of Red Cobras' first regular season game, Player X said he was injured, did not get weighed and did not play.
Pop Warner rules allow players to remain eligible even as they gain one pound a week, up to nine pounds total, over the course of the season. So by the third game of the season, the weight requirement for Player X was 87 pounds. At each weigh-in, the player is allowed eight extra pounds for his pads. So the scale had to read 95 pounds (the boy's weight plus pads) or less for Player X to be eligible.
On Sept. 10, Player X showed up for the pre-game weigh-in as the Red Cobras prepared to play Santa Ana. Crawford and Bowman had arranged for him to wear shoulder pads with holes drilled in them and thigh pads that had been cut in half to make them lighter. Player X made the weight.
After the weigh in, the chronology says, Player X went into a bathroom so he could change into his heavier, safer pads out of sight of officials. Player X played in that day's game and the Red Cobras won 27-6.
It is unclear if Player X was ever certified by the OEC to play in games. It is clear he did not start the season at the proper weight, Zanelli said.
•••
On Sept. 17, the morning of the Red Cobras' game against Lakewood, Player X complained of chest pains and was taken to a hospital, Zanelli's complaint said. Player X missed the game against Lakewood.
"I told his dad to play in the right weight division," Bunkers said. "This isn't worth it."
Another parent said: "I felt sorry for that kid. I talked to his mother and said, 'I can't believe you're allowing him to do this.'"
If Player X wasn't able to slip away to the bathroom without being noticed, he would play games in the illegally altered pads, Zanelli said.
By the time the playoffs rolled round, the weight limit had risen to 94 pounds (102 in pads). Player X was still at the edge of the weight limit.
Before the playoff game against Yorba Linda, Player X weighed in successfully with his illegally altered pads. After the weigh-in his teammates formed a human ring around Player X so officials couldn't see him change into his safer pads, said one parent.
In the second playoff game against Santa Margarita, it was Player X who delivered the big hit of the game that gave the opposing running back a mild concussion. It was Player X, Zanelli said, who got paid after the game.
By the time the team got to Florida, the weight rules changed. The players didn't wear pads during weigh-ins. Player X spent time in the sauna before the first game. At the first weigh-in, he was too heavy. He left the facility and again sat in a sauna, Zanelli said. When he returned, a second scale was found, and he was allowed to be weighed a second time.
This time, Player X made the weight, Zanelli said.
The Red Cobras eventually lost in the semifinals of the Super Bowl tournament to a team from Washington D.C. But they finished the season with a 12-1 record.
Bunkers said that the Red Cobras coaches had gone too far to achieve their goal.
"The goal should be for the kids to have fun," Bunkers said. "But egos get in the way. Some guys are reliving their childhoods through their kids."
Register columnist Frank Mickadeit contributed to this report.
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