SoCalHoops High School News

Artesia Investigation Winding
Down, Report Due Soon--(May 25, 2000)

The Long Beach Press Telegram is reporting today that the ABC Unified School District has finished its investigation into the Artesia basketball program.  According to a story by Billy Witz and Steve Irvine, two staff reporters who have led the Press-Telegram's own series of investigative reports, the investigative panel appointed by the district has said that it is currently working to finish the written report which it expects to turn over to the school  board at a special closed door session tomorrow.  Following that closed-door session, the district is expected to turn over the report to the CIF Southern Section office and to Suburban League officials.  The paper reported that the report could be turned over as soon as next Tuesday and that portions of the report might also be made available to the public. According to ABC spokesman Gary Smuts, the reason that only portions of the report might be available is due to school district confidentiality policies for personnel who may be named or involved in the report. 

The article can be found at this link, at least until tomorrow when it will scroll off into never-never land; the complete text is also below:

District finishes Artesia probe 

By Billy Witz and Steve Irvine, Staff writers  

The ABC Unified School District has concluded its two-month investigation of the Artesia High boys basketball program, and Superintendent Ron Barnes is expected to present the findings of the inquiry to the district's school board Friday at a special, closed-session meeting. 

The district is then expected to turn over its findings to the CIF Southern Section and the Suburban League perhaps as early as Tuesday and also make portions of the report public.

ABC Director of School Services Gary Smuts, the district's spokesman on the matter, said that confidentiality requirements for district personnel may prevent some portions of the report from being made public.

The investigation is in response to a Press-Telegram story on March 14 that reported that two Artesia High basketball players, Jack Martinez from the Dominican Republic and Jon Stefansson from Iceland, had false information listed on their visas and that Martinez, a junior, was in his fifth year of high school.

Smuts said the committee on which he served along with former CIF Southern Section and State Commissioner Thomas Byrnes, former Bellflower High Principal Dennis Collier and retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Norman Gordon has all but completed its report. Barring any last-minute complications, Barnes will review the report with board members at an 8 a.m. meeting Friday at the district offices.

If neither Barnes nor the board needs more time to review the report, it could be turned over to the CIF and Suburban League early next week, Smuts said. (The school district is closed Monday for Memorial Day.)

"There's no more research going on," said Smuts, who declined to reveal the length of the report. "We're more or less talking about formatting how do you put something down? In the process, this is minor. We're talking about tinkering with a document." 

In March, as he was assembling a list of candidates to serve on the investigative committee, Smuts said that the scope of the probe would not necessarily be limited to what was reported in the Press-Telegram.

Earlier this month, the Press-Telegram also reported on allegations that two former Artesia assistant basketball coaches violated CIF rules by arranging for players to gain residency in the school's district. School officials said they looked into those allegations but found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Two former board members and a group of parents complained that there had been repeated calls over the past five years for the district to examine the basketball program's finances and Head Coach Wayne Merino's contract with a shoe company that provided shoes, uniforms and accessories to Merino's off-season traveling team.

The most recent reports that we've received from sources inside and outside the Artesia program have indicated that Wayne Merino is still working on campus in his role as a math teacher.  The four Artesia players from other countries, Jack Martinez, Amaury Fernandez, Jon Steffanson, and Franklin Matos are all reported to have left the school. Martinez and Fernandez are rumored to still be in the country, possibly in the Philadelphia or New Jersey area;  Steffanson is reportedly home in Iceland and Franklin Matos is reported to have returned to the Dominican.

Will Wayne Merino continue on as coach at Artesia following the release of the report?  For now no one seems certain, and Wayne isn't talking to anyone, at least not to the media, and certainly not the Press-Telegram.   As we noted in a post  last night, the Artesia "Best in the West" summer tournaments (a series of two back-to-back tournaments in June) has apparently been replaced by the "Artesia Shootout" a single tournament at the end of June, so regardless of the outcome of the report, the school seems to be taking the approach that the basketball program will continue.  Whether it will involve Wayne Merino or not is unclear.  We've heard rumors that if Merino does not coach, that he could possibly take a position as a part-time scout for a professional team while continuing to teach at the school.   Again, only time will tell.

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