It’s 12 months No. 49 protecting highschool sports activities in Southern California. Let me let you know the way it began.
It was the time of Watergate and new heroes similar to journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering corruption on the highest degree, inspiring future journalists. Whereas attending Poly Excessive in Solar Valley, Pete Kokon, the sports activities editor of the San Fernando Solar, supplied to pay me $15 every week to jot down a narrative about highschool sports activities. It was the primary lesson of a sportswriter — don’t fear concerning the cash, bask within the highlight of getting your identify seem in a byline.
Kokon was essentially the most entertaining character I’ve ever met. He owned an residence constructing in Sherman Oaks and lived in his “penthouse,” which consisted of getting into a display screen door that was by no means locked and seeing a small room on the highest ground. He’d go away his keys in his unlocked automobile below a mat. He used to cuss out Ronald Reagan each time his identify was talked about. He taught me find out how to wager on the race observe, saying, “Give me a dollar,” earlier than going to the window to put a $2 wager.
Eric Sondheimer giving a speech in 1989 on the Nationwide Soccer Basis and School Corridor of Fame at Knollwood Nation Membership.
(Bob Messina Pictures)
He taught me find out how to play golf, inviting me to Woodland Hills Nation Membership and shouting out his membership ID quantity to pay for all the things from meals to shirts to drinks. He’d write all his tales on an historical Royal typewriter. He smoked cigars and as soon as was a boxing promoter. Two of his greatest mates have been Corridor of Famers Don Drysdale and Bob Waterfield, fellow Van Nuys Excessive graduates. Everybody knew him, appreciated him and feared him each time he received offended.
Pete Kokon lined highschool sports activities within the San Fernando Valley for greater than 60 years.
(Valley Instances)
A younger Paul Skenes at El Toro Excessive. In Southern California, you by no means know when {the teenager} you’re speaking to is a future Corridor of Famer. pic.twitter.com/8CJWbIyZja
— eric sondheimer (@latsondheimer) August 2, 2025
I’ve at all times handled highschool sports activities as totally different than faculty or execs. These are youngsters, with criticism of coaches and athletes principally off limits. However occasions are altering. Gamers are getting paid. Coaches are partaking in moral lapses. It’s a rising problem. I’ll proceed to respect the custom of highschool sports activities being about having enjoyable however insist on guidelines being adopted.
Eric Sondheimer interviews Corona Centennial’s Eric Freeny on the finish of the state championship in Sacramento in March 2022. Freeny is now a freshman at UCLA.
(Nick Koza)
There are such a lot of tales of coaches getting mad. Typically it takes time for them to know I’m simply making an attempt to do my job as a good, devoted journalist who understands my duties and remembers my function.
Let me give an instance. At one level years in the past, Sylmar basketball coach Bort Escorto stopped reporting scores. Perhaps it had one thing to do with writing about transfers. Perhaps not. However in the present day, he at all times solutions my calls, “I didn’t do it.”
Let me be blunt. I don’t write about gamers just because they’ve stars subsequent to their identify. I write about people who find themselves good gamers, good college students, good teammates, good residents. That’s my mission.
— eric sondheimer (@latsondheimer) August 10, 2025
You understand you’ve gained any argument when somebody claims your bias for one faculty over one other. That was the weekly debate years in the past amongst Crespi and Notre Dame followers. Indicators have been made, barbs have been shouted. It made me chortle. Now it’s about sharing selfies.
What retains me coming again each season are the numerous new tales to inform. No space has a bigger, extra numerous assortment of high athletes from a wide range of sports activities than Southern California.
Eric Sondheimer interviews sophomore Tajh Ariza after a basketball recreation in 2022.
(Nick Koza)
There was a time greater than a 12 months in the past that I received annoyed with the negativity occurring on the planet. I wanted to do one thing to alter my perspective. That’s once I vowed to jot down one thing optimistic every single day about highschool sports activities. Prep Speak was created to assist encourage me and hopefully others {that a} optimistic message can break via in an period of social media nonsense.
Eric Sondheimer interviews coach Ed Azzam of Westchester in 2020.
(Nick Koza)
By the years as expertise modified, I’ve tailored, similar to sprinting from video games to discover a rotary phone in a locked P.E. workplace or driving to a cellphone sales space to name in a narrative below deadline strain. I’ve climbed fences after being locked in because the final individual in a stadium. I’ve sat on a fitness center ground in darkness writing a narrative. One evening at Bishop Alemany, I misplaced my cellphone on the soccer subject. I used to be able to throw up in embarrassment. The athletic director, Randy Thompson, discovered it. My story was saved. I’ve discovered to take movies and shoot images and communicate in entrance of audiences (thanks to speech class 101 at CSUN).
Right this moment’s world for highschool sports activities reporters is about not getting kicked out by safety after video games when everybody has left and staying calm when safety doesn’t wish to allow you to in earlier than video games or on a sideline with a press cross to do your job. Widespread sense is disappearing within the identify of following orders.
I have already got gold passes from the Southern Part and Metropolis Part, which implies if I step away, I’ll nonetheless be capable to attend occasions.
When and the way this ends has but to be determined. Pete Kokon died at age 85 in 1998 when he was discovered together with his TV on and the channel tuned to ESPN in his penthouse residence.
So long as a degree of professionalism stays amongst stakeholders, I’ll proceed to do my greatest to inform tales. My job is about serving the general public, not myself, and that will probably be my mission ceaselessly.
