By Joe Snyder
Serra High’s head track and field coach Jasmine Frost was named Daily Breeze South Bay Co-Coach of Year for the boys’ team with Manhattan Beach Mira Costa’s Moe Russell a few weeks ago.
Frost, a 2019 graduate of Serra who keyed the Cavaliers’ girls’ track and field squad to three CIF-Southern Section Division IV and one CIF-State crown, guided Serra’s boys to their second consecutive Southern Section Division IV crown. Behind their depth among the sprinters, Serra, which tied Calabasas Viewpoint for the Southern Section Division IV title in 2025, outscored second-place Encino Crespi 70-49.
Frost was in her first season as the Cavaliers’ coach, replacing Princeton Williams, who was South Bay Boys’ Coach of the Year last year. Williams stepped down after last season due to family reasons. Williams coached Serra’s boys to the co-championship with Viewpoint.
Serra’s boys managed to have one athlete and its 4×100-meter relay team make the squad. The Cavaliers’ 4×100 relay team of sophomore Lamar Roberson, junior Landon Thomas, sophomore Lawson Griggs-Andrew and junior Wesley Ace were among several that won the Southern Section Division IV championship with a time of 41.47 seconds on May 16 at Moorpark High. Serra’s 4×100 finished seventh overall in the Southern Section Masters Championships on May 23 at the same spot but came through with a fifth-place finish in the CIF-State Championships with a season best time of 40.97 on May 30 at Buchanan High in Clovis. Thomas made all-area in the 400 meters, also winning the Division IV title. He has a best time of 47.35 seconds at the event.
Torrance sprinter Nicolas Obingba and Carson hurdler Jayden Rendon made all-South Bay in two events. Obingba made it in the 100- and 200-meter dashes after winning Division II titles in both events. He finished sixth in the highly competitive 100 in the state championships at 10.47. Obingba has personal best times of 10.20 in the 100 he did in the state prelims last year and 20.66 in the 200 in winning that event in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on April 18 in Walnut. Obingba’s best 100 time this year was 10.24, also at Mt. SAC. Rendon, a senior bound for University of Southern California, swept the all-area in the 110-meter high and 300-meter intermediate hurdles. Rendon swept the CIF-Los Angeles City championships in both events. He finished second in the 300 intermediates clocking 13.46. He was sixth in the 110 highs in 13.87.
Harbor City Narbonne had three athletes make the ambulatory (equivalent to the Paralympics) in Daniel Ramirez, Michael Cavalier and Zye Yon Berry.
No Serra, Gardena nor North Torrance athletes made the all-South Bay girls’ team but several from Carson. Those include Christina Gray (100), Mariah Stovall (100), London Cooley (400), Samaria Miller (100 hurdles), Kelis Hicks (long jump), Ketis Acker (long jump and triple jump), and Sandra Ale (shot put). Also making all-area in the triple jump was South Torrance’s Isabella Callivari.
The other South Bay boys’ track and field Co-Coach of the Year with Manhattan Beach Mira Costa’s Moe Russell who guided the Mustangs to the CIF-Southern Section Division I crown, their first ever.
Girls’ Coach of the Year was Playa del Rey St. Bernard’s Sharstone Ganz, who guided the Lady Vikings to third place in the CIF-Southern Section Division IV Championships.
St. Bernard was led by Lorrin Hervey who won the Southern Section and California state 100 hurdles. She won the state crown timing 13.29, one of the best in the United States this year. Hervey was South Bay Girls’ Track and Field Athlete of the Year.
The Boys’ Athlete of the Year was Redondo shot put and discus standout Bo Ausmus. Ausmus won the CIF-Southern Section Division I and Masters championships in both events. He placed second in the CIF-State Finals at the discus with a personal best toss of 200 feet, one inch. Ausmus finished fourth in the shot put at 58-7.75 but has a personal best of 63-4 at the event. He helped Redondo take fifth in the CIF-Southern Section Division I finals and third in the California State Championships. Last fall, Ausmus keyed the Sea Hawks’ football team to their first CIF-Southern Section final since 1944 losing the Division V championship to Arcadia Rio Hondo Prep 29-7. Ausmus is headed to Fresno State University on a football scholarship.
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Numerous sports played in U.S. history
This Saturday will mark the semi-quincentennial (250th anniversary) of the United States independence.
Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago, the country was made up predominantly of those coming from Great Britain who were seeking their own independence of this country and they brought their sports with them as most of the American sports derived from those but eventually turned different.
Baseball and American football, in fact, started from the British sports. American baseball was officially invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N.Y., where the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located. However, it developed from two British sports, British baseball and rounders (very similar to baseball but with different rules). In fact, some games similar to baseball date back to the 13th century in Europe but the name “baseball” was spelled base-ball that came from a children’s book “A Little Pretty Pocket Book” written in 1744 by John Newbey.
Some British baseball and rounder games were played in the United States during the colonial era and early America.
In 1845, Alexander Cartwright of New York City started one of the first teams, the New York Knickerbockers, and made a set of rules where many exist even today.
As time went on, some of those rules changed. In fact, there was a time when a ball was hit out of the field, the batter was out. Of course, today, it’s a home run. All home runs were inside the park where today, one doesn’t see those a lot.
The first professional baseball team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings (today the Reds) who began in 1869. Two years later, the first league, the National Baseball Association, was founded and was renamed the National League in 1876. The American League was founded in 1901 with the first World Series in 1903, but it was not held a year later before being held as an annual event for the first time in 1905. Each league had eight teams and played a total of 154 games per season.
Baseball finally expanded west with the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles and the New York Giants to San Francisco in 1958. In the early 1960’s, baseball leagues were expanded to 10 teams in each league and the season expanded to 162 teams. It went to 12 with the leagues divided into the Western and Eastern Division in 1969 and, in 1993, going to more teams that made the leagues into three divisions (Eastern, Central and Western). Today, there are 30 teams; 15 in the American and 15 in the National with divisions of five teams apiece. Twenty-nine of the 30 teams are in the United States with the other being the Toronto Bluejays in Canada.
More expansions are due in the near future with a possibility of even one in Mexico City.
American Football was set up by another sport invented in England in rugby. Football made changes and developments during the late 19th century and into the 20th century. Rugby and early American football, in fact, did not include the forward pass until invented by the legendary Notre Dame University coach Knute Rockne in the early 20th century.
Those who seen photos of early American football, players wore leather helmets with no chin guards and other protective gear. It is one of the most dangerous sports and more protections, also including knee pads and protection on arms and a harder helmet, were developed in the late 1940’s.
The National Football League began in 1920 with several teams. Before the Rams moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles in 1946, L.A. briefly had an NFL team in the mid-1920s as it played in the new Coliseum (built in 1923). They were called the Yellowjackets. However, college football, especially University of Southern California, dominated the scene and the franchise folded.
Today, there are 32 teams in the NFL including two in L.A., the Chargers and the Rams who play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. There is also a Super Bowl, which started in the L.A. Coliseum in the 1966-67 season with the NFL champion Green Bay Packers defeating the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. The AFL (American Football League) and NFL merged in 1969. The Rams won their first Super Bowl in L.A. four years ago but won while being the St. Louis Rams in the 1999-2000 season. They won the NFL championship in 1951.
Basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in Massachusetts in 1891.
Early basketball scores were way lower than the ones today due to no shot clock and baskets being shot differently, mostly with two hands. When the one-handed shot was introduced in the late 1930s, they began to get higher. Also, basketball is played quicker than its early days. The 24-second shot clock came to the National Basketball Association in 1955. Today in high school and college, there is a 30-second shot clock for the women and 35 seconds for the men.
Pro basketball began in the 1930s but a more permanent one, the National Basketball Association, was founded in 1947. The current Los Angeles Lakers began in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1947 before moving to L.A. at the Sports Arena (1959-2016) in 1960. The Lakers moved to the Forum in Inglewood in 1967 before going to its current home, the Crypto.com Arena (originally the Staples Center) in 1999.
The L.A. Clippers began in 1973 as the Buffalo Braves in Buffalo, N.Y. before moving to San Diego as the Clippers four years later. The Clippers moved to the L.A. Sports Arena in 1984; shared the Staples Center-Crypto.com Arena with the Lakers from 1999-2023, before moving to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
The first sport played in the U.S.A. was lacrosse, which was played by native Americans dating back to about the 12th century. Until about 20 years ago, lacrosse was mostly popular on the east coast but spread west as time went on.
Horse racing was also popular in early American days.
Soccer (world football) was the most popular sport in the world for well over a century but Americans hardly knew the sport until the 1960s when Brazilian sensation Pele popularized the sport further and which resulted in the founding of the American Youth Soccer Organization in Torrance in 1964.
As time went on, there were small-scale professional soccer leagues that included the North American Soccer League in the 1970s. One was the Los Angeles Aztecs that played their home games at El Camino College. They won the North American Soccer League Cup in their first season in 1974. It folded in the 1980s.
Following the U.S. hosting the World Cup Soccer in 1994, the first Major League Soccer started two years later that included the L.A. Galaxy. They played the first several seasons at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena before the Home Depot Center (now Dignity Health Sports Center) was completed in 2004 on the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus in Carson. There was also Chivas USA in the league before it folded about 10 years ago and replaced by the Los Angeles Football Club several years ago. L.A. has enjoyed success in pro soccer with the Galaxy winning several Major League Soccer Cups, the last one in 2024. They had numerous outstanding players. L.A.F.C. won its only championship in 2022.
Currently, World Cup Soccer is going on in the United States, Canada and Mexico with all three host teams advancing to the knockout rounds, which began last Sunday. The U.S. began on Wednesday against Bosnia-Herzegovina at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
There is also women’s soccer, including a current pro team called Angel City. They also have their own World Cup, which has been mostly dominated by the United States.
Volleyball was invented in 1895 by William Morgan. Beach volleyball was played since the 1930s, especially in Santa Monica and Redondo Beach. Today, there is pro beach volleyball but pro indoor volleyball has been rarely played in the U.S., although throughout much of Europe. The U.S. Olympic indoor volleyball teams, however, have won several medals and is played in the colleges and high schools.
Numerous other sports, including skateboarding, bicycling, swimming, water polo, tennis, skiing, water skiing, snowboarding, track and field, and way more are also popular. A more recent popular sport is pickleball, which is a little like paddle tennis but some differences.
