talk

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High has been known for years as the school for kickers, with the likes of kicking guru Chris Sailer and NFL kickers Nick Folk and Kai Forbath among a long list of standouts.

Notre Dame coach Evan Yabu has been keeping a secret weapon hidden for two years. Charles Szares made a 49-yard field goal for the freshman team in 2024. He was the backup on varsity last season, getting to do one kickoff.

This season as a junior, he has burst onto the scene as a varsity starter. After four games, he is perfect on PATs (23 for 23), perfect on field goals (six for six) and on Friday he was perfect on kicking the ball into the end zone (eight for eight on touchbacks). He also punts.

“I’m not kidding — this is the best kicker/punter I’ve seen,” Yabu said.

Szares has been playing soccer all his life and continues to play for a club team and Notre Dame football.

He started kicking by accident in eighth grade. He was a receiver and a youth football coach saw him fooling around kicking at a flag football game.

“You want to join the team?” the coach asked.

Said Szares: “I’ve had a love and passion ever since.”

Szares knows about Notre Dame’s kicking tradition from looking at the alumni board of top football players in the gym. And Sailer trains him. “He’s outstanding,” Sailer said.

He still hasn’t gotten the opportunity to try a possible game-winning field goal this season, though he made a 45-yard field goal on Friday in a win over Oaks Christian.

“I handle pressure pretty well,” he said. “I’m more confident under pressure oddly.”

He also thanks his long snapper, John Henry Mason, and holder, Levi Gonzaga.

And just remember, he has two seasons to go after the Notre Dame kicking records.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

It’s a day and night to celebrate women in sports.

MaxPreps is hosting an 18-team flag football tournament in San Diego. No. 1 JSerra is competing.

In the evening, Nike has flown in a custom-made outdoor volleyball court so Sherman Oaks Notre Dame can host Harvard-Westlake in a 7 p.m. girls’ volleyball match played on the Notre Dame baseball field. There will be food trucks, music and other surprises.

There’s also the Venice girls volleyball tournament taking place at Venice High and the Woodbridge Classic cross-country meet at the Great Park in Irvine.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

25 years later, it’s still somber waking up on 9/11. Thinking about all those we lost on that terrible day and in the years of war that followed.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

An image of Dick Cheney and some of the White House staff in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) on 9/11.

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

For decades scientists and researchers have been vexed by a sound emanating from cats. Not a call of the wild, a roar or a hiss. No, multiple academics have attempted to decipher the meaning behind the mightily adorable meow of the domestic house cat.

Cats, it turns out, are conversationalists. And good news for cat parents: Studies suggest they’re often attempting to talk to us.

“One of the biggest takeaways from scientific research is that meowing seems in many ways to be specialized for communication with humans,” says Jay Schwartz, an associate professor of psychological science at Western Oregon University. “In that sense, the meow holds the legacy of thousands of years of evolutionary change in cats to adapt to life with humans.”

A clowder of stories celebrating cats and the L.A. people who love them.

Adult cats, specifically, rarely meow to one another, instead preferring other vocal intonations or facial signifiers. The meow, in short, is meant for us.

“The exception is communication between kittens and mothers,” Schwartz says, “which is also the main context where we see meows in wild feline species. One hypothesis is that cats have this instinct to meow towards their mother, and humans in many cases sort of take on that mother role.”

But now that we know that cats are attempting to communicate with us, is there a way for pet caregivers to better understand what a cat is attempting to say? Research is ongoing, but many papers have sought to analyze not only the different pitches and tones of the meow, but also how good we — humans, that is — are at understanding them. There’s evidence at least that we’re listening. One European study indicated that cat owners often meow back at their pets. This is different than, say, dog providers, who were reported to rarely return a canine’s bark.

An informal polling of the researchers interviewed for this article found that, yes, cat parents are likely to return the meows of their feline. And I know from personal experience with my own cat that I am an avid meower.

Asked, for instance, if he meows to his cats, Jonathan B. Losos, an evolutionary biologist and author of the book, “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved From the Savanna to Your Sofa,” wouldn’t deny it. “I’m sure they are deeply offended by my attempts, but yes, yes I do,” Losos says.

But there’s no need to mimic a cat’s meow, especially if one is hoping to train a cat or have them associate certain words with particular rewards — treats, playtime and affection work well for that. And besides, there’s a theory that, with the meow, the cats were evolving to imitate us.

“Our cats’ ancestors were already meowing when they began living alongside humans,” Schwartz says. “We know this because cats’ closest evolutionary relatives, African wild cats, meow.”

Yet there are key differences in the meows. Schwartz says the meow of a domestic cat is “cuter and less harsh” than those of a wild cat. The cats likely knew what they were doing.

“One hypothesis is the meow happened to share some acoustic similarities with the sounds of human infants,” Schwartz says, “and so nearby humans were responsive to it. This set the stage for a co-evolutionary relationship where, over generations, cats began to produce meows that are more fine-tuned for human communication. It’s a case of evolution taking a tool that already exists and modifying it for a new purpose as a species adapts to a different environment.”

And while meows, of course, vary from cat to cat, Kristyn Vitale, a certified applied animal behaviorist and founder of the Michigan-based Maueyes Cat Science and Education center, says there are ways to decode them. Vitale points to research out of a Swedish university that looked at the melody and tone of the meow.

“So when it dips down at the end,” Vitale says of the meow, “that’s often correlated with negative affective states. So, feeling stressed or fearful. You hear that if you’re trying to get your cat into the carrier or messing around with them, like at the vet. Then they’ll often have a downward pitch. And then for happy, more content states, there is an an uptick at the end. They found that to be pretty consistent in their vocalizing. Whether it goes up or down is indicating the cat’s mood.”

And yet the key to understanding a cat’s meow will often rest specifically with that cat’s caretaker. Losos in his book cites a number of papers on cat vocalizations, and one of his favorites is the work of Nicholas Nicastro and the series of studies that followed up on Nicastro’s research. Nicastro made recordings of a number of cat meows when the pets were in different states — being fed, for instance, or brushed. Nicastro also placed cats in unfamiliar environments, hoping to get meows of dissatisfaction.

Nicastro wanted to see whether humans could identify the emotional state of the cat based solely on the sound. “The people did no better than guessing,” Losos says. “They had no clue.” It was an indication, Losos argues, that cats have no uniform language.

But don’t despair, those who want to understand their cats better. Other research has advanced Nicastro’s work, including studies that paired a cat’s meows directly with their caretaker instead of random participants. When those who lived with the cat were involved, the results differed drastically. I joke that I like to think I can understand when my cat’s meow is asking me to open the bedroom window blinds, which is where her desired bird-watching perch is. Losos says I may be right — or at least not entirely wrong.

“The people who lived with the cat were quite good at saying, ‘Chester is unhappy with you,’ or ‘Oliver is very content right now,’ ” Losos says. “What that suggests is that there is a private language that develops between cats and the people they live with in order for cats to communicate what they want or what their mood is. That’s fascinating. You and your cat have worked out how to understand when she’s hungry, for instance.”

Research is continuing to better understand the communication between a cat and the cat’s owner. Schwartz and Vitale, for instance, are hoping to finalize a study soon that looks at how cats may greet their caretakers — or express a form of sadness or confusion when they leave.

“We looked specifically at meows in two contexts: separation from their human in an unfamiliar environment, and then the human’s return,” Schwartz says. “We found some subtle but consistent differences in the pitch and length of meows between those two contexts, suggesting maybe cats have different meows for ‘Where did you go?’ and ‘You’re back!’ ”

Yet there’s one thing that Schwartz wants to make clear. The meow, as cute and attuned as it may be to get a human’s attention, is not in his mind a tool for manipulation, as some have proffered.

“This idea that cats are trying to manipulate us is a big pet peeve of mine,” he says. “I don’t think cats are intentionally manipulating us in the sense of understanding the effects that their meows have on our psychology. However, they probably understand the link between their behavior and ours. If they have learned that meowing is a way to achieve a desired outcome, they’ll do it.”

In other words, cats just want to be heard.

Cheer captain. Student body president. Leader for Shoes for Souls, a nonprofit that gives out shoes to people in need.

Sarah Sobel is one busy teenager at Sierra Canyon High. She knows how to be organized, which her father, David, an assistant athletic director, probably offered some tips to follow.

Sarah took over running Shoes for Souls from her sister, Lindsay, who created the organization in 2016. More than 70,000 shoes have been donated.

High school is a balancing act between academics, school activities and other responsibilities. So far, Sarah is finding time to do all of it.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Vincenzo Morrison, right, a metal worker, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Opper II, an engineer equipment officer, both with 1st Maintenance Battalion, 1st Combat Readiness Regiment, 1st Marine Logistics Group, utilize an underground bunker to repair a drone’s flight controller during a field exercise on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Aug. 19, 2026. The FEX focused on increasing proficiency in tactical communication networks, analog processes, field intermediate maintenance and supply operations, as well as refining Marine combat skills in an expeditionary environment in order to prepare for Exercise Steel Knight 27 at the end of the year. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Desiree Ruiz) 

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

DES MOINES — A feud began brewing Saturday between the presidential campaigns of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) after published accounts that Biden had used part of a speech by a prominent British politician without giving him credit.

Biden acknowledged using the Briton’s lines without attribution. He said it had occurred only once, that he had been pressed for time and that “if I’d have thought, I would have attributed it to him.” But Biden said he had done no wrong, was not sorry–and had not even made a mistake.

Nevertheless, Biden said he would not do it again.

Sources in Biden’s campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they suspected Gephardt’s organization of pointing out to reporters that Biden had used lines virtually verbatim from a British television commercial containing excerpts from a speech by Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.

Joseph Trippi, Gephardt’s deputy national campaign manager, said: “It wasn’t us.”

Still, the incident served to further sour relations between the Biden and Gephardt campaigns.

“It is entirely possible,” said Eric Woolson, Biden’s press secretary in Iowa, “that this will only add to whatever less-than-great feelings that exist between the two campaigns right now. It is obvious from our standpoint that one of the other campaigns feels like Joe Biden is gaining on them.”

If Biden’s opponents and media commentators seize on this episode as a case of plagiarism, it would pose a threat to Biden’s candidacy because it would raise the issue of character, the same issue that drove then-front-runner Gary Hart from the Democratic presidential race last May.

The disclosure of Hart’s rendezvous with model Donna Rice focused attention on what his critics regarded as a character defect–womanizing. If the Biden episode is viewed as plagiarism, it would tend to support allegations that his personality is flawed by a lack of verbal discipline.

In his eagerness to get attention for his candidacy, Biden’s critics contend, he indulges in wisecracks, hyperbole and a lack of candor.

For example, as recently as Friday, at a forum for candidates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Biden, along with the other Democratic candidates present, opposed tuition tax credits. Biden said he had never voted for them.

However, according to a legislative report card issued by the National Education Assn., Biden voted in 1978 against an amendment that would have deleted tuition tax credits.

Didn’t Recall Vote

After the forum, Biden said he did not remember such a vote.

The dispute Saturday over Biden’s use of part of the Kinnock TV commercial came after newspapers, including the Des Moines Register and the New York Times, published stories pointing out that Biden had taken lines from Kinnock for his closing statement in a debate at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 23.

The British Labor Party broadcast the Kinnock commercial during its campaign last May against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Tories. Despite Labor’s loss, the commercial, put together by the director of the movie “Chariots of Fire” and using music written by the composer of the “Chariots of Fire” theme, was credited with boosting Kinnock, the party’s leader, by nearly 20% in the polls.

Videotapes of the commercial, considered a media classic, were given to Biden and a number of other candidates and journalists by William Schneider, political consultant for the Los Angeles Times, who was in London to write about the British election.

Biden ‘Truly Moved’

In a telephone interview with The Times, Biden said the commercial “truly moved me.”

He cited Kinnock’s eloquence with the music as background. Speaking to an audience in his native Wales, the British political leader asked: “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?” Pointing to his wife, he went on: “Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?”

Then, referring to Welsh coal miners among his ancestors, he asked why they had not prospered. “Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing and play and recite and write poetry? Those people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn’t they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak?

“Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.”

A Democratic Platform

Those lines, Biden said, “remind me of what the Democratic Party stands for–that we give people a platform, a place to stand.”

In his closing statement at the Iowa State Fair debate, Biden began:

“I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university?”

Indicating his wife, he added: “Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?”

Then, referring to his Irish kin, he said: “Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse? Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? No, it’s not because they weren’t as smart. It’s not because they didn’t work as hard. It’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand.”

In his interview with The Times, Biden conceded that he had not given Kinnock credit for the lines during his appearance at the fair.

“It was a two-minute closing,” Biden said. “There wasn’t a single thing wrong with what I did. The only thing that made it happen was time–the absolute two minutes. . . . If I’d have thought, I would have attributed it to him.”

Biden said the parallels between himself and Kinnock are true.

“So what if I didn’t attribute it to Kinnock? I can’t quite understand this. If I was making up who I was, then that’s one thing,” he said. “I’m quite frankly confused by the whole thing. Even if I didn’t (cite Kinnock), I do not understand what the big deal is. I guess I’m beginning to understand.”

In retrospect, Biden said, he would rather that he had credited Kinnock.

He agreed it would have been better to do so. Biden said he would go on using Kinnock’s lines–and to give him credit each time. “At a minimum I’m going say, ‘To paraphrase Neil Kinnock. . . .’

‘It Wasn’t Wrong’

“Am I sorry? No. Why would I be? First, it wasn’t wrong, secondly it wasn’t a mistake. And thirdly, it’s much to do about nothing.”

Biden called the dispute “a cheap shot.”

He said he had used Kinnock’s lines before his Iowa State Fair appearance and has used them in his speeches since–each time with full credit. At the state fair, Biden said, was the only time he had not cited his source.

Biden staffers produced an audio tape of Biden’s crediting Kinnock in Okoboji, Iowa, on Aug. 29. On the slightly garbled tape, Biden can be heard to say: “There was an advertisement in the last election (in Britain) and I was sent a copy of it. This advertisement for Neil Kinnock, the Labor Party candidate, expressed for me the best way to quickly say” what it is like to be a Democrat.

“And I apply it to myself,” Biden says on the tape.

Credit on Videotape

The Biden staffers also planned to produce a videotape of his appearance in Sioux City, Iowa, on Aug. 14, during a reception at the Siouxland Senior Center, where he spoke before a crowd of about 300. The Sooland Cable station filmed his address, in which he also is said to have credited Kinnock.

The Boston Globe on Aug. 30 said Biden acknowledged Kinnock when he used his lines in an address in New Hampshire. “Biden premiered his new theme, with credits to Neil Kinnock, the Labor Party leader,” the Globe story says.

Biden counts using Kinnock’s lines–with credit–about 20 times.

Although the Iowa fair appearance was a much larger gathering–nationally televised by C-SPAN, a cable network, and attended by numerous national reporters–Biden estimated that 20% of those in attendance had already heard him give Kinnock credit just a week earlier at a large Democratic Party event, called the Iowa Corn Boil.

In its story about Biden’s fair appearance, the Des Moines Register said it had been given a videotape by “an aide to one of Biden’s opponents, who spoke on the condition that he would not be named.” The Register called it “a novel use of video technology, to try to discredit a candidate.”

Staff writer Robert Shogan contributed to this story.

The home front.

* Television adage: When it bleeds, it leads.

“The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour” on Monday decided to do a round-table talk with big-city mayors to ask about the reaction in their locales after the Rodney King case verdict. Screening calls went out.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor told MacNeil-Lehrer reporter Shannon Bradley that San Diego had managed to avoid major problems through the efforts of local officials, cops and community leaders, as well as an overall improvement in police-community relations in recent years.

At first, Bradley, a former San Diegan, was enthusiastic. Later, she called back with the letdown.

Co-anchor Robert MacNeil thought it would be “unfair” to include O’Connor on the same panel with mayors whose cities suffered violence and looting after the verdict.

Hey, isn’t that what critics say about the media: that they only want to report bad news?

“There’s a certain amount of truth to that,” Bradley says. “Sad to say, but true.”

* T-shirt being sold at London Underground clothing store in Fashion Valley: “NOT GUILTY? B.S.”

Done up graffiti style. Black lettering on white.

Store owner Dean Mostofi says he sold 300 over the weekend, nearly all to affluent white kids.

* So far, the $5,000 reward has not brought a single tip about the identity of the sniper(s) who shot at (but missed) two San Diego cops on Thursday night.

* One of the calls to the San Diego hot line established to let people sound off about the verdict was collect from Los Angeles: A distraught woman asking why L.A. doesn’t have a similar hot line.

* Venting the venters.

San Diegans who manned the hot line will gather May 13 to compare notes on what they heard.

* San Diego hotels and motels report a slight uptick in occupancy from tourists and others fleeing Los Angeles.

The flip side: Some Angelenos with reservations canceled because they needed to protect their homes.

* T-shirt being hawked on street corners in Los Angeles: “My Parents Looted Ralphs and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.”

Robbed of a Protest

Other stuff.

* A thief has stolen the bedsheet cross that Hugh and Elaine Willner draped down the canyon hillside behind their Clairemont home.

The Willners’ cross, meant to show solidarity with the City Council’s fight to save the Mt. Soledad cross, was highly visible from Interstate 5.

The thief is thought to have scaled the steep hill from Morena Boulevard under cover of darkness.

* Yes, the Tinker Bell impersonator on page T10 of the Disneyland supplement included in The Times on Sunday did seem to have a mustache. Nice legs, though.

* Sticker on the toilet-paper dispenser in the men’s room at Bazaar del Mundo: “Recycle Congress.”

* A joint fund-raiser is planned for tonight at Rumors Cafe in Ocean Beach for former Gov. Jerry Brown and congressional hopeful Bill Winston.

Interesting since both of Winston’s major opponents in the Democratic primary, Byron Georgiou and Lynn Schenk, worked for the Brown Administration.

* A San Diego audience will help choose the $100,000 winner for television’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” on May 17. Also audiences in L.A., Orlando, Fla., and Hartford-New Haven.

* Political activism by the ton.

A Save the Rhino Walk is set for 8 a.m. Saturday in Balboa Park.

* Newly formed in San Diego: A social group for former New Yorkers.

No, they do not sit around and compare mugging stories. I checked.

In the Eye of the Beholder

As you know, the hottest political issue in Carlsbad is the beachfront sculpture done by a New York artist.

Some see art. Others see a bunch of bars.

And now an untitled limerick by Charles Nordin in a mobile home park’s newsletter:

A Carlsbad artist, enraged

At an Easterner’s being engaged

To design a new park

Said, “She misses the mark

For she, not an ape, should be caged.”

Don’t ever doubt the toughness of Max Eldridge from Corona Santiago High.

During football season, he’s a 6-foot-3, 220-pound defensive lineman who loves to make quarterbacks feel uncomfortable. He recorded four sacks in the season opener last week against Yucaipa and another on Friday against Temescal Canyon.

As an outfielder-pitcher for the baseball team, he showed off power with his bat and arm. He had eight home runs last season. He’s committed to UC San Diego for baseball.

For him to keep playing football even though baseball will be his sport in college shows that he wants to make his senior year memorable and enjoy his final months playing with his best friends.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

What’s more impressive: Dylan O’Leary, the 25-year-old rookie football coach at San Dimas High, or Dylan O’Leary, the math teacher who graduated from UCLA and got his master’s at La Verne?

He’s good in both roles. San Dimas has started 2-0, with wins over Glendora (24-21) and Chaffey (44-8). His father, Tim, was a longtime baseball coach at Covina. Dylan spent four years as an assistant coach at South Hills.

He used to be a three-sport athlete at San Dimas, which has long used the Wing-T offense in football. When O’Leary was interviewed for the job, one of the first questions was, “Are you going to run the same offense?”

He was truthful in saying no.

San Dimas has switched to a spread offense. O’Leary has helped himself by adding lots of experienced assistant coaches and former head coaches.

Even though O’Leary is young, he’s earned respect in the classroom and on the field. He’s a full-time math teacher with a teaching credential. Even when he was 22 and teaching math to 17- and 18-year-olds at Chino Hills, few were skeptical about his youth.

“I’ve never really had an issue with my age,” he said.

In a time when it’s tough getting a full-time teaching job at such a young age and when coaches are mostly walk-ons, O’Leary is in position to make himself very valuable.

And, if the wins keep piling up, San Dimas might need to put a fence around his classroom so no one steals him away.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

Cutaway display of a concrete masonry basement fallout shelter with an exercise bike, television and library, 1950s. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Getty Images)

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

Harvard-Westlake and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame are teaming with Nike to hold a unique outdoor girls’ volleyball match on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. on a custom outdoor court flown in by Nike. The match will be played on Notre Dame’s baseball diamond under the lights and celebrate volleyball and women’s sports.

It’s called Rally in The Valley Fanfest that will include food trucks, a DJ and Nike interactive activities.

Student broadcasters will participate in the event that will feature an all-women officiating crew.

Nike is heavily involved in the promotion of high school sports and recently signed 14-year-old Harvard-Westlake freshman soccer player Zoe Thompson to an NIL deal. Her sisters, Alyssa and Gisele, signed a deal when they were in high school.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

When talking about the Gerhardt brothers, Hudson, a quarterback, and Bailen, a receiver, first-year Village Christian coach Rand Holdren says there’s never a boring moment when the two are together.

“I want to send them off to their room,” he joked about the brothers bickering with each other.

What brothers don’t occasionally raise their voices, and fight over food, gifts and clothes?

In Village Christian’s 34-0 win over Huntington Park last week, Hudson, a senior, completed 11 of 13 passes for 170 yards and two touchdowns. Bailen, a junior, caught four passes for 91 yards and one touchdown. Of course, if Bailen ever drops a pass, big brother might give him a nasty look.

Holdren left Maranatha to take over the Village Christian program.

“The first day of spring practice, we had nine kids,” he said. “I quickly realized why they called me.”

He’s up to 25 players and hoping the Gerhardt brothers will continue to be entertaining in games and in huddles.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Dean Herrington won his first game as football coach at St. Bernard last week, but the story you had to see to believe was the 6-foot-9 kid who came in to boot extra points.

Garang-Garang Macham is a basketball player from Sudan who joined the football team as a kicker. Soccer is the most popular sport in Sudan, so it’s no surprise he knows how to kick a ball with his big leg. He made two PATs in his first game.

“He wanted to kick last year but couldn’t,” Herrington said.

The question is, was there a uniform for a 6-9 football player?

“The extra large pants fit him,” Herrington said.

And what about trick plays using his height?

“I asked him, ‘You want us to throw the ball up at the goal line and you can outjump them?’ He told me he can’t catch.”

Basketball coach Bernard McCrumby was skeptical of his kicking ability. “Coach, I can kick,” he said.

Now McCrumby and his basketball teammates are out there cheering him on.

“I’m nervous every time he gets out there, but he loves it,” McCrumby said.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

To become a powerhouse in a new sport takes good coaching and good players. JSerra has pulled it off in girls’ flag football.

The Lions have won 36 consecutive games dating to last season, when they went 28-0 and won the Southern Section Division 1 championship.

Lots of credit goes to coach Brian Ong, who started the program in 2023.

Despite losing the Division 1 player of the year, Ava Irwin, to Sierra Canyon, the Lions keep rolling with an 8-0 record this season. Quarterback Kate Meier, who was pretty good last season, is even better this season, and so are her receivers.

But the defense has been particularly impressive.

There’s plenty of challenges ahead, but for now, JSerra has something good going in a sport that keeps attracting more and more fans.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – MAY 11: At the interior entrance to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex headquarters for NORAD two military personnel exit the administrative area May 11, 2004 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Constructed during the Cold War period in 1958, NORAD (North American Aerospace Command) was responsible for external air, missile and space defense. Since September 11, 2001, it now watches 7,000 aircraft per day within the US NORAD covers each aircraft’s flight pattern including contingencies for the US President’s flights and landings. NORAD coordinates with civilian authorities and works with the Pentagon, federal, state and local authorities. Canadian military officials make up 10-15 percent of NORAD’s 326 total staff. NORAD works with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but is not part of DHS. The personnel work at 7,000 feet inside a granite mountain. Two 25-ton security doors seal the inside offices from any type of attack. NORAD has a self sufficient survival system with independent water and air supplies. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

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• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

Cleveland High football coach Mario Guzman loves the Nigerian connection of Oluwafemi Okelola and Moyosoreoluwa Odebunmi, both running backs.

Spelling their names might be the biggest challenge.

They should be major offensive contributors, joining quarterback Domenik Fuentes to fuel the Cavaliers’ attack.

Last season, Odebunmi rushed for 1,139 yards and 11 touchdowns. Okelola had 111 yards rushing and made 83 tackles and had two interceptions on defense.

The Cavaliers open their season on Friday against Narbonne.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

When Junior Dominguez enrolled as a high school freshman at Newbury Park two years ago, he joined the junior varsity football team.

“I had never played a snap of football,” he said. “Not at all.”

Learning how to put on a helmet and how to fasten shoulder pads became his biggest challenge. He’s apparently a quick learner. By season’s end, he was promoted to varsity for the playoffs. Last year, he started at right offensive tackle. Now, Newbury Park is moving the 6-foot-4, 270-pound junior to left tackle.

His coach, Joe Smigiel, is a former offensive lineman who played at Arizona and believes Dominguez is well on his way to earning a college scholarship.

He’s another example of what high school is supposed to be about — trying new things and discovering something you like and are good at.

“I just like the intensity of the game,” Dominguez said. “I’ve noticed I’ve been more aggressive and learning how to succeed.”

Growing up with a mom and dad who work for McDonald’s in management, a young Dominguez got to eat whatever he wanted. He remembers Quarter Pounders being his favorite. If teammates get hungry, he might be lobbied for a trip to McDonald’s.

After games, watch out for the players craving french fries at Newbury Park and knowing someone to seek out who can help.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.