Facing a season without two top running backs

Newport Harbor is preparing for the 2010 football season as if running back Cedric Whitaker will not be with the team.

Whitaker, who transferred to Newport Harbor in mid-September last year as a junior, returned to Oakland when summer started. He was not at Newport Harbor on Thursday when the Sailors held their first fall practice. Harbor coach Jeff Brinkley said he has not heard a word from Whitaker since spring, and accepts that Whitaker is unlikely to return.

There also is the matter of Whitaker's eligibility, should he return to Newport Harbor. The 2010-11 school year would be his fifth year of high-school athletic eligibility. He would need to get a hardship waiver from the CIF-Southern Section to be eligible; although Whitaker was quoted in the Daily Pilot that he has filed the hardship waiver paperwork, CIF-SS spokesman Thom Simmons said no such paperwork exists at the CIF-SS office.

Whitaker, 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds, rushed for 967 yards and averaged 97 yards a game and 7 yards a carry in 2009. The Sailors have plenty of good offensive skill-position returnees, including quarterback Austin Rios, receiver Parker Norton and fullback Ryan Andrews, all of whom were All-Sunset League in '09.

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•DaVonte Young had zero chance of becoming athletically eligible at Tustin after publicly saying he was transferring there from Irvine to face better competition. Transferring for athletically motivated reasons is not permissible under CIF rules. Young, who rushed for 1,631 yards and 20 touchdowns last year as a freshman at Irvine, has moved to Lakewood so maybe we will hear more about him there in the 2011 season.

•The CIF-Southern Section office is reviewing paperwork on the transfer of linebacker Todd Hunt, who is trying to become athletically eligible at Mater Dei after moving to Southern California from Connecticut. Hunt, attempting to be granted a hardship waiver, would be an impact player for the Monarchs if he becomes eligible.

•All athletic teams within CIF must take a dead period of 21 consecutive days during which no school-supervised athletic activity can take place. Edison football takes four weeks off. "It worked well for us last year, so we did it again," said Edison coach Dave White, who led the Chargers to a Sunset League championship, a 13-1 record and an appearance in the CIF-SS Pac-5 Division championship game.

•There are interesting quarterback situations at Orange Lutheran and Servite. Lutheran has Mike Markovsky competing for starting quarterback, which he was last year as a junior when starter Bobby Wheatley went out because of pneumonia. But Markovsky could be as valuable, or more, as a defensive back. At Servite, strong-armed Butch Pauu is in the running for the quarterback role, but he was an all-league linebacker as a sophomore last year and, as in Markovsky's case, it is quite demanding for a player to play quarterback and double as a defensive player in the Trinity League.

•Many football stadium playing fields have artificial turf now. One place they don't is at La Habra, home field for La Habra and Sonora. La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta is happy to keep it that way for the time being. "I want to see how long these artificial turf fields last," said Mazzotta, wondering if they are prone to become cement-hard after a few years.

•The La Habra-Orange Lutheran football game of Sept. 3 is at Glover Stadium in Anaheim; you can expect both teams to be in our preseason county top 10 when that is released at ocvarsity.com next week. Orange Lutheran will play its other home games at Orange Coast College.

•Former Rams offensive lineman Jackie Slater, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is coaching offensive linemen at El Modena. Slater coached most recently at Saddleback College, and was an assistant with the Oakland Raiders a few years ago. His El Modena connection: El Modena head coach Ed Drzanek was an assistant coach at Servite when Jackie's son, Matt, was at Servite.

•Laguna Hills will play only nine football games this year. The Hawks are in that new five-team Sea View League, meaning they have only four league games, and as they start in Week 1 (Sept. 10) their sixth nonleague game would have to be in Week 6, when almost every other school is playing its first league game. Other Sea View teams got to 10 overall games, and six nonleague games, by playing week 0 games on Sept. 3.

•Reminder: The Coast View Conference was formed by combining 10 south-county public schools into one group. The 10 schools are then placed into the Sea View League or the South Coast League, with those leagues containing different membership from sport to sport as some schools are stronger in some sports than they are in others.

•A few county baseball players did well in the AFLAC All-American Game for 2011 seniors this past Sunday at Petco Park in San Diego. Edison pitcher Henry Owens struck out three in his one inning of work, Tustin's Travis Harrison drove in a run and scored another and JSerra's Austin Hedges got a hit and scored a run. Hedges also won the Rawlings defensive player of the year award at a pregame banquet.

•The National Federation of High School Associations, which sets rules and regulations of which many are followed by the CIF State and CIF-Southern Section, has placed a ban on composite bats for the 2011 baseball season until such bats meet Batted Ball Coefficient and Restitution standards (a complicated formula). The CIF State has placed stringent restrictions on the type of non-wood bats that can be used in baseball, too.