Pompey

Pete Pompey may be "Coach" to the players on his fifth-ranked Edmondson football team. But to his grandsons, 4-year-old Jamal and 3-year-old Jordan Michael, he's known as "Peke.""That's how they pronounce his name, and to them, he's the entire world," said the boys' mother, Rhonda Simms, Pompey's 31-year-old daughter who lives with him."When my father comes home, he's like, `Where are my boys?' And they just come running and he gets down on the floor with them," Simms said."He's a sucker for the boys.

Raytron Leak can't walk the halls of Edmondson High without being stopped or recognized. Teachers and classmates congratulate him on the Redskins' success.Edmondson, ranked No. 2, is the only area team headed to the state football championships, and Leak is a 6-foot-2, 230-pound Division I prospect."This is exciting. This is what high schools want. This is what high school should be all about," Leak said. "We're fortunate to have the talent and motivation from Coach [Pete] Pompey," Leak said.

Randallstown assistant football coach Anthony Knox was named to the Rams' top job yesterday by school principal Eric Calton.Knox, 35, replaces Bruce Strunk, who on Tuesday accepted the football coaching position at Eastern Tech. There, Strunk replaced Nick Arminio, who left to become coach at Toms River High in his native New Jersey.Knox's 12 years of coaching experience include nine years at Edmondson assisting Pete Pompey -- for whom Knox played in the early 1980s -- and James James. He went to Randallstown in 1997.

Here are the Baltimore area's winningiest active coaches.Name School W-LJerry Savage, Loyola 567-370T. Albright, Southern-AA 487-297John Brady, Annapolis 460-89Butch Young, Meade 445-285M. Smith, Southern-B 360-127Woody Williams, Mervo 350-153K. Kazmarek, Broadneck 270-110Pete Pompey, Edmondson 270-111William Wells, St. Frances 264-102D. Appleby, Oakland Mills 253-114M. Amatucci, Calvert Hall 245-91

It has been 13 long seasons, but Pete Pompey finally secured another football championship.Pompey, 58, coached Edmondson's Redskins to their sixth straight win, 20-14, yesterday over City West Division rival Douglass, capturing his first league title -- his sixth overall -- of any kind since 1985.Pompey, whose career includes several years at Dunbar, where he coached then-freshman linebacker Tommy Polley (now at Florida State), ran his record to 170-88. Pompey, in his fifth year since leaving Dunbar, saw his team go 7-3 for the first time since his first fall at Edmondson.

There was only one thing wrong with the resolution of the Pete Pompey affair: It didn't make sense. None of it.As reported in The Sun on Saturday, Pompey funneled some $51,000 of Dunbar's money into an unauthorized bank account he had set up when he was the athletic director and head basketball and football coach, then used some of the money on a series of questionable and undocumented expenditures, some blatantly personal as his electric bill.He may have endangered the college eligibility of some of his former basketball players by paying for their SAT and ACT tests, for which hardship waivers are easily available.

Suspended Dunbar High School coach Pete Pompey, cleared of the threat of criminal charges after months of investigation into his alleged mishandling of school funds more than a year ago, wants his old job back."

When the Baltimore state's attorney's office announced two weeks ago that it would not press criminal charges against Pete Pompey, it said that its 13-month investigation had uncovered "a pattern and practice of undocumented expenditures, poor management and an avoidance of accountability."When Baltimore schools superintendent Walter Amprey said several days later that Pompey probably would not return to his job as basketball coach, football coach and athletic director at Dunbar, but instead would start over at another school, he cited "inappropriate behaviors, poor judgment and not handling funds properly" as his reasoning.

Former Dunbar athletic director and coach Pete Pompey, ousted from his jobs nearly 14 months ago for alleged misuse of athletic funds, has been transferred to Edmondson to replace interim athletic director Anton Sawyer.Baltimore schools superintendent Walter G. Amprey yesterday announced the school board's decision to return Pompey to the school where he spent 15 years coaching three different sports before going to Dunbar in 1986.Pompey had sought to return to Dunbar since an Aug. 5 announcement by Baltimore State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms that his office had insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges.

Nearly a year since Pete Pompey was suspended from his Dunbar High School athletic posts because of alleged mishandling of funds, the Baltimore state's attorney's office soon will conclude its investigation of the matter.The state's attorney then will decide whether to seek an indictment or drop the case."The review is still under way. I can't give any prediction on closure, although closure is imminent," state's attorney Stuart O. Simms said early this week.On July 17, Pompey was placed on administrative leave from Dunbar and forced to vacate his posts as athletic director and coach of its football and basketball teams pending the outcome of the investigation.

I eat, sleep and dream basketball. -Sam Cassell, assistant coach, Washington Wizards He's not kidding. As a kid growing up in the 1980s, Cassell would shoot hoops all day with his pals on East Baltimore's playgrounds, then grab a bite "and brag about what we'd just done to each other." At night, Cassell would curl up in his room on North Montford Street, a ball alongside his bed. Oh, the dreams that lad had. "I was always the point guard for either the Philadelphia 76ers or the New York Knicks," he said.

Baltimore police reported yesterday the slaying of an East Baltimore woman who was found by her son stabbed in the basement of her home. The victim, Phyllis S. Johnson, 40, was the 11th woman slain this year and the city's 162nd homicide victim, according to police figures. Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman, said Johnson's son entered the home in the 1700 block of N. Broadway through the basement and found his mother lying in a pool of blood about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday. Paramedics took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later.

Making predictions about what will happen in high school sports 30 years down the road is admittedly useless. There are myriad things that can occur, from changes in educational policy and philosophy to alterations on the field, to the point where guessing what will happen 30 days from now is like spitting in the wind. Still, let's hope that 30 years from now, Dante Jones is still working the Edmondson sideline as energetically as he did Saturday in the Red Storm's 37-9 Class 2A state football championship win over McDonough.

With three wins last week, Mount St. Joseph, The Sun's top-ranked team, ran its mark to a school record 23-0 and moved from No. 11 to No. 9 in USA Today's Super 25 national rankings. It's the highest national ranking for a local team since Dunbar finished No. 1 in 1991-92 (28-0) under coach Pete Pompey to win the Poets' third mythical national title. Bob Wade coached the other two Poets national champions in 1982-83 (31-0) and 1984-85 (29-1), and Mark Amatucci led Calvert Hall to a mythical title in 1981-82 (34-0)

Morgan State was hoping to take a step last night toward a respectable finish to a rough season, but the Florida A&M Rattlers, led by sophomore quarterback Albert Chester II and senior running back Rashard Pompey, refused to let that happen. Chester produced 202 net yards of offense, completed 14 of 16 passes and rushed for two touchdowns, while Pompey rushed for 101 yards and a score, as the Rattlers put away Morgan State, 27-16, last night before 3,429 at Hughes Stadium. Morgan State (2-7 overall, 1-5 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference)

His nickname is "Shaky," but Antione Smithson has been nothing but steady so far for this year's Fredrick Douglass football team. The 6-foot-1, 185-pounder showed as much during an interdivisional, 14-6 loss to Baltimore City rival City College on Sept. 23. That's when Smithson matched up against the Knights' Sheldon Bell in a showdown of two of the city's premier wide receivers. "I had a really hard practice that week to prepare for him," said Smithson, who had 27 receptions for 874 yards and nine touchdowns last season.

Former Edmondson football and basketball coach Pete Pompey, who will retire as the school's athletic director when the spring season ends, said that he and principal Delphine Lee expect to name his football replacement this week. "[Lee] has mandated that we have coaches who can teach the fundamentals and can coach the players and emphasize that they be good students," said Pompey, who declined to name the candidates interviewed. "It's my ultimate desire to keep the football program moving in the direction that we have it moving in presently.

Three weeks ago, Pete Pompey's Edmondson football team absorbed a 44-point loss to Baltimore City rival Dunbar. And with a .500 record, it appeared the Red Storm could just about pack it in. But Pompey, 64, has never given up on a team in 31 years of coaching, and in this, his final season, despite the Red Storm's relative inexperience, he wasn't about to start. Pompey's faith paid off yesterday at No. 14 Patterson, where his emotionally charged Red Storm scored twice in the second half of a 12-0 shutout for their fourth straight win. Corday Bethel's 21-yard TD run with six minutes left in the third quarter was followed three minutes later by Shawn Logan's 67-yard TD pass to Kenny Briggs.

Edmondson's Pete Pompey says Friday's game at Patterson will be the last time he'll coach a regular-season football game. However, he hopes a victory will prolong his final season. Pompey, 64, said he will retire after his 31st year as a high school football coach, including six seasons at Dunbar. Pompey (220-94-1) ranks fifth among Maryland's active coaches behind Good Counsel's Bob Milloy (291-93-1), Wilde Lake's Doug DuVall (268-62), Middletown's Tim Ambrose (248-77) and Patterson's Roger Wrenn (223-96-2)

At a party two weeks ago, Woodlawn High senior Keith Mallory was reminded of how an athlete's choice of acquaintances can get him into trouble. "Tensions were building, and you could tell that a fight was about to happen, and one of my friends was involved," said Mallory, a college-bound standout defensive back. "I had the option of staying and helping my friend or leaving. I stayed and was able to get him out of trouble." But thinking back, Mallory said, "I realize that was a risky thing to do."