Teens given seats of honor By Larry Altman, Staff Writer Article Launched: 02/16/2008 12:15:28 AM PST El Segundo Youth Football League Coach Dean Pliaconis gathered his former players and the league’s cheerleaders around him Friday morning and began the day with a different kind of pep talk. “I just love you all,” he told the group. “This will probably be the biggest funeral in Los Angeles history. You guys are a part of history. You knew this man and know how lucky you were.” And with Pliaconis’ words, about 100 teenage boys and girls from throughout the South Bay and South Los Angeles boarded two school buses in El Segundo and traveled as special guests to the funeral of Officer Randal Simmons. The police officer from Rancho Palos Verdes, killed last week in a gunbattle in the San Fernando Valley, might have been one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s top cops, but to the teenagers he was simply a coach and mentor in their football league, and a father to their friends, Matthew and Gabrielle. After a brief stop at the LAPD’s 77th Division station, the buses fell in behind eight vans carrying Simmons’ family members to the church. Simmons’ wife and children requested that the young people sit close to them because they were so important to him. Following the family in a motorcade along Los Angeles streets added to the special treatment. “It’s something big,” said Sean DeFrancesco, 15, of El Segundo High School. “It shows how much Randy loved all of us. It’s a big honor.” During his tenure, Simmons, 51, coached about 60 teenage boys in the program, reaching out to them on and off the field. His son, Matthew, joined first as a player about five years ago, but soon his father – a former Washington State cornerback – made his presence felt in the coaching ranks.His daughter signed up for the cheerleading team. Matthew, 15, has moved on to play at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, but Gabrielle, 13, remains a cheerleader whose father poked his head into a practice just two days before his death. “I think he was an amazing man,” said 17-year-old Aryelle Tomlinson, an El Segundo High School student. Although the jerseys they once wore as middle-school- age players didn’t quite fit over their high-school bodies, the boys pulled their old uniforms over their dress shirts and ties and wore them into the Crenshaw Christian Church Faith Dome, a 10,000-seat chapel in the round. Sitting in a section just rows behind the Simmons family, they watched the service an aisle over from Simmons’ other favorite teens, the ones known as Randy’s Kids. Each weekend with the church members of Glory Christian Fellowship International Church of Carson, Simmons drove through some tough streets of Los Angeles and other communities, ministering to disadvantaged and troubled teens. He chose to put his son in the El Segundo football league because Pliaconis signed up players from outside the South Bay city, bringing teens that otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to play football in South Los Angeles to the more affluent area. Together, the multiracial group learned to play together and became a successful team at home and on the road. Simmons quickly began picking up the teenagers from the inner city, mentoring them as he drove. One of those teens, David Mai of Los Angeles, called Simmons a “father figure,” mentor and inspiration, a man he sometimes accompanied to church. “He taught me how to care for people,” the 16-year-old Fremont High School student said. “He was a big impact on my life.” Mai said Simmons “would chew me up” if he got into trouble or received poor grades. “I’m like real hurt,” Mai said. “He was such a good person. You wouldn’t think that would happen to him.” Inside the church, the teens watched police officers from throughout California and the United States arrive, reading the city names on their patches out loud. “Schwarzenegger’s here?” one teen asked when the governor took his place. “Oh, I see him. I see him.” The teens sat quietly, few fidgeting, few leaving for restroom breaks even as the service inched toward 2 hours. Some wiped tears from their eyes as Simmons’ family members and friends eulogized him. They sat at attention when Matthew Simmons took the microphone and acknowledged his former teammates with a gesture before telling the audience how much he loved his father. “He waved to his El Segundo team,” said Dana O’Keefe, who joined her son, Danny. “Matt, he was such a fine young man up there. He was Randy’s son – good for him.” Many of the teens continued on to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, riding in the procession along Los Angeles’ streets. Several teens said they had not been able to speak with Simmons’ children following their father’s death, but attended the service to lend their support. “The thing he taught us the most was staying together as a family,” said Stephen Pliaconis, 16, of El Segundo. “He taught us different life lessons every day.” larry.altman@dailybreeze.com

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