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A fresh start at Verbum Dei
Los Angeles Times
|September 04, 2025
After canceling season four games into 2024, 'The Verb' gradually rebuilds football plans.
ERIC SONDHEIMER Los Angeles Times COACH Gary Parks with Verbum Dei's Pfeifer Heard, left, and Adrian Alvarado.
It was as startling as seeing a bear swimming in a backyard pool.
Travis Russell, the 40year-old Jesuit priest who's president at Verbum Dei High, was carrying around a Craftsman tool box as if he were the school's handyman. He pulled out a hammer to demonstrate he knows what he's doing.
"I had to hang up a picture of the new pope," he said.
It's all hands on deck at "The Verb," a beacon of hope for many in South Los Angeles. With an enrollment of 310 students, the all-boys Catholic school in Watts has a tuition of $4,000, with most families paying $1,200 thanks to assistance from a corporate work study program and other Catholic scholarship funds.
Once a powerhouse in basketball in the 1970s with the likes of Raymond Lewis, David Greenwood and Roy Hamilton, the school canceled its football season after four games in 2024 because of a lack of players. It was a decision made by Russell, who believed his school needed to start over.
This story is from the September 04, 2025 edition of Los Angeles Times.
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