NOTEBOOK : The Raiders Are Coming--From Mississippi!

The Raiders are coming to the San Gabriel Valley.

No, not the Los Angeles Raiders of the National Football League but the Jackson Academy Raiders of Mississippi.

Jackson, a private prep school with about 400 students, will send its football team to face San Marino in a non-league game in September, 1988. San Marino sent a committee, headed by Principal Jack Rose, to Jackson on Monday to complete details for the game.

Jackson, which has been a perennial power in Mississippi’s private-school division and finished with an 8-2 record last year, will send its team of 40 players, the marching band and booster groups to the game.

That is expected to cost the school $75,000, which will be acquired through fund-raisers, including selling lottery tickets.

The Raiders selected San Marino because of the size of the school, strength of the team and the strong community support the Titans receive.

San Marino struggled on the field last year when it slipped to a 2-7 record and finished fifth in the strong Rio Hondo League, but the Titans have produced strong teams in the past under Coach Bill Maloney, including the 1984 squad that reached the CIF Eastern Conference semifinals.

The game is the first of three that the Jackson school will play in the Los Angeles area over the next three years. The Raiders will visit Chaminade Prep of Canoga Park in 1989 and Bishop Montgomery of Torrance in 1990.

There is no truth to persistent rumors that Darryl Green, highly regarded junior running back at Nogales High in La Puente, has transferred to another Sierra League school.

That’s good news to Coach Laing Stevens, who is hoping for a big season from the 5-11, 165-pound speedster.

“There were rumors that had him going to Diamond Bar or Wilson, but there’s nothing to them,” Stevens said. “He’s not going anywhere and he never was. He had a great spring (practice) and is looking real good.”

The coach said the rumors may have started because of personal problems that Green was having. “Some people thought he was having a problem with us and that’s not true. It was just personal problems and we helped him with them and got them worked out.”

Stevens said Green, who rushed for 980 yards as a sophomore despite missing two games because of injuries, has always been easy to coach.

“I’m glad we have him because he’s a good kid,” Stevens said. “He’s always worked real hard and he wants to be a winner. He’s somebody we would miss if he wasn’t there.”

The presence of Green should make Nogales a playoff contender again in the rugged Sierra League, one of the strongest circuits in the valley. Nogales finished with an 8-3 record last year.

The awards keep coming for Cal State Los Angeles women’s tennis standout Edna Olivarez.

The junior from the Philippines was recently among six singles players named to the Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn. Tennis magazine All-American team. She will be honored during a luncheon in New York on Aug. 27.

Olivarez, who has reached the NCAA Division II semifinals in singles in each of her first two seasons at Cal State, was selected to the team along with three Division I players, the Division III champion and the NAIA champion.

Olivarez was named Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn. rookie of the year in 1986, won the ITCA Western Regional Small College championship last December and has been a Division II All-American selection two years in a row.

Olivarez earned the latest award by stringing together a 40-5 overall record in singles play and the No. 1 ranking in Division II last season. She also has an impressive two-year singles record of 74-9 overall and 22-0 in California Collegiate Athletic Assn. matches.

About the only accomplishment remaining for Olivarez is a Division II singles title. But that may not be far away.

Cal Poly Pomona has been making its presence felt in women’s softball at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis.

One of the leaders of a strong U.S. pitching staff is right-hander Rhonda Wheatley, a standout at Cal Poly for the last four years who allowed only one hit in two starts last week. She pitched a one-hitter in a 15-0 triumph over Peru and a no-hitter in a 1-0 win over Netherlands Antilles.

The U.S. team, which entered this week’s play with a 7-0 record, is directed by Cal Poly Coach Carol Spanks and has three other Broncos: former Cal Poly catchers Donna McElrea and Suzy Brazney and outfielder Alison Stowell, a junior for the Broncos last season.