Since Fall 1998, Local Sports has been providing the most sports news to “Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Seal Beach and the people who tell the school district they live there.”
It is published by Larry and Nancy Strawther. Before success as a television and motion picture writer and producer (credits included Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Night Court, MXC, the Merv Griffin Show, “Jeopardy!”, “Dance Fever,” and the movies “Without a Clue” and “The Mighty Ducks”) , Larry grew up on the San Francisco peninsula and had worked for a few years as a sports writer at an afternoon daily newspaper, and then traveled around the country for a few more as the piano player of a band. In the mid 1990s, Nancy, who had been a paralegal after graduating from UCLA, wanted to return to Rossmoor where she herself had grown up (LAHS Class of ’76) , to raise their three children.
Larry followed along, and after getting involved with AYSO, NJB, gymnastics, LAYB, and club soccer, he soon realized this area was as sports crazy as any he had ever been around and he came up with the idea of publishing Local Sports. The paper made them even more aware of just how much sports and especially youth sports runs to the very core of our local identity. It also put them in touch with some key people in this community — the doers, the parent volunteers who not only volunteer for everything, but actually get things done.
The paper quickly grew in popularity, as much for its information as for its tongue-in-cheek style. The knowledge of the sports community, the challenges facing booster clubs, and the key people to get involved, has helped them organize and continue to run such events as The Taste for Los Al, which has raised over two and half million dollars to help Los Al HS activities and facilities since 2001.
Over the years, Larry has also done the print programs for the Los Al Griffin football, basketball, baseball, soccer and volleyball programs. He has also done banquet videos for many of those activities as well.
In 2003 they took a sabbatical from Local Sports when Larry created and exec produced a television show called MXC – Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.
After a couple years, Larry returned and resumed publishing Local Sports within the pages of the News-Enterprise. But then they became intrigued by the new capabilities and immediacy of of doing the paper as an online newsletter. Their semi-regular Local Sports newsletter soon had a mailing list of over 4,000. And their coverage consisted of not only sports but other community activities as well.
In mid 2009 Larry agreed to get involved with Los Al TV and the LAHS ROP Video Production program. An unintended consequence was that he found little time to publish Local Sports. But now he has returned and is more excited than ever, because of the introduction of so many new technologies.
In mid 2011, Larry resumed Local Sports – with two key differences. Because of his own personal knowledge and connections with the local sporting scene, he would still do in-depth coverage of local sports activities. But to cover his other interests, he started two separate online publications: The Los Al Journal will not only cover other community and business news but to provide links to the good coverage provided by the other local news outlets. The Los Alamitos-Rossmoor History Project will be a source to learn about and expand the knowledge base of the history of our area — through primary source materials, photos, biographies, obituaries, old newspaper stories and compiled articles.
