‘I’d Rather Get a Kid Off Drugs Than Win Any Game’

The 1985-86 high school football season starts tonight. Darryl Stroh, who has coached for 20 years, says it’s more than just a string of games. In a recent conversation with Times staff writer Gordon Monson, he talked about problems in high school athletics--including drugs, steroids, illegal recruiting, quality of coaching and lack of discipline.

Question: You’ve been coaching high school sports since 1965. What makes a good football coach?

Answer: A good coach has to be knowledgeable about his sport. You have to have that to be effective. But a good coach goes far beyond that. It really disturbs me when coaches go out drinking with their ball players. I hate to see that.

You can’t be effective without being a leader. That doesn’t mean you have to be obnoxious or noisy, but you must use discipline. I tell my players, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’

Q: With your teams, there’s no democracy--just a dictatorship, and you’re the dictator?

A: You bet your boots. Our society in general is less disciplined. But I don’t have problems with that. I’m fortunate because my reputation precedes me. If I were just starting out, it would be harder.

It would be better if people stopped patting everybody on the head and telling them how great they are all the time. Parents shouldn’t try being their kids’ friends. They should love them, but be firm. Kids need direction. They don’t want so much a friend, they want somebody to show them the way.

For instance, I never have liked long hair. I like kids to handle themselves with class and keep their mouths shut. As a coach, you need quality time, you can’t be screwing around. You’ve got to get their attention.

It is a lot easier if you just set down the rules and you can do it without being a tyrant.

Q: What’s the biggest problem facing high school coaches?

A: Drugs are the biggest problem in education overall. When there are a number of kids in that atmosphere--then even the kid who wants to learn, he can’t. The whole system breaks down.

I don’t see that much drug use on campus, but you see the results of drugs. Some kids use drugs on campus. But mostly, you see the results--tuned out, uninterested kids who are under that influence.

Most teachers are afraid of it because they don’t know enough about it.

Q: Are high school athletes using steroids?

A: I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard it’s real easy to get them. I don’t know coaches involved. But you’d have to be naive to think steroids are not there.

But, you have pros that are into that, so it’s a real big problem and I think we’re just starting to see it--the tip of the iceberg.

Q: Are coaches on the high school level quality coaches?

A: I know some coaches who if they walked around the corner and saw 15 of their guys smoking pot, they’d turn around and pretend they never saw it. But most coaches are giving their all to help kids, as football players and as citizens.

Q: How prevalent is illegal recruiting in high school sports?

A: There’s open illegal recruiting going on, it’s true. If a kid wants to play at a school other than the school where he lives, he just says he’s living at a place that he isn’t really living at. All a kid has to do is establish residency. Some parents play the game and establish a residency--an apartment somewhere--and pay $200 a month so their kid can play at the program he wants.

There are some players who I know are living somewhere other than where they say they are living. They give excuses about marital problems. Some coaches get an address at a friend’s house or someplace else.

It’s cheating, but these things are nearly impossible to prove. There is no doubt in my mind that there’s more cheating going on in the L.A. City schools--or it’s inequitable. They have what they call the Magnet program. They bring kids in from all over. For example, Cleveland High’s basketball team, it’s a total recruitment. None of those kids live close to Cleveland.

(Editor’s note: One of Cleveland’s players last year--third - string center Andy Ramos--lived in the Cleveland district. Other players were enrolled at the school under the Magnet program, a specialized academic plan whereby students can attend schools located outside their district. Greg Herrick, who coached at Cleveland last season has denied that he used the Magnet program as a recruiting aid.)

Q: What can you do about the schools that you think are “cheating?”

A: I try to beat the hell out of them every time we play them.