Heads Up : After Two Seasons of Humbling Defeats, Players at Crespi Can Finally Look Classmates in the Eye

The scene: Crespi High, an all-boys Catholic school in Encino. The year: 1984. It’s Friday and the varsity football team plays tonight.

The players are scattered around campus wearing their traditional game-day garb of dress slacks and a football jersey. On most high school campuses these guys would walk with a proud strut. Not at Crespi.

Celt players are distinguished by their bowed heads and sad faces as much as by their jerseys. Gravity has that effect on players for bad football teams.

When the football season mercifully came to a close last season, Crespi had an 0-9-1 record and the players had heard practically every needle-tipped one-liner in the book.

What a difference a year--and three consecutive wins--can make.

Scene: Crespi High. Year: 1985. After outscoring opponents, 82-8, in the first three weeks of this season, Crespi players are now getting patted on the back instead of stabbed in the back.

The team is no longer called bad. It is baaaaad --as in good.

Said Paul Muff, Crespi athletic director: “Football is a source of pride for the school.”

Once upon a year ago, the task of making football even respectable in the near future seemed nearly impossible.

A few of last season’s lowlights:

-- Crespi didn’t win a game for the first time in school history.

-- Crespi lost to Canyon, 46-0, for its most lopsided defeat in 10 years.

-- Crespi was held to seven points or less six times and was outscored by opponents, 277-89.

-- Crespi lost to all four Valley-area Catholic high schools it played.

Morale was so low that linebacker Fred Gonnello said he wouldn’t wear his Crespi letterman’s jacket in public.

“I was afraid someone might ask me what our record was,” he said. “I was embarrassed to even go to church.”

Said Muff: “I dreaded football season. A football player is usually looked up to. Here, the kids were almost ridiculed by other athletes and students. I felt sorry for those kids. Before the games even started they knew they were going to lose. You could see it in their eyes. During the game, I’d stand on the sideline and watch the clock, wishing that the seconds would tick away faster.”

Morale didn’t improve until December when it was announced that Crespi had hired Bill Redell as head coach, replacing Chris Hyduke, who had resigned immediately after the 1984 season.

Redell, formerly an outstanding quarterback for Edmonton, Hamilton and Calgary in the Canadian Football League, had been Crespi’s coach in 1982 and led the Celts to an 8-3 record. He then accepted a position to coach tight ends and be the assistant general manager of the USFL’s Boston Breakers.

Redell stayed with the Breakers team for two seasons--one in Boston and one in New Orleans. When the team announced its intention to move to Portland for the following season, Redell said goodby.

He was tired of moving.

What a coincidence. Crespi was tired of losing.

“We thought it was time that we take a good, long look at our football program,” Muff said. “Whether people want to admit it or not, football kind of sets a tone for the whole school year. The priests here became aware of that.

“Our goal was not to set out to make any one sport a cure-all, but we did want to bring the football program up to par with that of our other nine sports.”

To that end, Muff interviewed some 20 people--alumni, past coaches, the trainer, even the team announcer--to come up with a profile for the team’s new coach.

“The biggest thing we found was the need for stability in the program,” Muff said. “We had five coaches in eight years. We had kids going through here who were exposed to two or three coaching styles by the time they graduated.

“We wanted the best football coach available, but we also wanted one who would stay.”

Redell was the choice as best available coach, but there was the question of keeping him. He had already left once.

“We probably grilled him harder than any of the other candidates,” Muff said. “I was convinced that he was committed. He took a large pay cut to come back here, but he’s happy and we’re happy.”

Redell said that he turned down a chance to be the head coach at a Division I university in the East and an opportunity to be an NFL assistant, to return to Crespi.

“I just didn’t feel like moving all over the U.S. anymore,” Redell said. “I’m 44 years old. Maybe if I was 30 it would have been different. It was time to come home.”

Certainly, no one could accuse him of backing away from a challenge.

Redell first set up a program that had his players working with weights three times a week before school. Lifting started each weekday at 6:30 a.m.

Redell’s plan: To win, the team had to be in shape.

A more difficult chore remained, however. Redell had to make the players believe they could win.

Slowly, he began to have success in that area.

“When we first heard he was going to be our coach we were happy because we knew he was a winner,” Gonnello said.

“Then he came in and started the lifting program and we could see some immediate results.”

Redell had an experienced group of players to work with--a Del Rey League-high 16 starters returned to the team--but the group was truly inexperienced at winning.

The majority of the 16 starters played on the sophomore team in 1983 and on the varsity in 1984. Combined record of those two teams: 3-16-1.

After winning their first three games as sophomores, the players hadn’t won a game.

“I had kids tell me that there were times last year that all they cared about was keeping the score down,” Redell said. “They weren’t even thinking about trying to win the game. There was a major confidence problem.”

That problem started to disappear in a spirited summer session of workouts.

Said Mike McAndrews, a defensive end: “It was apparent to us that (Redell) was a winner. We figured there was no way we were going to lose if we did what he said.”

To insure that his months of confidence building would not go to waste, Redell went to his ace in the hole a few hours before Crespi’s first game.

He showed the team the New Orleans Breakers’ 1984 highlight film.

That strip of celluloid might not send a chill up the spine of most people, but it certainly did the trick at Crespi.

As his team ran onto the field for that first game, many of the players were in tears.

When they left the field, their opponent, Burroughs, was in shambles.

“I guess it was effective,” Redell said when asked about the movie. “Basically, it was about a group of 45 guys and a group of coaches coming together for the first time and trying to win. It showed some of the sacrifices that were made and some of the emotional things that happened during the season.”

Said Gonnello: “It showed us how close that team was and how close we needed to be. After the movie, he gave us a speech about pulling together and playing for each other. It was pretty emotional.”

Said McAndrews: “Coach got up and started talking to us about all our hard work. Then he started crying. There wasn’t a lot of yelling and screaming, but when we went for the game everybody was very, very ready to play.”

The movie was scored with the song “Oh, What A Feeling”--the theme of the movie “Flashdance.” It has become Crespi’s unofficial fight song.

The first time it got the ball this season, Crespi drove 80 yards to score.

Said McAndrews: “When we went right down the field like that, I knew we couldn’t be beat. When the game ended something inside of me just exploded. We had gone so long without winning and we finally did it.”

Crespi followed its 28-8 victory over Burroughs by beating Burbank, 28-0, and Duarte, 26-0.

It was the first time Crespi had shut out consecutive opponents since 1973.

Led by quarterback Randy Redell, the coach’s son, Crespi is averaging more than 308 yards in offense per game while allowing only 140.

Redell has attempted only 40 passes, but completed 21 for four touchdowns.

John Budge, a defensive back last season, is averaging 8.3 yards a carry as a running back.

The football team’s success has caused so much renewed interest that the team’s game against undefeated and No. 1-ranked Canyon next week had to be moved away from the Celts’ home field (capacity 2,800) to Birmingham High (capacity 11,000).

Muff said that Crespi boosters are already speculating that the team could win the Del Rey League.

In the fourth quarter of the Burbank game, Crespi fans started chanting, “We want Canyon.”

“Can you believe it?” Muff asked incredulously. “We win three games and people are yelling, ‘We want Canyon’ and talking about winning league.”

Oh, what a feeling.