ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT : A Few Twists Could Turn a Terrible Team Inside Out

Losing attitudes are difficult to eradicate. Just ask Tustin High School football Coach Marijon Ancich.

When Ancich became the Tillers’ coach in 1984, he inherited a program that had failed to win a league championship in 29 years.

No problem, he figured. After all, he had won 188 games and qualified for the Southern Section playoffs 14 straight times at St. Paul High, a parochial school in Santa Fe Springs.

Tiller boosters figured a little Ancich wizardry would prove to be the difference, and the newly formed Tustin Touchdown Club raised $15,000 before Ancich’s first game.

But after his second day on the job, Ancich was ready to quit.

“I was ready to go home,” he said. “There was no semblance of order. Everybody wanted to win, but nobody wanted to work. There were no organized practices, and the kids did basically what they wanted.

“The kids were so down, you had to see it to believe it. It was the least-positive atmosphere I’ve ever been around.”

The Tillers needed an attitude adjustment, as do many programs with losing traditions. And it takes special coaches such as Ancich, Mike Marrujo at Valencia and Mark McMahon at Orange to spend countless hours trying to get players to believe they can become competitive.

“I never set any goals as far as winning a league title or making the playoffs,” Ancich said. “The first order of business was being able to compete.”

Next, he got the faculty and community involved. The Touchdown Club increased to 100 members and, after a 4-0 start in 1984, good seats were suddenly difficult to find at Northrup Field. Tustin football games became a community event.

The Tillers finished 6-4 in Ancich’s first season and barely missed a wild-card berth in the Southern Conference playoffs. Last year, Tustin slipped to 4-6, but enthusiasm continued to grow when the Tillers moved into the Sea View League for 1986.

Last Friday night, Tustin reached a milestone by clinching a tie for the Sea View League title with a 9-7 upset of Saddleback. It was the Tillers’ first title since 1955. This week, Tustin (8-1) has a chance to break the school record of eight victories in one season, also set in 1955, in a game against University.

“This is the most fun I’ve ever had coaching,” Ancich said. “I tell you, when I got here, this place wasn’t normal. When I look at what we’ve accomplished in three years, it’s a tremendous feeling.”

Valencia’s Marrujo knows something about droughts. The Tigers went 50 years without winning a league championship until they won the Orange League title in 1983, Marrujo’s third year at the school.

From 1974 to 1976, the Tigers won one of 27 games. Valencia’s victory over San Dimas in September, 1976 snapped a 24-game winless streak, in which the Tigers had gone 0-22-2.

The program began an upsurge in 1980 when former Temple City assistant Norm Parker was hired. The Tigers went 6-3, but Parker resigned after one season to become athletic director at neighboring El Dorado.

In stepped Marrujo.

He quickly established a reputation for fielding well-disciplined teams that played error-free.

“I felt I needed three things when I took the job at Valencia,” Marrujo said. “First and above all else, I had to have good assistants. Then, we established a weight program and maintained a year-round program.

“I was surprised to find when I got here that Valencia had never participated in a summer passing program. I also tried to show the players I cared.

“The first couple of years, I was down at the school every morning at 5:30 to open the weight room. I think it’s important for the kids to see the coach actively involved.”

Valencia qualified for the playoffs in Marrujo’s first season, but opened the 1982 season with a 1-6 record. Turning around the program was no easy task.

“A lot of people tend to forget I was 6-11 after my first 17 games here,” Marrujo said. “I’ve found that winning or losing can snowball either way. When things start going bad, it’s hard to turn them around.”

But Marrujo did just that. The Tigers won that elusive league title the next season and have compiled a 34-8-3 record since that forgettable 1-6 start in 1982. Marrujo found that patience is a major priority in establishing a winning tradition.

“A coach can make all the speeches he wants about winning, but that’s not the answer,” he said. “A coach has to put in the work to win along with the players.

“Few also realize how important a winning tradition is to a football program. You can’t beg, borrow or steal tradition.”

Tradition, albeit a losing one, is something Orange fans had become accustomed to. The Panthers had won only five games since 1980 when Mark McMahon took over this year.

The Panthers hit rock bottom in 1981 when they finished 0-10, were outscored, 282-6, and shut out nine times. They managed to snap a 25-game losing streak in October, 1982 when they beat Canyon. The students celebrated by driving around the downtown traffic circle for hours after the game.

Enter McMahon.

He had served as an assistant under Vince Deveney from 1974-76 and was named to replace Deveney in 1977. He ultimately resigned in 1979 and served as an assistant at Fullerton College, Anaheim and Villa Park.

“Looking back, I wasn’t ready to become a head coach the first time at Orange,” McMahon said. “When I decided to come back, I checked out a lot of things before accepting the job.”

Were there enough athletes in the program to win? Sure, the Panthers had gone 0-10 last season, but McMahon was impressed with some of the players.

He thought he could win, and he was right. The Panthers take a 5-4 record into Thursday night’s game against Costa Mesa and can clinch their first playoff berth since 1972 with a victory.

Were the feeder junior highs, Yorba and Portola, strong? McMahon thought so, and again, he was right. The Panthers’ sophomore team is 6-3, with five sophomores competing on the varsity team. Next year, Orange will become a four-year high school, meaning McMahon will have an extra year to work with his younger players.

“That doesn’t sound significant, but I have five sophomores on my varsity team that I never came in contact with until a month before the season began,” he said. “Next year, I’ll have the same type of player in a year-round weight program and spring football drills.”

McMahon said that even though the Panthers are winning, the mental battle of overcoming a losing attitude is ongoing.

“When we won our first game (44-0 over Katella), it was great,” McMahon said, “but then the following week it was like the kids were afraid the bubble would burst. We lost the next two games, and there was a lot of self-doubt.”

McMahon interviewed every player after the third game and found there was a tendency to point the finger at others. The product of losing was blaming the other guy. The players had become so afraid of losing, they were looking for scapegoats.

McMahon decided to promote a few sophomores to the varsity and the Panthers beat rival Villa Park for the first time since 1972. They went on to get three straight victories.

“I’ve tried everything to turn things around,” he said. “I brought over a couple of Marine sergeants from the local recruiting office in an effort to instill some pride into the kids. The kids really responded to them, and they’ve adopted a Marine drill song for practice.

“The biggest thing I’ve had to learn is patience. These kids not only didn’t win a game last year, they weren’t in any games, either. It was 21-0 or 28-0 at halftime in just about every game. That’s awfully hard to overcome.”

But it can be done.

ANCICH AT TUSTIN

1980 4-5-1 1981 4-6 1982 2-8 1983 1-9 1984 6-4* 1985 4-6 1986 8-1**

* Marijon Ancich’s first season

** First league title in 31 years

McMAHON AT ORANGE

1980 1-9 1981 0-10* 1982 1-9 1983 0-9-1 1984 3-7 1985 0-10 1986 5-4**

*Shut out 9 times; outscored 282-6

**Mark McMahon’s first season

MARRUJO AT VALENCIA

1980 6-3 1981 5-5-1* 1982 4-7 1983 10-2-1** 1984 12-2 1985 9-3 1986 7-1-1

* Mike Marrujo’s first season

**First league title in 50 years