THE HOOPLA OF GYM RATS : These Creatures of the Night Can Be Found Crawling on the County’s Courts

They are dedicated to their quest and tireless in their means to achieve it.

And yet, for all their troubles and good intentions they are dubbed rats. Gym rats.

Mouse would be much more endearing--Mickey is a mouse. Lion more noble; but alas, rat is the most accurate.

First, consider a gym rat’s simple-as-cheese desire: to play hoops.

To play hoops indoors where they are free from elements such as wind, rain and darkness.

Hoops, liberated of coaches and game clocks, that offer true artistic license.

Doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? But how they must go to extremes to get it.

Orange County has a rich rat history of taped door locks and jimmied windows. Rats always have been adept at conning a janitor into letting them pass into the promised land.

I think I left my jacket in the gym. Yeah, I really wouldn’t care much but it’s got my mother’s birthday present in it. Sweet old woman, my mother. Raised 12 children by herself while studying for the priesthood. You understand. Hey thanks. Oh, there’s no need to stick around, my good man. I’ll lock up when I find it. Thank you, kind sir. (Pause)

Yo, fellas! He bought it. Get the ball, it’s time to party. “Gym rats will always find a place to play and a way to play,” said Greg Katz, Santa Ana High School assistant basketball coach.

And once they find a place, they find it difficult to leave. There’s always one more game, one more chance. Like their namesakes, they tend to become part of the woodwork. Waiting, playing and waiting again. Some would call them pests, others lazy, still others addicted.

“They love the game so much they can’t get enough,” said Ed Graham, Troy coach. “I don’t think you become a gym rat, I think you’re born one. You’re born with that love of the game.”

A gym rat’s brand of basketball may be the purest form:

--Noble yet savage.

Translation: No referees to bail you out, you’ve got to call your own fouls and violations.

There’s an honor system, but honor tends to dwindle as games near their end.

“If you’re playing to 10 and both teams have 9, you can bet no one is going to admit fouling someone else,” said Maz Trakh, Westminster assistant coach and well-traveled rat. “I always prefer shooting for it, you know, the ball never lies.”

Unless, of course, you miss the shot.

--Chaotic yet beautiful.

Translation: There are no set offenses to speak of. Players depend on instinct, creativity . . . themselves.

The self is an element many times stamped out by basketball coaches.

“I’m sure one of the biggest reasons to be a gym rat is that you don’t have to deal with coaches,” said Dick Katz, Westminster coach. “You do what you like, the way you like.

“Basketball is a very creative, very spontaneous game. I compare it to ballet. I think a kid needs that time away from a coach to be his own player, be his own creator.”

--No pressure, enormous pressure.

Translation: The only pressure to win comes from within yourself and perhaps from your team’s 6-foot 7-inch center who’s getting a bit peeved at your 25-foot running hooks.

“I think some kids put more pressure on themselves to win in that type of situation,” Greg Katz said. “They see it as something very personal. It’s their team, not some coach’s or school’s.

“Of course, there are others who really don’t care. I mean, there’s no pressure that The Times is going to rip you in print because your three-on-three team lost six straight last night.”

For these reasons rats will cross borders of cities, counties and common sense.

The game pays no mind to ability. Mediocre to poor players are just as committed as blue chippers.

“I don’t think talent enters into the thing really,” said Brad DeLoof, a forward at Troy.

DeLoof is, by his and Graham’s admission, a mediocre player.

“What you get from being a gym rat is of a very intrinsic nature. You don’t have to be a great player to appreciate it. I guess it’s unexplainable.”

Also unexplainable, for a high school student, are the hours away from home and books.

“I know my grades have been hurt by the amount of time I’ve spent in the gym,” said DeLoof, who says he played about two hours a day. “My parents sometimes wondered about me, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

On the other end is Irvine High’s Mike Herring, one of the county’s best guards. He not only has his parents’ blessing to hoop it up, but he has his father’s key to the Irvine gym.

Mike’s father is Al Herring, the Irvine basketball coach. Some rats get all the breaks.

“My dad lets me borrow the key pretty much whenever I want,” he said. “I go down and shoot and play a lot. I guess it’s a pretty big advantage being the coach’s son.”

It also does wonders for your popularity. As far as a rat is concerned, any guy carrying a key to a gym, what’s more a high school gym, pretty much holds the key to life.

“I’ve made a few friends because of the keys,’ Herring said.

Gym rats’ relationships with their high school coaches is another matter.

All coaches want their players to play as much as possible. Yet, they are leery of bad habits that might be learned in the uncivilized gym rat culture.

“One of the problems Santa Ana had was that we didn’t have gym rats,” Katz said. “Now, we have kids who play all the time. The team has grown with them.

“But it’s a fine line. You want them to put in the time, but you want it to be the right kind of time. We tell our kids that it’s great for them to play on their own, but it doesn’t do anyone any good if they don’t play with the things we practice in mind.”

Defense, or total lack of it in gym rat games, is a coach’s major concern.

Close behind is the amount of creativity a player will put into a shot, such as trying to make an easy shot look difficult, and the problem of talking trash.

But given all this, most coaches, pushed up against it, would take a gym rat over a non-rat any day.

“There are problems sometimes,” Katz said. “But in a pinch, when the offense breaks down, a gym rat instinctually is going to know what to do.

“Another player, without the playing time, is going to freeze. I call those players robots. They do as they are told, but can’t handle it on their own. I’ll take a gym rat every time.”

DR, MATT WUERKER / For The Times