HE’S JUST AN OLD-FASHIONED KIND OF COACH : For John Scolinos, It’s How You Play the Game That’s Important

Coach John Scolinos was standing in front of the visitors’ dugout at Hart Park in Orange, arms folded, looking concerned. His Cal Poly Pomona baseball team was down by a run and innings were becoming scarce.

He seemed not to hear the wise cracks of the Chapman College fans poking friendly fun at the way he wears a towel around his neck or the way he scoots along, using the short, careful steps of a 69-year-old man with a 42-year-old football injury.

At this little ballpark, with about 30 fans in the stands on a hot Tuesday afternoon, every word could be heard. The few Cal Poly Pomona fans weren’t saying much, just lolling about in the sunshine.

But everyone snapped to attention when the umpire at first base called a Pomona player out. The Chapman first baseman had pulled his foot off the bag reaching for the throw.

Scolinos went flying across the field in a springy double-time march, pointing a finger and setting the umpire straight as he went. After a short conference involving both coaches and both umpires, the call was changed.

As Scolinos went scooting back across the field, holding up the game, a Chapman fan took time out from razzing the umpires to comment, in mock exasperation: “Isn’t it about time for that guy to retire?”

Scolinos thinks not.

He has been coaching college baseball for 40 years and, as far as he’s concerned, there’s no end in sight. Ask him when he’ll retire and he says, “Only the Almighty knows.”

He means that quite literally. Scolinos lives by the Good Book. In casual conversation, he quotes Scripture to make a point. He doesn’t preach, he shares, in the sincere hope that it might help.

Scolinos is so old-fashioned that he bypasses corny and comes on like a breath of fresh air. Picture yourself sitting on your grandpa’s front porch in the cool of the evening, drinking real lemonade, listening to the crickets and smelling the new-mown grass and the honeysuckle. That old fresh air that’s so hard to find these days.

To Scolinos, baseball is a wonderful game that helps turn boys into men by teaching them a whole range of life’s lessons--winning, losing, teamwork, self-esteem, respect, discipline . . .

These are the axioms that all coaches talk. John Scolinos has lived them for decades. Rod Dedeaux, retired USC baseball coach who has known Scolinos since they played together in the minor leagues, swears: “He’s for real. He is an absolutely sincere person. He loves the game.”

Scolinos sees himself as a teacher, doing important work.

Oh, sure, he’s a coach, too. He’s the winningest active college baseball coach in the country, with a record of 1,097-834.

But he’s the one who points out: “I’ve won more games than anyone else. That’s true. But I’ve also lost the most games. . . . You have to know how to do both. Not that I think you have to like losing, or get used to it. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. You have to be constantly learning and making adjustments.”

No need to ask him why he’s perfectly at peace with himself doing his life’s work on that quiet little campus in Pomona, content to win Division II national titles with young men who make it all worthwhile.

“I’d never last in pro ball,” Scolinos said. “My philosophy is ‘Surround yourself with good people.’ You have to be able to spot the donkeys and get rid of them.

“In the big leagues, I’d be trying to get rid of a couple of donkeys and they’d tell me, ‘You’re crazy. We just signed those donkeys for a million dollars. We’ll get rid of you, Scolinos.’ And I’d say, ‘Fine.’ ”

His values may be old-fashioned, but he can sit and, without batting an eye, tell you with concern exactly what’s happening with kids and drugs, and with sympathy how crazy a 20-year-old can get in the spring when his girlfriend dumps him.

“Coaching is not easy,” Scolinos said. “But working with young people keeps you young and makes it all worthwhile.

“I plan to keep going as long as they want me and as long as I have the enthusiasm--and most important, as long as I have good people around me.”

It’s a recurring theme with Scolinos. Good people. That’s the key to success, happiness, longevity, all things good.

“There are still a lot of good kids around, too,” he said. “Kids who have good parents, they’re the main coaches. The sad thing is that kids reach the point of no return at an earlier age now. To save them, you have to get to them when they’re young.

“I’m always telling young coaches that they have the most important job of all. Little League coaches, Pony League coaches . . . they’re the ones. If they get a kid who’s a snotball, they’ve got a chance to get that kid squared away.

“But some young coaches are only concerned about winning. At what price? I do have empathy for young coaches in the colleges, or even in the high schools, who are under such pressure to win. I’m over the hill. I can do it my way.

“But I think they have to realize that we’re in the business of education. This isn’t a professional deal. You hear about coaches doing anything to get kids and to keep them eligible to win. . . . We’ve got ourselves into a real mess.

“I’m not saying I’ve got all the answers, but I just think we have to remember what we’re doing. We’re teaching.”

Besides coaching at Cal Poly Pomona, Scolinos teaches physical education. His softball classes are among the most popular at the school. A few years ago, the students, faculty and staff voted him professor of the year.

That meant as much to him as being named NCAA Division II Coach of the Year three times in the years that he won national titles, 1976, 1980 and 1983.

He believes in winning, but he knows he’s not going to do it with screwballs.

His definition of a screwball: “A normal person talks to himself. A normal person might even talk to himself and answer himself. But a screwball talks to himself, answers himself and then says, ‘Huh?’ ”

Scolinos said: “You see, a screwball is a person who has doubts. I’m really alert to the screwballs. If you get enough screwballs around you, you start to doubt, too. Most people know the kind of program we have here. We believe in clean living and a family atmosphere. I’m the boss and the screwballs aren’t going to run me out.

“People who have played here recommend kids who will fit into our program. Sometimes we get a screwball. Some screwballs can be converted. If he can’t be converted--he’s gone.”

The program Scolinos runs is based on positive thinking. He even uses Bill Harrison’s book on psychocybernetics, visualizing positive results.

Scolinos lists Harrison as one of the good people who make it all work. And he credits the administrators for backing him for all these years--Athletic Director Hugh La Bounty and President James Bell. And he lists all of his assistants for, he says, doing all the work--Chuck Belk, Bob Wagner, Steve Osaki, Jim Ramos, Jack Helber. And he goes back to his high school football coach, Jim Blewett. And his wife, Helen.

And he even had his sports information director, Brent Shyer, make a phone call the next day to add a former assistant, Gary Marks, who helped him make it through all the earlier years.

As Shyer pointed out, if you believed Scolinos, you’d think he never did anything himself.

But, for some reason, other people keep giving him credit and asking him to help coach international teams.

“Coaching with the Olympic team was a wonderful and unique experience,” Scolinos said. “I like to tell this story:

“I come from immigrant parents. My dad was in the Greek navy in 1896 (when the first modern-day Olympics were held in Greece), and he crashed the gate to watch those Games. When the Olympics were here in 1932, he took me and a brother to the Coliseum, and we crashed the gate then, too.

“But in 1984, I marched in with the team for the Opening Ceremony. I was a part of it! Talk about a thrill!”

Dedeaux was the head coach for the Olympic team. Art Mazmanian, coach at Mount San Antonio College, was also on the staff with Scolinos. In fact, Mazmanian, a longtime friend, was Scolinos’ roommate when the team made its pre-Olympic tour around the country.

Mazmanian reports: “It was a great experience. He’s about as moral a man as you could meet. He has old-fashioned values, but there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s like a guy from the old country, he has his way--and he ain’t gonna change.

“He’d carry his things in a cardboard box (instead of a suitcase) and he’d bring his Bible to read every night. There’s nothing phony about him.

“We were offered a lot of little gifts along the way, and John would always take them because he always had someone in mind that he could give them to.

“You have to love what you’re doing to do what he has for all these years. He believes in his principles--he’s making better men out of them without offending anyone. He doesn’t baby them, and they’d walk through walls for him.

Asked if he was the last of his breed, Mazmanian said: “Oh, boy, I hope not. We can use a lot more just like him. I hope there are a lot of coaches ready to follow in his footsteps.”

Scolinos has just completed his 26th season at Cal Poly Pomona. At 31-29, it was his 18th winning season.

That Pomona has gone from Division I to Division II since his arrival doesn’t bother him a bit. He says Division II is plenty competitive, especially the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

“When I coached at Pepperdine, we were Division I and when I came here, we were Division I. . . . We still play all Division I teams before our conference season begins.”

In the season just completed, Pomona beat Pepperdine, USC, Hawaii, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA in nonconference games.

“The good thing about coaching in a college atmosphere, a good atmosphere like this, is that it’s constantly changing,” Scolinos said. “The kids keep it interesting. Every season is like a new life cycle.