A Coach Who Once Played High Gives His Players Real Lowdown

Mark Cunningham, football coach at Irvine’s University High School, has sat in a classroom and listened to police officers dramatically tell students about the dangers of drugs.

And he understands why the teen-agers do not always take such talks seriously.

He has been there.

When Cunningham, who became University’s coach last fall, gathers his football team together each fall, he talks drugs. He doesn’t use psychological ploys or scare tactics. He uses his own real life drama.

He tells them: “I know about drugs. I know about alcohol. I’ve experienced it. I’ve taken speed before a game. I’ve taken more drugs than anybody on the team has tried.”

Cunningham said he grew up with an understanding of alcoholism because a close family member was an alcoholic.

Throughout high school he was a model student and athlete. But his life changed in 1970 when he attended West Valley Community College in Saratoga, Calif. to play football. He started socializing with his teammates, some who were Viet Nam veterans in their mid-to-late 20s.

“They had their own apartments and they were drinking, smoking marijuana, taking amphetamines, taking Valium to sleep,” he said. “They were good football players.”

In an effort to fit in, Cunningham started taking drugs and drinking.

“In athletics, the athlete is taught to take the extra step,” he said. “If you do 50 push-ups, I can do 55. If you take two hits off that joint (marijuana cigarette), I’m going to take four. If you are going to take two hits of acid (LSD), I’m going to take three and we will see who can maintain. That’s the scary part.”

Cunningham recalls the day he decided to quit taking drugs as vividly as a still-life picture. He was getting ready for a state playoff game when his supplier failed to show with the pregame speed. He said the 15 teammates also using speed panicked. How could they perform without the drug?

Cunningham found out. He had one of the best games of his career. He intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown.

“I pictured it happening and I did it,” he recalled. “My body reacted with my mind as I did it. I realized how great I felt about myself and what I had accomplished myself with nothing else. At that point in time I have never taken another drug.”

Cunningham’s straight-ahead approach gets the attention of impressionable young athletes. He said he builds trust with his players, which enables him to help them learn to cope with the many difficulties of growing up. As an educator, he believes his method is one of the few vehicles short of drug testing that can help stop youths from taking drugs.

He’s not looking for miracles, he said, but neither does he expect students to listen to adults who talk about drugs without a teen-ager’s perspective.

“I’ve listened to cops talk about LSD in class,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. There’s no way they can describe it. They can’t get that gut level.”