Banning Faces Life Without Ferragamo

These are the dog days in Wilmington. Some of the grass is brown. So is some of the air. When the little stucco houses heat up, the neighbors sit on porches and talk.

When summer melts into fall, one of the topics in the blue-collar port community is Banning High School football. And this year there’s a new angle to discuss: There’s a new kid in town.

Banning, winner of eight Los Angeles City titles since 1976, will come under under intense scrutiny. The Pilots will be examined for signs of weakness, chinks in the armor, any change that would suggest less wind in its air of invincibility.

All of which is fine with 36-year-old John Hazelton, who is replacing Chris Ferragamo, whose personality and coaching record made him a legend in the harbor area. If Hazelton needs a reminder, Ferragamo is only a few minutes away at Harbor College.

From the time he was hired in February, even though he is not a full-time teacher at Banning, Hazelton has been at the school nearly every day, running the weight program, holding spring drills, taking the team to passing leagues.

“I’m having an absolute ball here,” he said in his office a few weeks before school opened. “I can’t hide my happiness. I have a love affair with this place and this community. The coach is a big thing here--and I’ve taken advantage of it. I have a feeling Chris Ferragamo is more responsible than any other person for Wilmington being what it is, because everyone looks at Banning and takes great pride in what they’ve done.

“I like having Ferragamo nearby. People think they must have hired some kind of fool here because I’m always smiling. Chris is not intimidating as a predecessor because when you see him face to face he’s such a down-to-earth human being. I’ve looked at film of his teams and think they did as much with the kids’ spirit and diehardness as with X’s and O’s.”

Hazelton, a Los Angeles native, has been coaching virtually from the time he left high school. He put in two stints, most recently from 1982 to 1985, as coach at Montclair Prep, a small private school in the San Fernando Valley, and was an assistant at Crenshaw from 1978 to 1981. His record at Montclair was impressive, including an appearance in the CIF Inland Conference championship game in 1985.

Last year he was a volunteer assistant to Ted Tollner at USC, and he was set to join Larry Smith’s new staff there this year. Then, last winter, he picked up a newspaper and saw that Ferragamo was taking the Harbor College job. He immediately called Banning Principal Estella Pena.

“She wasn’t sure Chris was leaving. She said he’d threatened to leave before. But the newspaper article sounded very conclusive to me. I persisted that we meet. I told her, ‘Don’t you think you should have some option open?’ I was probably the first interview. She did a lot of research--somehow that ended up in my favor. I think I got a good recommendation from USC.”

Hazelton said there probably wasn’t another high school he would have applied to, certainly not on the spur of the moment. “I didn’t consider it until I saw the paper. I wasn’t looking around.

“When I left Montclair it was to get into college ball and stay there. I wanted to stay at USC. Things were going good there. I liked it. But the Banning name has such a mystique. This was an immediate opportunity to be a head coach at one of the finest jobs in America.”

The transition was made official--and easier--when Ferragamo introduced Hazelton to the team and talked to the players about maintaining the Banning tradition. Hazelton said if he went through a testing period with the players, it was ironed out by spring drills.

“I started the weight program and got out on the field with them,” he said. “They had to know if I was a good football coach--and they know good football coaches. They also know strategy--the X’s and O’s. I think it took into spring ball for them to be dead sure they were satisfied with the techniques they were learning and the offenses and defenses we were using.”

Banning lineman Mike Alexander, one of two returning starters and a preseason prep All-American, said, “It seems like he knows what he’s doing. He knows how to motivate us. He’s gotten things together. A lot of people have doubts, but I think we’ll dispel the doubts. We have a lot of unity.”

Rumors of mass transfers to Carson have not materialized. Alexander said a couple of players may have considered it but “our hearts are at Banning no matter what. Most of the guys feel that way.”

Alexander said the players were surprised when Ferragamo resigned but accepted Hazelton by spring. “He seemed pretty good, we just had to get used to it. It worked out good; we adapted.”

One piece of advice Ferragamo gave Hazelton was not to over-coach. “These kids will work so hard for you that you can get accomplished anything that you want,” Hazelton said. “They’ll run themselves to exhaustion. ‘Don’t do too much,’ Chris told me. You have to allow their emotion to come through, not burn them out.”

Hazelton said the obsessive coaching atmosphere at USC taught him there is life beyond football. Hazelton, who is single, said he tries to relate to his players as people: “I like the contact with my players. I like to deal with them, with their problems. I see myself as more than a coach--I’m a friend, a parent figure, a disciplinarian.”

He said the team “is growing to be a very cohesive group--and that’s very much a responsibility and ability of the coach. They’re not really joined in a cause unless the coach does it. I guess we had to sell ourselves (to the players) as coaches and in credibility, but I never doubted we’d be a good football team that would be joined.”

After a recent practice, Hazelton told the players he was working them hard because he intended to be playing on Dec. 18 (the date of the City championship game). Hazelton said he puts more pressure on himself to win than anyone can impose from outside. Matter-of-factly, without apparent cockiness, he said, “No one would be more surprised or crushed than I if we don’t get to the City final. When we sit in here as a staff we don’t talk about how not to lose, we talk about beating the hell out of ‘em.”

And the specter of neighboring Carson not only doesn’t worry Hazelton, he welcomes it. Spoken like a true Wilmingtonian, Hazelton said, “I want (Carson Coach Gene) Vollnogle something terrible. I can’t wait (for the Carson game). I’m sorry Vollnogle is in the twilight of his career, because it’s a rivalry I’d like to continue for a long time.”

Hazelton added that if there is pressure to succeed, there is also vast talent to do the job. “Other places, (success) was eventual. Here it’s first year,” he said. “When you get here the guy set the table so beautifully. People say, ‘How can you replace 20 of 22 starters?’ All we have to do is just keep coaching them to win.”

Hazelton’s team won’t look exactly like past Banning clubs. There will be less emphasis on the option, more multiple looks, more misdirection plays, less high risk. “I’m probably not as good a card player as he was,” Hazelton said of Ferragamo, who sometimes referred to himself as a “river boat gambler.”

Hazelton is concentrating on the offensive and defensive backfields. Ferragamo worked with the lines. Hazelton probably will suit up 55 players instead of the legions Ferragamo employed.

But everyone will be happy--if the results are similar.

“I’m just a very confident person,” Hazelton said. “I’ve never walked out on a football field when I didn’t think we’d win. Nobody’s concerned with failing. We’re just concerned with succeeding.”

His odds increased when he moved to Banning. So did the expectations.