KEY PLAYERS : Loyola High’s Todd Brady, Andres Kennedy Star on the Field and at the Piano

Were Todd Brady’s football career a musical composition, it would probably be Brahms’ “Concerto No. 2 in B Flat,” which just happens to be his favorite. A bold piece, heavy in tone, it brings out a dramatic feeling of strength.

For teammate Andres Kennedy, who returns from a week on the sidelines for Loyola High School’s most important game of the season so far, it would be Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” After a mellow start, it picks up for a strong finish.

That would suit Kennedy just fine. In fact, it rather matches the entire team that began 1987 slowly and is just now living up to its preseason rankings.

So it goes for the Cubs, who again have a defense that’s music to the ears of Coach Steve Grady. That falls right in with tradition at the Los Angeles school, which has a 4-0 record and is ranked sixth in the Southern Section heading into tonight’s 7:30 nonleague showdown against No. 7 Antelope Valley, also 4-0, at Lancaster.

But on a unit that has plenty of top performers--linebacker Josh Price, backs Jimmy Klein and Kennedy, and linemen Paul Sellers, Matt Butkus, Dan Glascott, Mike Gilhooly and Brady head the group--Kennedy and Brady are true virtuosos. They are standouts both with the 88 keys and the 5-2 alignment.

Brady, a 6-foot 4-inch, 215-pound junior, has been playing piano for 11 years, with tastes that run from the classics of Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn to the modern-day movements of Alicia de Larrocha.

How many of his classmates know of de Larrocha, let alone go to the Music Center and the Hollywood Bowl for performances, as Brady does?

“Better yet,” he said. “How many high school football players have heard of her?”

Not many, to be sure. But Brady is not your average high school football player.

His father, Don, played football at Stanford in the 1950s, and his mother, Mary, was a classical pianist herself. They are the guiding forces behind Todd’s enjoyment of sports and music.

His problem is talent--lots of it in a variety of areas and not enough time to fully explore it. For the 16-year-old Brady, a defensive tackle in just his third year of tackle football, it’s 2-2 1/2 hours of piano a day after football practice, at home and with a teacher, with seven or eight recitals a year, even solos, on classical music.

“He has no second speed,” Grady said. “He’s always on full-out go. . . . He’s under a lot of pressure to accomplish a lot of goals, and football obviously isn’t his only priority. He wants the piano, he wants good grades and he wants football.”

So far, Brady, with a 3.6 grade-point average and definite potential in football, has been able to keep all desires relatively satisfied. The coaches have been able to combine sports and music, too, calling him Liberace when they figure that he’s not working hard enough on the field. That usually produces increased effort.

“There’s always the pressure to get better,” Brady said this week. “Only now am I able to enjoy being able to play classical piano and football at the same time. . . . I would never quit the piano for football and I would never quit football for the piano. Both mean too much to me.

“I don’t feel I’m playing as well as I could just because of the thousand different things, piano and school and football. It’s really hard on to go on the field and give 100% on the field every day. I know I’ve got a lot to learn, but with the great coaches we have, I know I can be good.”

And, much as he has varying interests in life, his appreciation of music is also wide ranging. In fact, the normal pregame ritual calls for a heavy-metal dose of Led Zeppelin or Van Halen, for the classics can only go so far in getting you fired up for a game in the trenches.

“I love the old music, the Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn,” he said. “I enjoy listening to rock music but then being able to switch my mind over to play classical.

“People ask me how I could listen to music that’s so relaxing and then go listen to something where you bang your brains out. I guess that’s the thing that makes me unique. I know the average Joe Blow couldn’t do it.

“I look at the others and say, ‘They don’t have to go to football practice, too.’ They can devote eight hours a day to just the piano. Most of them probably never even read the sports section. I can look at myself and say, ‘I’m getting the best of both worlds.’ ”

Kennedy, a senior wide receiver/cornerback who sat out last Saturday’s win over El Camino Real of Woodland Hills with a sprained ankle, knows the feeling. Ten years of piano playing has also been an asset to his football, mainly because it strengthens his fingers, the better to catch the ball. Discipline is another carry-over.

“I know it’s worth it because they complement each other,” said Kennedy, who was born in New York and moved to Cheviot Hills when he was 8. “I wouldn’t give either one up. It’s hard to separate them.”

Contrary to Brady, though, Kennedy, a fan of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and Billy Joel, doesn’t try to juggle full-time football with full-time music. His piano time drops to 30-60 minutes a day during the fall, then increases to 1-2 hours the rest of the school year, including when he runs in four events for the track team, and usually peaks when he returns to New York during the summer.

“The preparation beforehand is the same,” he said of football and music. “But it’s a different feeling when you get to the piano. You’re by yourself. It’s your own show. You don’t have teammates behind you just in case. When you play cornerback, at least there’s a safety at the back door.”

One of the keys of the fall, of course, is to avoid injury, especially to hands and fingers. Kennedy, who normally covers the opponent’s best receiver, which means he’ll get Shon Grimes of Antelope Valley tonight, has sprained his thumbs two years in a row and now tapes both.

Brady is even more cautious. He tapes each finger individually, then covers each hand with a blocking glove.

And if those precautions fail, there’s always prayer.

“My mom sits in the stands and says a rosary every game so that I won’t get hurt,” Brady said. “I say that jokingly, but she really gets worried about me getting hurt.”

If either Brady or Kennedy gets hurt, things would definitely be flat, for them and Loyola.

Prep Notes

Santa Ana will hold a basketball clinic devoted to defense Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the campus gym. Fresno State Coach Ron Adams, Cal State Long Beach Coach Joe Harrington and Nevada Las Vegas assistant Tim Grgurich are the scheduled speakers. Admission at the door is $25. For more information: Greg Coombs at (714) 558-5780 or (714) 859-4006. . . . Corona del Mar of Newport Beach leads the Southern Section 4-A water polo rankings, with Los Alamitos atop the 3-A and Costa Mesa the 2-A. A pair of Long Beach schools, No. 4 Wilson and No. 9 Millikan, are the only non-Orange County teams ranked in the 4-A top 10. . . . The No. 1 teams in girls’ tennis: Rancho Palos Verdes Miraleste in 4-A, San Marino in 3-A, Canoga Park Chaminade in 2-A, and Thousand Oaks La Reina in 1-A.

After four games last season, Newhall Hart quarterback Jim Bonds, who went on to earn All-Southern Section honors and a scholarship to UCLA, had passed for 870 yards. After four games this season, his replacement, Darren Renfro, has thrown for 884. The Indians, the defending Northwestern Conference champions, are 3-1 heading into tonight’s game with Quartz Hill (4-0) at College of the Canyons and have had their problems. The defense has allowed an average of 315.8 yards a game, with Saugus last week the first opponent that did not break the 300-yard barrier. On offense, Hart had consecutive scoreless second halves in close games before scoring eight in the 21-15 win over Saugus. In the last two games, the Indians have come up scoreless eight times inside the 20.

Campbell Hall of North Hollywood defeated L.A. Lutheran of Mission Hills in eight-man football last week, 48-0, in a game that was called on the 45-point rule because of an unusual play. With his Campbell Hall Vikings leading in the third quarter, 42-0, Don White punted. The ball went nearly straight up and bounced back to White, who ran around the right side for a touchdown. “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in 23 years of football,” Campbell Hall Coach Kirk Duncan said.

Debbie Graham, the second-ranked junior tennis player in the country in the girls’ 16 division, has transfered from La Quinta to Los Amigos for her senior year. She started at La Quinta as a freshman, since the Westminster school is the only member of the Garden Grove Unified School District that offers Latin, but when she fell behind in class because of tennis commitments--she spent the first two days of school at the Junior U.S. Open--she was faced with flunking and transferred to Los Amigos instead. Graham has a 4.0 grade-point average and plans to attend Stanford next year.