At Santa Ana, the Coombs Way Is the Only Way : He Fights Attitudes, Stereotypes to Rebuild Saints

Smile?

Seven years ago you walked into the Santa Ana High School gymnasium and found out that the most faithful spectator was the peeling paint.

Three years later you met a kid who was going to bring untold riches to your basketball program, a nice kid, who informed you in mid-conversation that he didn’t attend class on the even-numbered days.

All the time you worked hard to clean up your team’s image--opposing players thought your kids carried switch blades during games.

For their own good, you monitor your players’ academic progress as if your name was J. Edgar, and all the thanks you got was that, at one time or another, you have to bench practically every kid.

And after all this, after all the times you raked your hand through your thinning hair, angry at the things you had to do and angry about the things you couldn’t do, you have the strength, the fortitude, the nerve , to smile?

Standing there, your Santa Ana basketball team having just beaten Buena, 74-70, in the Southern Section’s 4-A quarterfinals, you glowed like a Coleman lantern. Greg Coombs, have you forgotten?

Maybe you remember all of it too well.

“It seems everything we’ve taught, everything we’ve believed in as coaches is finally coming together,” Coombs said. “The kids have come around, that makes me happy.”

Of course, the fact that his team has made it to the 4-A semifinals tonight--Santa Ana (26-3) plays top-seeded Simi Valley (25-3) in Chapman College’s Hutton Sports Center--also lends a bit of a grin to a guy’s disposition.

In Coombs’ seven seasons, Santa Ana has made six straight playoff appearances. From the time the current set of seniors made their way onto the varsity three seasons ago, Santa Ana has been one of Orange County’s best teams.

Talent, the past three seasons, has never been a problem. But problems have come. Fist fights, suspensions, accusations, it’s been a regular E ticket. And yet Coombs has remained intact. Reluctant to give up on a kid who has had a tough time, adamant about not letting that kid use tough circumstances as an excuse.

“He’s the most resilient man you’ll meet,” said Greg Katz, Santa Ana assistant.

With what he has been through the past few years, it would figure he’s made of Turtle Wax.

Coombs, 31, started his coaching career at age 19, as a junior varsity coach at Sunny Hills. He stayed at the school five years, becoming Sunny Hills Coach Steve White’s varsity assistant. When he was 24, he heard about a head coaching position at Santa Ana. He applied and got the job.

“What he walked into was a long way away from Sunny Hills,” White said. “That doesn’t mean it was better or worse. Every school has its own set of circumstances that make for different situations. But I remember hearing from Greg that one of the first things he had to do when he got there was try and bail this kid out of juvenile hall.”

Actually, Coombs said, it was a continuation school. The kid had stolen a television.

Though the Santa Ana program had always been a good one, it lacked any kind of reputation or following. One of the first things he did was repaint the gym.

“I thought it was important to get the gym looking good,” Coombs said. “I wanted the kids to be proud of where they played. People have some stereotypes of what the Santa Ana gymnasium will look like. You know, all broken down. I wanted to make sure the kids could be proud of it. I wanted to make sure people who saw it for the first time were impressed.”

And once the gym was painted, he opened it whenever he could so the local kids could play. Local kids that may come back to stay--the Santa Ana Unified School District has open enrollment for its three high schools (Santa Ana, Santa Ana Valley, Saddleback).

He also started cleaning house of what he called the “undesireables.” Kids he thought tore the other players down. Many times the problem kids were some of the best players or most popular.

“There was a lot of people who were very disappointed with Coach Coombs when he started getting rid of people,” said Jeff Stewart, a former player. “They were the type of players who thought they were the team. But then coach went out and won without them.”

Even though he had success on the court, Coombs still struggled how to handle the stories that crossed his desk--broken homes, money problems, kids forced to live, basically, on their own. He had always been a nice guy, had always been able, as White said, “to relate to the kids” at Sunny Hills.

But how did an overachieving guy such as Coombs relate to, as Katz explains, the pervasive feeling toward responsibility.

“The feeling here is, you get away with anything you can,” Katz said. “Someone doesn’t steal your bike in Santa Ana, you were stupid enough to leave it unlocked.”

When Bobby Joyce, the varsity’s current star center, was a freshman, he informed the Santa Ana coaching staff that he only attended class on the even-numbered days. The time had come to do something. Coombs began to really hawk kids about classes. If they didn’t go, it was an instant game suspension.

There was a certain attitude demanded in practice, a code of conduct evolved. Coombs knew of the stereotypes that followed Santa Ana kids. Point guard Scootie Lynwood says he was once approached by a Newport Harbor player who asked him if it was true that some Santa Ana players stuffed knives in their socks.

Eager to prove the stereotype of have-nots wrong, Coombs raised money year after year to finance summer trips. One year Sacramento, another Lake Tahoe, last summer it was Washington D.C. and New York City.

“People look at schools like Mater Dei, and their team always travels,” Coombs said. “I want our kids to know they’re just as good. That if they work, they’ll go places.”

And when they don’t, they go places, like the bench. But don’t think for a minute that all of Coombs’ hard work has gone rewarded.

Trying to change Santa Ana’s bad boy image, he had to go through three bench-clearing fights during the 1985-1986 season.

“After all the hard work, that really hurt,” he said.

Last season, he had to suspend Joyce for several games. A little less than a month into the season, he suspended Lynwood for the entire season.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he said. “I really liked Scootie. But he was bringing the other kids down. I couldn’t allow that.”

In fact, over the last four years, a lot of kids have sat on the bench for breaking this rule or that and still Coombs has won.

“Winning without players is big,” White said. “He’s proven he’s the most important person on that team.”

This season, Lynwood has returned to the team and his form as one of the county’s best point guards. Joyce has been positively polite. Players who once questioned Coombs’ heavy hand now shake it.

“Things have come around,” Coombs said. “But it wasn’t just me. The kids have done it themselves. I can’t move mountains by myself.”

But you can smile as they go by.

SIMI VALLEY vs. SANTA ANA

RECORDS--Simi Valley (25-3), Santa Ana (26-3).

SITE--Hutton Sports Center, Chapman College.

SIMI VALLEY UPDATE--Led by all-Southern Section center Don MacLean, Simi Valley is the No. 1 seeded team in the playoffs. The 6-foot 10-inch MacLean, the 4-A player of the year as a junior, is an exceptional perimeter shooter. He averaged 33.1 points a game, second in the Southern Section. But Simi Valley has more than one scorer. Forward Sean DeLaittre is averaging 21.5 points a game, and has had a high game of 33.

SANTA ANA UPDATE--The Saints reach the semifinals for the first time under Coach Greg Coombs. Led by 6-7 center Bobby Joyce (24.2 points a game), Santa Ana is a team that depends on an aggressive, denying defense to set up its offense. Santa Ana held Buena, a team averaging 90 points in the playoffs, to just 21 first-half points in the quarterfinals. Point guard Scootie Lynwood (8.2 assists a game) is effective at setting tempo, and getting the ball to the right man. Most of the time, that’s Joyce.

KEY TO THE GAME--MacLean is going to score, that’s a given. Santa Ana must try to limit Simi Valley’s second weapon, DeLaittre. For Simi Valley, it must play its pace and avoid Santa Ana’s aggressive defense from dictating the tempo of the game.

CONSENSUS--Joyce and MacLean, this game’s most important characters, may cancel each other out. If they do, Simi Valley has the trump card in DeLaittre. Simi Valley by a basket or two.