FAMILY TIES : Finding Ways to Spend Some Time at Home Can Be the Hardest Part of a Coach’s Season

Four-thirty in the morning. That’s when Fountain Valley High School Coach Mike Milner gets to work during the football season, the one time he can concentrate on details without interruption. Practice doesn’t start for 10 hours. Milner’s day won’t end for 17 hours.

Friday nights are game nights, and Saturdays and Sundays are 12-hour workdays. Milner breaks down game films, scouts other teams and prepares for the next opponent. Week after week, for four months.

Gene Go Football. That’s what Woodbridge football coach Gene Noji’s 2 1/2-year-old son, Randall, called his father, until recently. Randall associated his father with the bright lights and crowds of game night.

The word “daddy” was missing from Randall’s growing vocabulary. That bothered Noji.

Mommy stuff. That’s Nadine Elwood’s term for what waits at the end of her day. Elwood, the Esperanza swim coach, starts her day with a 5:45 a.m. practice, teaches five academic periods, serves as chairman of the school’s foreign language department and coaches an afternoon workout.

When she gets home, she cares for her 3-year-old daughter, does housework, makes dinner. She sees her husband, a student, when he gets home from class after 10 p.m.

Milner is divorced. His schedule has changed little in 20 years of coaching. His girlfriend says she has learned to accept it.

Noji is adjusting his schedule. Although he won a conference championship in 1987, Noji is taking a leave of absence from coaching. His main motivation: spending time with his son.

Elwood is married. As the demands on her time grow, juggling the role of coach, wife, mother and teaching professional, she searches for a balance.

Long hours. Weekends. When the season comes, high school coaches not only are physically gone much of the time, but they often are emotionally absent. Coaches’ partners must share their mates with a group of teen-agers.

Eighty-six percent of those reponding to a Times survey of Orange County high school varsity coaches said that coaching significantly affects their personal lives. Many say there is a deterioration of family life during the season.

And it’s not just the high-profile sports that cause a strain in relationships. Football is well-known for its demanding hours, but coaching almost any sport can require a balancing act between family and work.

Many coaches said the high level of competition in Orange County demands that they spend more time and mental energy at their jobs just to keep up with other programs.

“The bottom line is this,” said Mark Cunningham, University football coach. “If you don’t win, that means you’re not doing a good job. And if you get fired, then you’ll really have an unhappy situation at home.”

“I just resign myself that when the season starts I won’t see him until the end of the season.”

--Kathy Brooks, wife of Steve Brooks, Los Alamitos basketball coach

Once preseason practice begins, many coaches become almost strangers to friends and family.

Some coaches made sure their spouses knew what they were getting into before they were married.

“We went through a football season engaged,” Noji said. “I wanted to make sure she knew what was involved.”

Many women married to coaches have been coaches themselves, played sports or are daughters of coaches and are prepared. But for many others, the time commitment is a surprise.

Lucienne Marrujo, who has been married to Valencia’s football coach, Mike Marrujo, for 11 years, said: “The first year was definitely a shock. He’d work all week and then Sunday would roll around and he’d still go into work! Now when the season first starts, I go into depression, but once I get into a routine, I’m OK.”

The lack of a regular schedule creates stress. One day a coach is there, the next day the season begins and he or she is swallowed up for months.

“It’s a continual adjustment,” said Jackie Hill, the wife of Santa Ana’s football coach, Dick Hill, who has coached for 35 years. “You re-adjust your schedule to spring, summer and fall. You have to learn to roll with the punches.”

And learn to plan well. Santa Ana’s basketball coach, Greg Coombs, and his wife, Linda, were married the night before Thanksgiving and squeezed in a four-day honeymoon in Northern California before he coached his first game last season.

Bill Shannon, Woodbridge basketball coach, and his wife, Vicki, are expecting a baby in September. The off-season.

“We didn’t plan it that way,” Vicki Shannon said. “But it was definitely one of the first things I thought about when I found out I was pregnant.”

Some aren’t so lucky. Jan Falk, wife of Rick Falk, the Tustin girls’ basketball coach, can’t remember the last time they celebrated their anniversary (Dec. 12) together. Karen Speros, the University girls’ tennis coach, is helping to plan her son’s wedding, set for October. During her season. She doesn’t know how she’ll manage.

“It’s just another one of those bumps we have to work over,” Speros’ husband, Bill, said.

“If you asked me about (a game) that we had two seasons ago, I could tell you. But if you asked me when I got married, I’m not so sure.”

--John Garcia, Orange boys’ soccer coach

Coaching also requires a huge emotional investment. Encouraging, counseling, nurturing. Things a spouse does. Things a parent does. Partners and children waiting at home may be greeted by a coach who is drained of giving.

“It’s a strange situation,” Cunningham said. “You have a commitment to your wife and children, but you also have a tremendous commitment to 50 young men, to helping them realize their dreams and goals. It’s a difficult thing for a family to deal with.”

The level of competition in Orange County demands additional energy.

“You’re always looking for ways to get an edge,” Noji said. “It’s as if a businessman had to make an important presentation representing his company every Friday night. Your mind is always on it, even in the shower.”

Mimi Butler, wife of Tim Butler, Dana Hills cross-country and track coach, said: “(At the end of the season), Tim is the typical basket-case coach. It’s impossible to get anything out of him.”

The pressure to win isn’t always left on the field. Garcia said he doesn’t feel comfortable coming home if he hasn’t done a good job coaching.

“If we lose a game, my wife gets very uptight,” Cunningham said. “It makes her mad that all this time has been put in and all these sacrifices are made and then we come away without a win.”

The little time couples can spend together during the season is often interrupted by calls from players, booster club members, parents or reporters. Some resort to the tactic taken by the wife of Irvine’s swimming coach, Scott Hinman, who said his wife often unplugs their telephone.

And if there are children involved, the picture becomes more complicated.

“I know my son has spent a lot of time in gyms against his will,” Falk said. “There are times when he’ll come up to me when I’m on the bench and want to ask me a question, and I’m sure I’ve given him an answer he doesn’t like.”

Jealousy can also be a factor. When Mommy or Daddy isn’t home, they’re out with other kids.

“I remember when I was coaching in Pomona,” said Cunningham, who has a 5-year-old girl and 15-month-old boy. “I got a call at midnight from a kid who was in a fight and had his head fractured. I can imagine, if it was now, my son might think, ‘Geez, do I have to get my head cracked open to see my dad?’ ”

Lucienne Marrujo said: “By the end of the (football season), my daughter will ask, ‘Where’s Dad? Why isn’t he here?’ That’s tough for all of us to take.”

“I suspect there may have been times when I’ve spent a little more time with the family and it may have eventually cost us a game.”

-- Rick Falk, Tustin girls’ basketball coach

Compromise is critical in any relationship. And coaches’ wives have become masters of compromise. Many embrace their husbands’ careers, turning coaching into a family event. They attend every game and welcome the players into their homes with open arms.

Jackie Hill scouts opposing teams with her husband.

“It’s a chance to be with him,” she said.

Mimi Butler keeps score at meets and travels with the team.

“I think within the fine print within our wedding vows, he must have included that I’d be the scorer for the team,” she said.

Bill Smith, who coaches tennis and freshman football at Mission Viejo, remembers that his son took his first steps on the Mission Viejo field. The sons of Mater Dei’s basketball coach, Gary McKnight, spend their summers in the gym while McKnight coaches his team. Falk’s daughter is his statistician. Brooks’ daughter is his team mascot.

The family is involved in coaching, but sometimes the coach isn’t involved in the family. El Toro’s basketball coach, Tim Travers, found it difficult to get to his daughter’s activities.

“All of a sudden, here she was in eighth grade, and I didn’t want to miss any more time,” Travers said. “I’ve decided that I’m not going to let that happen anymore. Now I don’t miss a thing she does.”

Larry Anderson, Katella football coach, tries to see his wife play soccer in a recreational league.

“I don’t think she’s missed one of my games, and I try to get to hers,” Anderson said. “But it’s lopsided in our case.”

It also tends to be lopsided for female coaches.

“I’m sure it is harder to be female, coach, wife and mother, than male and a coach,” Elwood said. “I think the woman is still the primary house and child caretaker. Most of the male coaches have wives who can pick up the dry cleaning and go to the bank.”

Mike Milner doesn’t have time to go to the bank or get a haircut during football season. He has kept up his frantic schedule for 20 years. Three years ago he was divorced after more than 12 years of marriage.

“The schedule was a consideration (in the divorce),” Milner said. “She came to the games for a while, but toward the end, she just looked on it as a game.”

Coaching doesn’t cause divorce. But the job can exacerbate existing problems.

El Toro’s baseball coach, Dan DeLeon, was married for seven years before he and his wife were divorced in 1983.

“(Coaching) really put a strain on our relationship,” DeLeon said. “You don’t realize what effect (the time spent coaching) will have on your relationship down the road. Now it’s all hindsight.”

“I think you can be a good coach and still have a personal life, but I don’t know if you can be a great one.”

-- Rick Falk

Many coaches in Orange County are making professional sacrifices for the sake of their personal lives.

To spend time with his son and take a mental break, Gene Noji is leaving a program that has many returning starters from last season’s Desert-Mountain Conference championship team. Santa Ana’s Jeff Watts resigned from coaching girls’ basketball after he found that it was difficult for him to teach, work as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Fullerton College and see his family.

Huntington Beach’s volleyball coach, Rocky Ciarelli, who is married to Cammy Chalmers, a UC Irvine assistant women’s volleyball coach, won’t coach the girls’ team next year in order to be at home with their new baby when his wife starts her season. Marina’s Mike Thornton, who coached girls’ basketball and was the boys’ assistant coach, gave up coaching the boys this season, a job he enjoyed.

“Basketball is very important, but it’s definitely secondary,” Thornton said. “With both sports, I was away five nights a week. It’s not fair for my wife and kids.”

Mike Neese coached the girls’ volleyball team at Newport Harbor for five years and compiled a 97-20 record. He also helped coach the Orange County Volleyball Club and an all-star traveling team, working year-round and traveling two or three weekends a month.

“Sometime I’d go six days straight without seeing my kids,” said Neese, who now teaches at Riverside Poly and is an assistant football and baseball coach there.

“It was way out of perspective for me,” he said. “Everyone’s patting you on the back, but your wife’s sitting at home, supporting you but not getting her strokes. I’ve changed my lifestyle for my marriage and family.”

Coaches are quick to point out that coaching also has its benefits where the family is concerned.

Although many coaches are involved in summer leagues and camps, summers are at least free of classes. Although coaching hours are long, much of the time is spent in a flexible environment. If one partner has a commitment, a coach can bring the kids to work. Baby-sitting is easier in a gym during practice than in a 20th-floor law office. Unlike many professions, coaching takes place in a social environment in which young people are welcome.

“What’s nice about his job is that the kids and I can always go with his team,” Mimi Butler said. “And our kids feel like they’re involved with their daddy.”

But coaches and spouses warn that both partners need to approach marriage fully aware of what the job entails. Loara’s football coach, Herb Hill, jokingly suggests a prenuptial agreement.

“Once people start coaching, they realize their personal life and their coaching life may not be compatible,” Hill said. “A coach has to get organized and know what his priorities are.”

Neese said: “Coaching takes a lot of time and commitment, and so does marriage. I guess that’s the conflict.”