EL CAMINO REAL’S LEAN YEARS : Victory-Starved Program Fattens Roster and Serves Steady Diet of Enthusiasm In Effort to Regain Appetite for Winning

The El Camino Real winds its way through the panoramic heart of western California, providing some of the most scenic vistas the state has to offer. The historic highway, which connected the state’s many Spanish missions 2 1/2 centuries before Caltrans paved its first gridlocked freeway, is the namesake of El Camino Real High.

Literally translated, El Camino Real means “The Royal Road.” For years, the school’s path to the playoffs was as unencumbered as the fast lane at midnight. El Camino Real was among the most feared City Section teams in the Valley, advancing to the 4-A Division final in 1977 and 1980--both times losing to perennial power Banning.

Yet 1980 might as well have been a dozen decades ago, something out of a musty history book. To some current and former players, it seems like the last time the school won a football game was about the time Father Junipero Serra was last seen dragging his burro through the area’s dusty foothills.

“Let me put it this way,” said Jack Swan, a former Times All-Valley lineman from El Camino Real who is redshirting as a freshman at Georgia. “I don’t parade around here in my El Camino Real T-shirt.”

Last Friday, while most of its players were out enjoying the last weekend before the beginning of school, El Camino Real became a team of distinction, thanks to a victory by a team 350 miles up the storied highway. When Kennedy of Fremont defeated Arroyo of San Lorenzo, 24-0, last week, El Camino Real became the owner of the state’s longest winless streak for a team above the 2-A level.

Over the past 2 1/2 seasons, the Conquistadores have gone 23 consecutive games (0-21-2) without a victory.

An animated Mike Maio is giving it his best rah-rah act, trying to wake up a team that has been sleepwalking through practice. Results are mixed.

Some players perk up, some continue to snooze in an upright position. At the other end of the practice field, a B team coach is chewing out players for their apathy. It seems he asked a group of wide receivers for volunteers to play at defensive back, and nobody stepped forward.

This, Maio concedes, is a sobering dose of El Camino Realism.

Maio, 49, spent the past 10 years coaching the B team before taking over the varsity alongside co-Coach Ralph Stam, 56, a varsity assistant since 1971. Maio and Stam have replaced Skip Giancanelli, who retired from coaching last season, citing what was essentially burnout. Giancanelli, 59, had been the only coach in the school’s 19-year history.

Maio and Stam pepper the team with encouragement and instruction--the team is admittedly weak on fundamentals and the opener is two days away. Conspicuous in their absence from Maio and Stam’s constructive cajoling are any historical references.

“When we’re on the field,” Maio said. “We do not talk about last year.”

Or of the few that preceded it.

Demographic factors are pinpointed as the cause of most of the team’s woes. In its heyday, El Camino Real made use of the best of what the baby boom offered. Urban sprawl pushed couples to the suburbs, where houses were affordable and a young family could settle down. Student population in the late ‘70s swelled to nearly 3,300 at the school.

Within a decade, however, the influx of youth subsided. The building boom that spawned the school’s inception in 1969 had moved West, toward Ventura County.

Examples abound. Swan, whose brother Turner started at center in 1979, is the youngest of three sons. Senior Erik Hof, a tight end and linebacker, is the youngest of two sons.

The tide of talent is inextricably tied to numbers.

“Everybody points to the lack of bused kids as the reason we’re not winning,” Stam said. “But we lived and died with the kids from right here in the area. Our strength came from within.”

“It’s simple. Winning is going to bring a lot more people out,” said Maio, who is also the baseball coach. “I live in Thousand Oaks, and I don’t think they have too many problems finding good players after a CIF championship. We went to Dodger Stadium in 1984 with the baseball team, and I have no problem getting kids out for baseball.

“You win 35-0 and everybody plays. You win 14-7, they want to be part of it. You lose 7-6 three times in a row and not too many guys are gonna be interested.”

Don Thomas, the school’s administrator in charge of athletics, said many of the students participating in the L.A. Unified School District’s Permit With Transportation busing program are unfamiliar with the sport. El Camino Real draws students from the attendance areas of Belmont, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Fairfax, Washington, Fremont, Manual Arts, Crenshaw and Locke highs. Many of those areas are now populated by first-or second-generation Asians and Hispanics, Thomas said.

“A lot of the areas are not really conducive to football,” Maio said. “The kids aren’t raised with the sport.

All of which dilutes the talent pool even more--eight players on the current roster have no football experience.

El Camino Real also does not participate in the district’s Magnet Program, wherein students may attend a school to take advantage of curriculum not offered at the school in their attendance area.

“I can tell you flat out from experience that the Magnet Program can be an important draw,” said Thomas, a longtime member of the City’s Interscholastic Athletic Committee.

Enrollment still is shrinking--Thomas estimated the 1988 attendance at 2,650 (though only 2,300 were on campus for the first day of school Wednesday), down from 2,900 in 1987. However, current head counts include a freshman class that was added when an area junior high closed a few years ago.

When Swan was a youngster, his Friday nights revolved around El Camino Real football. His brother was the starting center for a team that included standout quarterback John Mazur, who later started at USC in 1981, the season Marcus Allen won the Heisman Trophy. Full houses were the norm and many fans, like a wide-eyed Swan, came decked out in school colors.

“I was a big El Camino fan from as far back as I can remember,” Swan said. “They were it , then. I couldn’t wait to get there and play.”

Swan played three seasons for the varsity, which managed one win in his tenure. El Camino Real’s last victory was a 23-7 win over Cleveland in the sixth week of the ’85 season.

There have been several signs that the program is on the upswing, however.

Turnout, miserable the past two seasons, is encouraging. In 1986, the varsity consisted of 33 players. In 1987, 37 made the varsity, although by the end of the season there were as many as nine players starting on both offense and defense. This season, there are 50 players on the varsity, although only six starters and 13 lettermen return.

There are currently 22 players up from a B team that finished 4-5 last year and was “seven points from being 7-2,” Maio said. “All our players have tasted victory recently.”

Maio also has beefed up the offense.

“It was pretty simple before, kind of like an old Packard,” Hof said. “The passing game is more complex now, and that makes it more fun to play.”

Most important, according to Maio, the team will start the season with only three or four two-way starters.

Last season, the Conquistadores scored moral victories in ties with San Fernando (26-26) and Kennedy (13-13). Even though its record was 0-8-2, the team showed occasional flashes of respectability.

The schedule, consistently one of the toughest among area City teams, included Loyola and Channel Islands last year, both of which advanced to conference semifinals or beyond. The schedule has been scaled down this season.

“We’re not saying we’ve scheduled patsies,” Maio said, “We’re just trying to be realistic. We can’t beat those teams any more.”

Said Thomas: “If we had this year’schedule last year, we win three games.” El Camino Real, in fact, has a decent chance of breaking the drought tonight, when it faces Fairfax, which finished 3-7 last year.

Although Maio and Stam stopped short of making outright predictions, both seemed confident that the pain of the skein will soon end. Neither predicts a return to prominence. In fact, both probably would settle for mediocrity.

And first things first--a victory.

“Lots of our players don’t remember in the late ‘70s when El Camino was playing against the Bannings in the Coliseum, when nobody wanted a part of us because we were knocking the hell out of people,” Maio said before turning his attention to the present. “I don’t want to be associated with that streak, I don’t want these kids to have to deal with it. It will end.”