NEW VIEW OF BASEBALL AT VISTA : Butch Smith, the Upbeat First-Year Coach, Has His Team Headed for the Playoffs

Until last year’s 0-10 season, Vista High was known for its football program.

Baseball . . . well, let’s just say the players didn’t go out of their way to be noticed on the Vista campus.

During the ‘80s, the Panthers have made the playoffs just twice--most recently in 1985--and have never won the Palomar League title.

Vista won’t win it this year either--Mt. Carmel has already clinched its eighth championship in nine years--but it will make the playoffs. The Panthers have secured second place and, suddenly, the players are showing off a little.

“You see the kids wearing the baseball caps now (around campus),” said Carl Hause, the athletic director.

Even after Tuesday’s loss to Mt. Carmel, the Panthers are 15-7-1 and 7-5 in the league and quickly gaining respect from the league’s coaches.

The difference? Most Palomar coaches say it’s mostly in the attitude developed by Butch Smith, the first-year coach.

“The noticeable difference is the way they carry themselves on the field,” Poway Coach Rudy Casciato said.

Frank Chambliss, coach at Torrey Pines, is not used to the upbeat atmosphere and team-first attitude but is impressed with what he has seen.

“I’m seeing a lot of discipline in their guys that I haven’t seen before,” said Chambliss, who has been beaten by Smith twice. “The kids have a new attitude about baseball at the school. Butch is a very personable guy, and I think he gets a lot out of his players. In the past, there used to be a couple guys dominating--now it seems to be more of a team.”

Smith said there’s a reason for that: “We create a family atmosphere here.”

It is clearly visible during Vista games.

“I like the rah-rah stuff,” he said. “Nobody sits the entire game. Everybody talks it up.”

And sometimes Smith and his players will even talk it up to their opponents, but rarely negatively.

“I’ve never met the guy before, and he’s giving me compliments,” said Mt. Carmel’s Sam Blalock, dean of Palomar League coaches. “He’s saying, ‘Nice pitch, (Byron) Klemaske.’ I was thinking this guy wants to get on the nice side and stick the knife in your back, but I haven’t seen the knife yet.

“Our kids even noticed it. They were saying their kids are too nice. We’re not used to that.”

Blalock says he admires what Smith has accomplished in a short time.

“I think he’s really come in and inspired the program,” he said. “He just seemed really ‘up’ to me. He’s got a little hop in his step. I think he’s got an awful lot of those kids to believe. His kids really hustle.”

Ryan Tamburrino, Vista’s starting left-fielder and second-leading hitter, has played for Smith since Pony League.

“I don’t think we’d have gone this far this year without him,” said Tamburrino, who is hitting .390. “He just always seems to get us up. He’s never dead.”

Blalock’s not sure but says he may have seen this bouncy, happy go-lucky guy somewhere before.

“He looks like a lot of guys I used to hang out with,” Blalock said. “You expect him to say, ‘Let’s go to the beach.’ ”

Instead you’ll more than likely get a “Let’s go to practice.” Each day except Sundays and game days, Smith puts his team through a four-hour practice.

“I really believe in the work ethic,” said Smith, who works eight hours before practice as a landscape contractor. “It’s not like we’re out there beating it into them, but I think practice makes perfect. I think this season has proven that it pays off.”

The long practices scared off a few prospects. The 19-man roster was thus easily reduced to 14.

“I try to explain to them that it’s a privilege,” said Smith, who coached the Vista junior varsity for the past two years.

Hause, who hired Smith after Mike Abruzzo resigned, said Smith has made it a privilege.

“I wouldn’t say that baseball was de-emphasized here, but Butch has instilled a new sense of pride in the program,” said Hause, who replaced Rick Bethel two years ago when Rancho Buena Vista opened and the student body was divided. “The kids tended to specialize before the split.”

Which meant many of the better athletes played football and only football. There were few crossover athletes. But then Vista’s enrollment dropped from 3,400 to 1,800, and the football team’s success dropped, too--from league champion in ’86 to 6-4 in ’87 to 0-10 last season.

“We figured if we were going to be successful, we were going to have to share kids,” Hause said.

Smith has reaped the benefits of football Coach Dick Haines’ misfortune--three football players, including Tamburrino, are playing baseball this year, and Smith expects many more next year.

“I’d heard things that weren’t very flattering about Dick Haines--that he doesn’t get the football players to play baseball,” Smith said. “But so far Dick has been a great help to me. He gives me a weight program to follow, he’s helped in keeping an eye on my kids, and he’s given me some good advice.”

Haines, who was on the selection committee that hired Smith, said the baseball program’s revival is directly related to Smith’s enthusiasm.

“He’s a people person,” Haines said. “He’s a worker, and the kids are really playing for him. It seems like it’s a ‘we-and-us’ attitude instead of ‘I and me.’ ”

Smith said he also has received some pretty good advice from other Palomar League coaches.

“I don’t have to attend baseball clinics; I get one every time I play a game,” said Smith, who never played high school or college baseball. “These guys teach me something every game.”

And although he was a success at the junior varsity level, 12-0 in ‘87, 10-2 in ‘88, Smith says he still has a lot to learn.

“It’s been an educational experience,” he said. “I’ve made a couple decisions that have cost us. It’s been a lot more work that I thought it was going to be.”