Family Man : His Kids Matter Most to Coach Eric Patton

Back then, there was just a one-room apartment in South Bend, Ind., with just enough space for a bed that pulled down from the wall and a crib for the baby. Peggy Patton worked two jobs, Eric Patton played football for Notre Dame and worked at a canning factory in the off-season.

There were many nights when Peggy, returning from her night job as a waitress, would exhaust her tip supply to buy a pizza for the two of them, only to find Eric and the baby asleep when she got home.

Young and in love, with a large pepperoni and mushroom with extra cheese as a major financial asset, they rarely got discouraged.

“We just kind of rolled with the punches,” Peggy said. “And we got punched around quite a bit.”

The knowledge that Eric, a linebacker, was a bona fide pro football prospect gave them hope of a better life.

Then again, their future cooed every night from the crib next to the bed that pulled down from the wall. By the time they were 23, they had three kids and had set upon the pattern of life that they live today.

Eric and Peggy Patton have been married 20 years and live in a comfortable home in Mission Viejo. And yet, nothing much has changed. Peggy still works, but now it’s in an executive capacity for a national restaurant chain.

Eric played pro ball, but in the doomed World Football League with the Southern California Sun. He’s still involved with the game, though, as head football coach at Capistrano Valley High School. He also teaches English at the school.

But still, the kids come first. That’s why Eric rarely talks about himself or his playing days. That’s why he consulted his teen-age sons before taking one of the plum coaching assignments in Orange County. That’s why he would “bow out in a heart beat,” if coaching started damaging his relationship with his sons.

Ward is a senior linebacker on the Capistrano Valley football team. Scott is a sophomore slot back and backup quarterback.

Growing up, they knew their father had played football and they knew he had done it pretty well--but they didn’t find out from their dad.

“He never talks about it,” Ward said. “We usually heard about it when his friends would come over to the house.”

Still, it wasn’t until recently that Scott discovered how good his father really was.

“I was looking through a newspaper article ranking the best high school players by position in the history of Orange County,” he said. “All of a sudden I saw my dad’s name. I said ‘Whoa!’ ”

Eric Patton was as good as they came. Named The Times’ lineman of the year in 1967, he was a dominating linebacker. His coaches at Mater Dei had so much confidence in him that they played a 6-1 defense--six linemen and Eric.

“He was simply a great football player,” said Bruce Rollinson, a teammate of Patton’s, who now is Mater Dei’s football coach. “From sideline to sideline, there was never any question that he could handle it alone.”

By his senior year, he had narrowed his scholarship choices to USC, Stanford and Notre Dame.

The year before, he had started dating Peggy. They had grown up a few doors from each other in Santa Ana and both had attended St. Anne’s Catholic elementary school.

Eric went on to become the football star and class president; Peggy became a cheerleader.

The Pattons were married the summer before Eric’s sophomore season at Notre Dame. Players weren’t allowed to work during the school year so Peggy worked as a typist and a waitress and Eric’s teammates would sneak food out of the dorm cafeteria for them.

“It sounds horrible now, but while we were doing it, it didn’t seem like hard work,” Eric said. “It was just what you did.”

Peggy said: “Neither of us really ever thought about it. Family was always paramount to us, and we did whatever we had to do.”

Andrea, now a sophomore at UC Santa Cruz, is the first born. Ward arrived during Eric’s senior season and Scott when Eric had gone back to graduate school.

While always taking a keen interest in whatever his sons do, and Eric also walks a delicate line with them.

“I’ve always wanted them just to play and have fun and not feel they have to follow in dad’s footsteps,” Eric said. “That’s a terrible burden for any kid to carry.”

So Eric lightened the load . . . what a kid doesn’t know doesn’t weigh on his mind.

“I knew he was good,” Scott said, “but I never knew he was like Superman until his friends told me.”

Eric prohibited his sons from playing organized football until he was certain they could handle it--physically and emotionally.

“I wanted to make sure that they wanted to play,” he said. “I didn’t want them to think it was something they had to do.”

It wasn’t until Ward, 12 at the time, yelled and begged enough that he was allowed to play.

“It took a lot of pleading,” Ward said.

Patton, an assistant coach at the school since it opened in 1977, became Capistrano Valley’s interim head football coach in 1987 after Dick Enright resigned after a scandal involving videotapes of El Toro’s practice.

Patton was named the permanent head coach in 1988, but only after consulting with his kids. Ward was due on the varsity as a linebacker.

“I was very concerned about coaching my kids,” Eric said. “I looked at their personalities then very closely, and I still do. If I thought that me being around would detract from their enjoyment of the game, I’d quit in a second. I asked them, ‘Do you want me to coach? Because if you don’t I’ll back out.’ ”

But the kids gave the OK. Ward was concerned that others would think his father favored him. But then he went on to lead the team in tackles and was voted the team’s hardest hitter, and that ended any thoughts of nepotism.

Capistrano Valley finished a surprising second in the South Coast League last season. And this season, the Cougars opened with a 40-12 victory over Damien. Capistrano Valley plays host to Edison at 7:30 tonight.

There is only one remaining player, All-Southern Section defensive lineman Damon Psaros, from the 1987 team that Patton took over.

“Every year I feel like I have a new stake, a bigger stake here,” Eric said.

Still, it’s never bigger than the one back home. But Patton seems to be getting comfortable with his position.

“How many fathers would love to spend three or four hours a day with their sons?” he asked. “Watching when they’re happy and sad, up and down. I get to see my kids the way very few fathers do.”

Of course, he has done things very few fathers have done, not that he’d ever tell.