STARTING OVER : In First Varsity Job, Jeff Buenafe Turns Around Garden Grove’s Football Fortunes

How does a math teacher with no varsity coaching experience land the head coaching job at Garden Grove High School?

Well, take a football program that had not made a playoff appearance in six years. Subtract a varsity coach who, coming off a 1-9 season, quits one week before the 1988 season. Add only 16 players out for varsity and factor in Jeff Buenafe, an exuberant, sincere math teacher with some athletic experience.

The odds for improvement seem as likely as catching a glimpse of an imaginary number, right? Wrong.

One year later, Garden Grove has ended Orange County’s longest losing streak of the decade and won its first Garden Grove League game in three seasons.

The Argonauts (3-1, 1-0) will try to win their first homecoming game in five seasons when they play host to Los Amigos at 7:30 tonight.

Buenafe, a three-sport star at Rancho Alamitos, attended USC, where he played baseball, graduating in 1976 with a degree in public administration.

Buenafe quit a public relations job with an airline in 1983 to earn a teaching credential from UC Irvine so he could spend more time with his family. He coached the Rancho Alamitos sophomore football team to the league championship in 1985 and spent the 1987-88 season as an assistant to Garden Grove varsity Coach Larry Hirt.

Coaches weren’t exactly beating down the door to take over when Hirt resigned a week before the season started. And when Buenafe, the projected freshman coach, volunteered to take over as interim coach, Athletic Director Ron Zajec accepted.

Jeff’s father, Al Buenafe, 60, a former successful football coach at Mt. Whitney High in Visalia and a one-time principal at Pacifica, cautioned his son about taking the job at Garden Grove.

“I told him you better weigh everything very carefully,” Al Buenafe said. “We talked about him inheriting a program that virtually had died.” Jeff weighed the pros and cons with his dad: There were only 16 varsity players and two coaches returning from a 1-9 team. There would be a lot of time spent away from his wife, Barb, and their children, Matthew, 9, Sarah, 7, and Michael, 3.

What tipped the scales for Jeff Buenafe was his loyalty to the players. “He felt a real responsibility to the kids here at school and I guess he was positive enough to think he could get some kids out for the team,” Al Buenafe said.

Jeff Buenafe then began rebuilding the program from the ground up, literally. He went on a recruiting spree, talking to kids at their jobs and calling them at home, and eventually boosted his squad to 24. He also recruited a coaching staff that included his father. He and his staff cleaned, painted and recarpeted the coaches’ offices and the weight-training and first-aid rooms.

The process of building morale, however, was not as easy.

The athletes were confused and down about losing Hirt. Nobody had lifted weights, ran or participated in summer passing leagues, and the student body wasn’t particularly supportive.

“Coming back to class after game days was always the worst,” said Ralph Stevens, the Argonauts’ defensive back and receiver coach. “Kids would ask how much we got beat by, not whether we won or lost.”

Said Joe Squyres, an all-league selection at wide receiver last season as a junior: “I took pride in being a Garden Grove football player because I gave all that I could all the time, but it was kind of hard because I would be out somewhere and I wouldn’t want to boast about being a Garden Grove football player.”

Though the Argonauts went 0-10 under Buenafe, extending their losing streak to a record 19 games, Athletic Director Zajec remained a strong supporter.

“We knew no matter who we hired last year it would have been a difficult year for them. So we hired Jeff as a look into the future, because we knew what he could do for the kids. He cares about his kids and he works hard for them.”

Buenafe has a reputation for being upbeat. He does not yell, scream, rant or rave. He discusses and supports.

“He gets more from his kids with honey, so-to-speak, than I ever did with a big stick,” Al Buenafe said.

Despite his optimistic nature, Jeff Buenafe said he remembers a lot of dark nights and a lot of dark days, too.

“I don’t think I was really second-guessing myself as a coach,” Buenafe said. “I just felt like I was being dealt a bad deck in a sense. We got off to the slowest and worst start of any team in the county.”

A lot of coaches would not have come back after an 0-10 season. But Buenafe was building something at Garden Grove and he wanted to see it through. He had succeeded in building a better team attitude, if not a better record.

At the end of his first season, Buenafe gathered his team together and told them, “You have all been blessed with certain talents, and if you really want to be successful, you’re going to have to do whatever it takes to get yourselves physically and mentally prepared to play football.”

It was then that this season’s team motto--Whatever It Takes--was born.

“I can remember seeing in their eyes looks of amazement, fear and determination,” Buenafe said. “I think they knew then they were going to have a coach and coaching staff that wasn’t going to duck out on them.”

The Argonauts are young--17 of 22 starters, including quarterback Bob Ioja, are juniors. But that has not stopped them from winning more games this season than they have in two years.

And most of the success can be attributed to Buenafe, who has more than 40 players on the squad this season.

But Buenafe probably is the last person anyone watching a Garden Grove practice would point to as the coach. On the practice field, he sports black and white leather loafers with shiny silver pants. He also wears his T-shirts the trendy way--ripped a bit at the collar, the short sleeves rolled up twice.

It comes “just from playing sports and just getting sweaty and dirty and wanting to be comfortable,” Buenafe said.

Things are a lot more comfortable for Garden Grove players and coaches this season, too. And they stand to get more comfortable in the future.