Coaches Are Changing Their Tunes : FOOTBALL: As the game becomes more sophisticated, tirades and tantrums aren’t the only techniques used for motivation and inspiration.

The transitions went hand in hand.

Tim Manning, Trabuco Hills High School’s talented cornerback and receiver, was the unlikely candidate to replace graduated David Lowery, whose 3,325 yards passing led the Mustangs to the Division VIII championship last fall.

Manning, with 22 career interceptions, was the only underclassman named to the 1988 all-Southern Section team.

But Jim Barnett, Trabuco Hills’ often vocal and highly demonstrative coach, persuaded Manning that playing quarterback was in the best interests of the team. In turn, Barnett has changed some of his coaching methods.

“I have to keep reminding myself that if I get too hyper with this kid, I may turn him off,” Barnett said. “He’s made some mistakes, but I have to be patient. He’s doing me a favor playing quarterback.”

The mellowing of Barnett, albeit another move in the best interests of the team, has had a soothing effect on Manning, who has passed for 1,035 yards and seven touchdowns. Manning, an instinctive player, has altered some of Barnett’s sideline tendencies.

“He tends to react rather than think, and he’s a 4.0 student,” Barnett said. “Sometimes, he drives me crazy. But when he comes off the field after making a mistake, there’s no need to start hollering and screaming. He knows.”

Barnett’s mood reflects a general pattern of personality changes among Orange County’s top football coaches over the past decade. As the game became more sophisticated in the 1980s, the coaches adjusted to an era during which they have done more explaining than dictating.

“The days of ‘Run one more lap for Coach Johnson’ are over,” said Bob Johnson, El Toro coach. “The kids and the coaches are smarter than that. The mentality of the whole game has changed.”

Dave White, a former starting quarterback at Edison and now the school’s varsity coach, said his ability to remain focused on a game and call his team’s offensive plays is predicated upon his keeping his cool during a game.

“Sometimes, I think it’s a good idea that I’m upstairs (in the coaches’ box) calling the plays,” White said. “I get very intense, but I don’t go nuts . . . usually.”

White watched his team fall behind, 21-3, in the first half to Capistrano Valley this season. Edison wasn’t hitting, hustling or playing with emotion. White said he snapped at halftime.

“I got pretty hot in the locker room at halftime and kicked a trash can,” he said. “I had to remind myself that, ‘Hey, I was once a quarterback, the guy who is supposed to be under control.’ I could have broken my toe or something.”

The very nature of Edison’s offense and its complicated passing attack dictates that White remain under control. Edison has about 250 passing plays with 20 different formations.

“You have to keep your cool to play or coach this game successfully,” he said. “It was a little different when I was the defensive coordinator here for four years. Defense is played with aggression and emotion.

“We had an assistant (Barry Waters) who was the most intense coach I’ve ever played for, coached with or coached against. I’ve seen him hyperventilate on the sidelines to the point where he passed out.

“I’ve seen him eat roses. He would go crazy. But those days are pretty much over.”

So are the days of tirades and tantrums. One of the few exceptions is Servite’s Larry Toner, who defies today’s standards of coaching etiquette.

Upon first impression, Toner doesn’t coach, he dictates. He glares. He grinds his teeth. He clenches his fist and jabs with his index finger, striking home a message. Toner is toughness personified.

Recently, he took his anger out on running back Billy Ray, who missed several blocking assignments in a 45-28 loss to Los Alamitos. Toner claims he had calculated and then measured the effect that yelling at Ray would have on him and the team in its second game of the season.

“I don’t yell just for the sake of yelling,” Toner said. “I’ve already determined the manner in which a player will best respond. In this case, yelling fit this player’s personality.

“I coached Billy’s father in my first year at Servite. I had plenty of latitude with the kid. A kid goes a long, long way with you. Generally, yelling at a kid isn’t the problem, it’s how it’s perceived. Sometimes, parents have difficulty dealing with the discipline. They’ll focus on the yelling.”

Tim Devaney, Sunny Hills’ highly successful coach and a former Servite quarterback, is a product of the school’s disciplined system. He marvels at the productivity Toner gets from his players, but insists Toner’s style wouldn’t work at Sunny Hills.

“I think that if a coach is going to be effective, he has to pick and choose the situations where he raises his voice,” Devaney said. “You can go to the well too often.”

Two weeks ago, Devaney watched his team go through the motions in a lethargic 21-0 victory over a Canyon team that had won once in 13 previous games. Still, Devaney never raised his voice during a scoreless first half.

“What I saw was a pretty good Canyon team that my players weren’t ready for,” he said. “We didn’t make mistakes, there was just no intensity. There was no reason to get unglued.”

Devaney, like many head coaches, has an assistant coach handle any discipline or motivation problems. Ralph Trigsted, nicknamed “Papa” by the Sunny Hills’ staff, is the team’s disciplinarian. Frank Doretti has a similar role at Los Alamitos.

“We don’t have an overbearing type on the staff,” Devaney said. “I don’t think we could have stayed together for 10 years if we did.”

Johnson, who has led El Toro into postseason play for 10 consecutive seasons, thinks the new coaching techniques have paralleled increased sophistication in the game.

“You need discipline, but that part of the game isn’t as extreme as it used to be,” Johnson said. “I also think part of the slow change has been the commitment that kids now have to the game.

“Kids are playing or training all year. If you’re going to be with a kid year round, the last thing you want is him hating you. Kids are committed 10 times more to the game than they used to be. You want to get along with them.”

Bill Craven rules a monarchy at Pacifica in Garden Grove, where his teams have qualified for playoff berths in 11 of his 14 seasons. Craven doesn’t employ an offensive or defensive coordinator.

“What you see on the field is my package,” Craven said. “If things don’t go right, I’m the one who’s going to lose the job, so I probably yell a lot. I’m pretty vocal.”

Craven is also pretty tough. He uses one of the hardest preseason training regimens in the county, combining a series of wind sprints with a 12-minute run that is timed during the opening two days of conditioning drills in August.

On the first day, players participate in 20-yard sprints a total of 120 times, and each time every member of the team is required to run the distance under four seconds. “We’ve done as many as 180 more sprints until everyone ran them under four seconds,” Craven said.

On the second day, players are instructed to run a series of drills around the perimeter of the track in 12 minutes or less, and often five or six players are still running the drill the fifth day of practice.

“There are kids who come out on their own before two-a-days begin and time themselves, making sure they can pass the test,” Craven said. “I continually hear from former players at junior colleges that, ‘I worked a lot harder at Pacifica than I do now.’ I’ll say one thing: I’m glad I don’t have to do it.”

Most coaches agree that mental mistakes are what angers them most. A missed blocking assignment or pass route can easily set a coach off.

“I’m not much of a yeller or screamer . . . I don’t even cuss much,” Barnett said. “But I lay a heavy guilt trip on a player who makes a stupid mistake.

“There’s nothing worse than going over something all week in practice, and then seeing a kid failing to execute the play in a game that we practiced over and over again.”

Toner, the disciplinarian from the Vince Lombardi school of football, said he seldom raises his voice to any of his four children. On a rare occasion, he even feels remorse for a player he has disciplined.

“Sometimes, I feel bad,” he said. “I can remember a quarterback (Jim Welch) that I had my first season here as a freshman coach. I was in his face constantly.

“In our second game, we ran 22 plays inside the five-yard line against Notre Dame in one half and didn’t score. I had that kid wound up tighter than a drum.

“Later, it dawned on me that the problem was precisely my yelling at him. He didn’t need any more hype. But most kids are the opposite, and I want very kid to feel they were treated equally, down to the last kid on the team.”