Nobody Has Done Better : High school football: Carson’s Vollnogle had trouble accepting accolades and he gets plenty as the man who will retire as the winningest coach in California history.

It was 1953 and 22-year-old Gene Vollnogle was trying to find a way to become a football coach at Banning High in Wilmington.

Fresh out of college and painfully shy, Vollnogle could not muster the nerve to ask Banning Coach Lefty Goodhue for a job. So after working at school as a driver-training instructor, he went to the football field to watch practice, hoping one of the coaches would notice him.

After a few days, they did.

Recalled Vollnogle: “Instead of approaching me, (Goodhue) went to the principal and said, ‘There’s some guy over there spying on us. You better check him out.’ They didn’t know who I was.”

They know now.

Vollnogle has become California’s winningest prep football coach with a varsity record of 278-72-1, compiled at Banning and Carson. Vollnogle, who turns 60 on Sept. 30 and is planning to retire after this, his 34th season as a varsity coach, says there is no secret to his success. He simply has coached longer than most people “because I’m so old.”

But coaches and former players tell a different story. They talk of Vollnogle’s character and dedication.

“He’s a great guy,” said Chris Ferragamo, who played for Vollnogle at Banning in 1957 and was his coaching rival while guiding Banning to eight Los Angeles City Section titles from 1976-85. “He knows what winning is about.

“He’s getting up in age now . . . but he still has the know-how and the ability to organize. I still respect him as my coach. I never call him Gene. It’s Coach Vollnogle.”

Wesley Walker, a former three-time All-Pro wide receiver with the New York Jets, says Vollnogle was the finest coach he ever had. Walker played on undefeated Carson teams in 1971 and ‘72, earning All-City honors both seasons.

“If I had to choose one person who meant the most to me in my career, he would be at the top of the list,” Walker said. “He’s not only the coach who gave me an opportunity, but he was like a father figure.”

Vollnogle has trouble accepting his place in history. It’s difficult for him to accept surpassing all of his coaching idols--men such as Jim Blewett, the “Silver Fox,” who guided Manual Arts to nine City titles from 1930-62; and Harry Edelson, who coached Vollnogle at Fremont and won three City championships from 1948-50.

“It’s still hard for me to believe I’ve won more games than they did,” Vollnogle said. “When I think of those guys, I think of myself as the young guy, as the new coach. Those guys are the old masters.”

A check of Vollnogle’s achievements, however, reveal a masterful career:

--Nine City titles (two at Banning and seven at Carson), tying Blewett for the record.

--Nineteen consecutive playoff appearances, a City record.

--Nine consecutive appearances in the City championship game, a record.

--Ten or more victories in nine consecutive seasons, a City record.

--First- or second-place league finishes in 23 of 27 seasons at Carson.

One honor that has eluded Vollnogle is the mythical national championship, which goes to the team that finishes the season ranked No. 1 by USA Today.

“I would really like to win the national championship,” he said.

Carson, the Times’ top-rated City team, opened its season Friday with a 37-26 victory over highly regarded Bishop Amat. The Colts are rated No. 18 by USA Today, the second-highest rated California team behind No. 8 Fontana.

But, win or lose this season, Vollnogle says he will have no regrets about retiring as a physical education teacher. Plus, there are the tedious coaching duties he won’t miss.

“I’m glad it’s the last time I ever have to hand out uniforms,” he said. “I’ve never had an equipment man. I got started doing it myself, and I still do it myself.

“I watch every kid put on his helmet and shoulder pads. I had one of the fathers here, and he asked me, ‘Do you do this with everyone?’ He couldn’t believe it. But I make sure everyone has a good fit. Knock on wood, we’ve never had a serious injury.”

As successful as he has been, Vollnogle said he never really considered a college coaching career.

“I’ve always been real happy with high school coaching,” he said. “I’ve always felt that’s where the real coaching is done. College coaching all boils down to recruiting.”

Vollnogle has lived in the same house in Los Alamitos for 30 years. He has been married to Lucile, his college sweetheart, for 39 years. And he has coached football in the L.A. City school district for 38 years, since Goodhue made him Banning’s junior varsity coach in 1953.

Although he would appear a man of habit, Vollnogle has demonstrated he isn’t afraid to try new ideas on the football field.

“He’s always been able to put something new in the system,” said Paul Huebner, who was Vollnogle’s co-coach at Banning from 1957-62 and at Carson from 1969-81. “He wasn’t stuck with what he came in with.”

Vollnogle ran the single-wing offense early in his career. Later, his Carson teams ran the veer option. In 1988, at age 58, he switched to a double-wing, short-passing offense, similar to the run-and-shoot.

The Colts, with quarterbacks Perry Klein (now at California) and Fred Gatlin (Nevada Reno) directing the offense, went 12-1 in 1988. They set a school record with 483 points and won the City 4-A Division title over Banning, 55-7.

This season, Carson appears to have another quarterback capable of leading the team to prominence. John Walsh, a 6-foot-3 transfer from West Torrance High, set school single-game records for completions (20) and passing yards (375) in his debut Friday against Bishop Amat.

Vollnogle enjoys the trend toward a more wide-open attack.

“Our league is getting to a point where it’s pass, pass, pass,” he said. “You don’t need those big linebackers anymore. You need quick ones to cover the backs.”

But not all trends in high school football have pleased Vollnogle. He complains that players have become less disciplined.

“It used to be, if you’d tell a kid to do this or not to do that, that was all that was necessary,” he said. “But nowadays, it takes more than that.”

As an example, he brought up last year’s game with Banning that was televised nationally on cable. He removed four starters from the game because they tied their jerseys to make them more snug, violating a CIF rule they were warned about repeatedly by Carson’s coaches.

“I was fit to be tied,” Vollnogle said. “I let them have it with both barrels.

“I don’t know where the discipline was lost. It seems like the attitude is, ‘Do as much as you can, until you get caught.’ I’m glad I’m not going to have to put up with it anymore.”

However, that doesn’t mean Vollnogle plans to give up coaching altogether. He says he has talked with Los Alamitos High Coach John Barnes about coaching the Griffins’ sophomore-freshman team. And he has given thought to coaching Junior All-American football, a youth league, in Carson.

“Maybe I can get the kids disciplined to the point, when they get to high school, they’ll understand,” he said.

Or, he says, he might do nothing.

“People have told me, ‘You can’t do that,’ ” he said. “Baloney. To me, that’s what retirement is, not working.”

Vollnogle’s successor at Carson will have a tough act to follow. But the veteran coach says the program will continue to flourish after his departure because of talented athletes and the continuity of the coaching staff.

Several assistants--most notably defensive coordinator Jim D’Amore and offensive line coach Saul Pacheco--have been at the school almost as long as Vollnogle. He says he will recommend that D’Amore and linebacker coach Marty Blankenship take over as co-coaches.

“If I would just disappear, this program would continue with all these guys,” Vollnogle said. “They’ve been a big part of the success.”

Vollnogle’s love of sports began during his childhood on the schoolyards and playgrounds of South-Central Los Angeles.

The middle of Ray and Evelyn Vollnogle’s three children, he was born in 1930 at the family’s home at 92nd and Bandera in Watts.

“What I remember most is playing a lot,” Vollnogle said. “I couldn’t walk past a park without getting involved in some type of sport.”

When he reached Fremont High as a sophomore in 1945, he was 6-feet tall and weighed 200 pounds. When he tried to go out for the “B” team, though, the coach told him he was too big. Forced to sit out the season, Vollnogle attended Fremont games and dreamed of playing for the varsity team.

“Fremont played Loyola in the opener that year,” he said. “I watched it in the stands at Fremont and remember thinking, ‘Boy, this is big time.’ It seemed like the greatest thing to me.”

Vollnogle got his chance the next year as a junior when Edelson saw him in a wrestling class and asked him to come out for the football team. He was third-string that season but became a starting two-way tackle his senior year and earned a spot on the All-City third team. At 6-2, 220 pounds, he received a scholarship to Pepperdine.

“For whatever reason, I wanted to be a chemist,” Vollnogle said. “Then I took chemistry, and I hated it. My mom suggested that I go into athletics because it was the only thing I liked.”

Vollnogle earned Little All-American honors playing offensive tackle for Pepperdine before embarking on his coaching career.

After coaching the Banning junior varsity for one season, he guided the “B” team to a 21-3 record from 1954-56. When Goodhue resigned as coach to become vice principal, Vollnogle and Huebner, another Pilot assistant, took over as varsity co-coaches in 1957.

In six seasons, they guided Banning to a 54-7 record and City titles in 1958 and ’60. The first championship, in particular, was a thrill because of a celebration at school that followed the Pilots’ 59-19 romp over Fremont in an afternoon game at the Coliseum.

Vollnogle said lights, bleachers and a stage were set up on campus, where the players were introduced to the crowd. Afterward, players, parents and fans joined in an impromptu parade down Avalon Boulevard to Anaheim Street through downtown Wilmington.

“We stopped traffic, we stopped everything,” Vollnogle said. “There was nothing the police could do.”

Vollnogle left Banning in 1963 to become coach at Carson. Because it was a new school, the Colts fielded a varsity team of sophomores and juniors that first year and didn’t have a winning season until 1966, when they went 11-0 and won the first of the school’s seven City titles.

One of the biggest reasons for the school’s success has been a seemingly endless pool of talented players. In 27 seasons, Carson boasts 160 All-City selections (an average of nearly six a year), numerous college players and nine who reached the NFL. Receivers Michael Wilson of the San Francisco 49ers and Derek Hill of the Pittsburgh Steelers are Carson graduates.

Vollnogle has been selected to coach in the Shrine All-Star game twice and, in 1988, was voted Western Regional coach of the year by the National High School Coaches Assn.

But the award Vollnogle cherishes the most he received as a player after his senior season at Pepperdine. The trophy, given by the Rotary Club, sits tarnished in his house. The inscription reads: Service Above Self .

“It’s something I’ve tried to live by,” he said.

* RECOUNTING RECORD: Among Gene Vollnogle’s 299 wins, it has been discovered, are 21 as a B-team coach. C13