Positive Thinking Is the Power Behind Orange High’s Remmel : Prep football: Panthers’ running back gained 1,300 yards last season, but this year, he’s comfortable in his role of blocking back.

This is not a paid advertisement, it’s Brian Remmel’s philosophy for football. Read on and you too shall learn to follow the path to success.

The power of positive thinking? Yes, that’s a big part of it. Remmel is a regular Dr. Norman Vincent Peale with a dash of L. Ron Hubbard thrown in for good measure. He’d have to be, considering the dreadful state of Orange High School’s football program when he arrived three years ago.

Selfless devotion to team? Sure. He’s got that too.

Hard work? The only way.

Talent? About 1,300 rushing yards’ worth last season.

Discipline? Yes, sir.

Remmel, a senior running back and linebacker, is a good high school football player, not the best. What sets him apart is his approach to the game. Self-absorption, a dominant personality trait for most adolescents, seems absent in Remmel.

“It’s not how you do, it’s how you do as a whole,” he said. “If the team’s not successful, you’re not successful. The idea is to be selfless. The score will take care of itself.”

Remmel swears he doesn’t know the final score, only whether Orange has won or lost when he leaves the field.

He says these things and he sounds very convincing. It never sounds like a sales pitch, though it easily could be one. After all, the easiest way to curry favor with one’s coach is to run for 1,300 yards. The second easiest is to repeat the philosophy of one’s coach over and over.

Remmel is asked when and where he adopted his “team first, me second” attitude. Was he this selfless as a 9year-old playing Junior All-American football?

He smiled, perhaps recalling a selfish moment hidden in the recesses of his mind, before answering.

“My freshman year we were pretty cocky,” Remmel said. “Of course, we were undefeated, but I’ve always been a team player. Some guys think they’re the whole team. They don’t know what they’re saying. They’ve got a whole team behind them.”

And Coach Tom Meiss, not Peale or Hubbard, has molded Remmel.

Before Meiss, the Orange football program was down in the dumps for the better part of 60 years. The drought extended clear back to 1929, the last time the Panthers played in a Southern Section championship game. Three consecutive losing seasons and five victories in the last 20 games did little to signal a change in direction.

Really, it was nothing a new coach, brimming with bright ideas couldn’t cure. But Orange had tried that and it didn’t work.

Then the school hired Meiss last year.

“This guy looks like a football coach,” Remmel said. “He wears glasses, so he looks like he knows what he’s doing. When he looks at you, he looks right into you. He has the mustache.

“You always have an extra motivational piece when you have a new coach. With Coach Meiss, you can be fired at any time if you don’t do your job. It doesn’t matter who you are. He’s the most inspirational coach I’ve ever had.”

Once when Meiss coached at Santa Ana High School, he went a little overboard trying to inspire his charges. The Saints were preparing for a big game against El Modena, which has a duck for a mascot.

On a rainy afternoon in 1983, Meiss trudged out to practice with a shotgun, pumped a few blanks into the air and yelled, “Yep, it’s definitely duck-hunting season.”

Santa Ana went on to win, but school administrators weren’t pleased with his stunt. Not long after, Meiss was looking for work.

When he hooked on at Orange, he took a look around and saw greatness in bloom where others saw only weeds.

Remmel started last season at fullback, but because of injuries he was moved to tailback and was brilliant. He gained 1,300 yards and helped the Panthers reach the Division VIII championship game against Trabuco Hills.

Orange lost, but Remmel exacted a bit of long-awaited revenge.

Tim Manning, Trabuco Hills’ multitalented quarterback, returned a punt for a touchdown in the teams’ Pacific Coast League game earlier in the season.

Remmel kept a picture of Manning tacked to his bedroom wall. “I swore I was going to get him,” he said.

Sure enough, Remmel unloaded a sharp tackle on Manning.

This season, Remmel has returned to fullback as part of the Panthers’ seven-back offense. Acen Chiles has rushed for 333 yards, tops among the seven backs Meiss rotates. Remmel has gained 136 yards. At that rate, he’ll gain 340 yards in the regular season.

True to form, Remmel said the change doesn’t bother him.

“If you rushed for 1,300 yards last year and then you’re not getting the ball, that’s a big consideration for a high school player,” Meiss said. “But you have to be selfless in order for the team to do well.”

So Remmel blocks so Chiles can run for touchdowns, so the team will win.

“The yardage was nice, but without 10 other people backing you up, the yardage doesn’t come,” Remmel said. “You’ll find behind every back, there’s a good line.”

So what does the future hold for a team player such as Remmel? He has only one goal:

“I want to play until I can’t play anymore,” he said. “Until my body withers or somebody tells me they don’t want me.”