Cal Lutheran Football Team Is Big Surprise in a Small Package

In two days, Orange County football will be hit by the Big One--No. 1 ranked El Toro versus No. 2 Capistrano Valley.

BIG game, BIG names, BIG schools, BIG stakes, BIG plays, BIG hits, BIG crowd, BIG rallies, BIG headlines, BIG egos, BIG, BIG, BIG!

Maybe it’s not as big as everyone thinks. How many El Toro players go both ways and play on special teams, playing every down of every game?

How many Capo Valley athletes get up after making a tackle with a mouthful of dirt because grass covers only half their field?

And how many linemen from either team manage to find the time--OK, the desire--to play in a handbell choir?

None, you say? Well, come on over to the small side of football--to California Lutheran, the smallest of Orange County’s small schools--where football (eight-man football) is played amid somewhat unusual circumstances.

At Cal Lutheran, a school of 60 students nestled in the heart of a Huntington Beach housing tract, players compete on a field with goal posts made of plastic plumbing pipe. Actually, there’s only one set of goal posts, on the south end of the field.

“If they’re on the other side of the field and need to kick, we just pick up the ball and turn ‘em around,” Principal Ken Peterson said.

The Cal Lutheran football field, which is only a few yards from a slide and some monkey bars, is not a pretty sight. The grass is pockmarked with large patches of dirt, causing a small dust cloud every time a tackle is made. The Dust Bowl, some call it.

There are no stands or benches of any kind. After paying $3 admission, spectators can rent lawn chairs.

Cal Lutheran’s campus--with its olive green and burnt orange decor--was once an elementary school. In fact, the large sign over the front office reads: “Robert H. Burke School.” Cal Lutheran had spent two years in Garden Grove before moving to its present location last summer.

A new sign, Peterson says, is among the items on a long wish list, but as with most small schools, money is tight.

Peterson knows a little about making do, however. He once spent five years as principal and English teacher at an all-Chinese high school in Hong Kong, without knowing a word of Chinese.

“You do what you can,” he said.

And Cal Lutheran does pretty well. The C-Hawks (no one’s quite sure what the ‘C’ stands for) are 5-0 and have outscored opponents, 256-40.

Last Saturday was a typical game. Cal Lutheran beat Oak Hill, 50-0. The game was called after the third quarter.

“After the games, I usually feel pretty bad,” C-Hawk Coach Dave Bartelt said. “But I don’t have the subs to put in. I mean, what do you do?”

Quarterback/linebacker/kicker Brad Pluckhan is the team’s star, the school’s senior class president and a three-year member of the school choir. Pluckhan, from Los Gatos, Calif., says one of the major reasons he came to Cal Lutheran was because of his love for sports.

“Athletics is a real big part of my life,” said the 6-foot, 165-pound Pluckhan, also the school’s best basketball and baseball player. “I know if I went to a public high school, I might have made the team, and maybe even started. But here I start every game on every team I go out for. That’s excellent.”

His teammates agree. Where, for instance, would 5-foot, 107-pound sophomore Matt Foley get the chance to catch a touchdown pass, as he did last Saturday?

Or where else could linemen Andrew Aguilar, Ron Gusman and Joel Walker take part in the school’s handbell choir without being laughed out of their cleats and shoulder pads?

At Cal Lutheran, you do it all. You have to. Whether it’s chipping in to do the chores--sophomores clean the tiny student union, juniors empty the school’s trash--or filling a spot on a team roster, there just aren’t enough students to make up for those who refuse to participate.

“We have a big team bus, but we don’t use it,” Bartelt said. “We don’t have enough people to fill it. We have a bus driver, too, but (the bus has) never been used that I know of.”

Friday marks a milestone for Cal Lutheran. The C-Hawks will play host to Calabasas Viewpoint in a junior varsity game at 3:15 p.m.

What’s so unusual about a JV game? In the past, Cal Lutheran never had enough players to field a JV team. Now, including five freshmen, the football program has a total of 17 players.

“I’ve never even seen a JV game, as a matter of fact,” said Bartelt. “It’s a big thing for us.”

Big, but in a small way.

Matt Downing, a starting linebacker at Fountain Valley, was taken to the hospital Thursday night after complaining of chest pains.

Doctors diagnosed Downing as suffering from pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart. Downing, a junior, must sit out two to three weeks and be re-examined before returning to football.

My crystal ball tells me . . .

* Despite its No. 1 ranking, top-ranked quarterback Rob Johnson and its top-notch defense, El Toro will find a way to lose on Friday to Capistrano Valley in a close game.

* Corona del Mar will get its act together and beat Newport Harbor in a low-scoring game. Mater Dei will wipe out Servite. Rancho Alamitos will lose to La Quinta in a squeaker.

* In cross-country, Martha Pinto of Katella will win her fourth title in as many years at the Orange County Cross-Country Championships on Saturday at Irvine Regional Park in Orange. Mark Gonzales of La Habra will have the fastest time of the day for boys.