Good Bench-Warmers Do More Than Sit on Their Hands : Boys’ basketball: They cheer, needle, encourage and hope to play in games. In practice, they make it possible for teams to scrimmage and run drills.

If you rode the pines for Los Alamitos High School in the late 1970s, you followed a certain code.

Craig Allen organized the Bench Buddies in 1978-79. I set up a charter branch on the junior varsity that season, then kept up the tradition on the varsity the next year.

The rules were simple. Mostly we cheered for Los Alamitos. But if the other team was pulling away, we rooted--quietly--for them and some playing time.

When we were going good, we kept the same seats on the bench. In 1979-80, Los Alamitos was 15-8. I spent a lot of time sitting between Mike Stamper, a ball-hawking defensive back on the football team, and Joe Wokal, a sharp-shooter whose sluggish defense kept him out of the starting lineup.

One goal was to avoid breaking a sweat so you could skip the shower and go straight out afterward. You never, ever wanted to sit next to the guys who’d been in the game, lest they sweat on you.

If your name was actually called by Craig Conrad, the coach, you simply stood, removed your warm-ups and walked cooly to the scorer’s table as if this happened all the time.

Once in, you went for broke. Who knew when you’d play again? It could be weeks. It could be never again. I played in only seven of 23 games in 1979-80, scoring a grand total of three points.

In practice, our ultimate goal was to make the first-string run lines. If we shredded their two-three zone press, held their passing game offense scoreless or drained a jumper in Mike Moore’s face, it could happen.

If you showed up the starters bad enough and made Conrad furious over their play, they’d run for sure. We watched, encouraging but prideful at the same time.

You took your victories where you could.

First, some ground rules. This is not about a basketball team’s sixth, seventh, eighth or even ninth players. It’s about the last three, four or five. The guys who never play unless it’s blow-out city.

A team’s sixth through ninth players are called substitutes. A team that plays nine guys has great depth. Nobody plays more than 10, particularly in a close game. On most high school teams, the drop-off in talent is too steep.

A team’s 10th through 15th players are called Scrubs. Or Pine Brothers. Or Splinter Brothers. There’s a ton of names for the guys who don’t play. None is kind.

Funny thing is, most teams couldn’t win without them.

“What’s that old cliche about only being as strong as your weakest link?” Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said.

Of course, Mater Dei’s Scrubs, as McKnight calls them, are probably better than most. You don’t win seven Southern Section championships in eight seasons with only five good players. The Monarchs’ junior varsity is often strong enough to beat some varsity teams.

The Scrubs do more than sit, though it’s often hard for the untrained eye to know this. From their spots on the bench, they cheer, needle, encourage and, above all, hope against hope they will play.

They fulfill a more valuable role in practice, running an opposing team’s offense and defense. They make it possible for teams to scrimmage, to run drills.

In most cases, they were pretty fair players on a school’s freshman, sophomore and junior varsity teams. But they aren’t skilled enough to join the regular rotation.

“You gotta love the kids with the work ethic and the unselfishness,” Irvine Coach Steve Keith said. “You’ve got to reward the kids with the great attitudes, who are fun to coach. You better surround yourself with good kids all the way down the bench or you’re not going to win.”

McKnight and Keith said a good bench-warmer is hard to find.

Often, they’ll cut a more talented player who can’t accept sitting on the bench in favor of keeping a less-talented one who’s thrilled just to be on the varsity.

“It’s not easy to sit on the bench,” McKnight said.

And he’d know, having been a Scrub in his playing days at San Clemente.

“If you’re not happy sitting there,” he said, “you have to at least fake it to me. I can’t look down there and worry if you’re pouting. You have to be up, cheering and getting everyone else involved.”

McKnight goes as far as appointing a captain of the Scrubs, to “set the tone” on the bench.

At Irvine, Keith meets with the seniors who he figures aren’t going to play to discuss their roles. He tries to paint a bleak picture.

“I want them to look me in the eye and say, ‘I don’t want to invest that much time into sitting on the bench,’ ” Keith said. “It takes a special kid to accept that role. Twenty years ago, hey, making the team and getting a varsity letter, that was enough for most kids. That’s not the case now.

“Most coaches I know are real selective about the type of player who’s going to be in that position.”

So what kind of person submits to this thankless toil?

Meet John Han, a 5-foot-8 senior guard at Marina.

Every team has a John Han. He’s probably a little too small and a little too slow to break into the starting lineup. But he has a good-looking jump shot and, best of all, a real love for the game.

Every crowd pulls for a guy like Han. When he does play, the fans cheer every time he touches the ball.

Han’s career is typical of many Scrubs.

He played on the freshman team at Ocean View, sat out his sophomore season, then transferred to Marina as a junior. Last season, he started on the junior varsity, averaged 10 points and was the team’s top defensive player.

This season, he has played in two of Marina’s six games, never for more than a few minutes.

“I get into it,” he said. “It’s my role. I practice hard and cheer the starters. At first, everybody says, “How’s life on the bench?’ I ignore them. I think I’m a big part of the team.”

He comes to practice every day, rubbing elbows with greatness. And that’s exciting, too.

Han’s teammate is Cherokee Parks, a 6-11 center who’s headed for Duke next year.

“It’s great,” Han said. “He’s like the No. 1 player in the nation. And he’s a nice guy. Someday he’ll go to the pros. That’ll be great. I can say I played with Cherokee Parks. He was on my team. Plus, I got my varsity letter.”

Some starters on Mater Dei’s 1985-86 team will never forget Mike O’Connor, who tops McKnight’s all-time Scrub list.

O’Connor was an outstanding football player but something of a misfit on a basketball team that included LeRon Ellis (now at Syracuse), Tom Peabody (Loyola Marymount) and Stu Thomas (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo).

Still, McKnight liked his aggressive style.

O’Connor missed 15 consecutive games, mainly because of an injury, but he might not have played anyway.

Mater Dei was playing Crenshaw in the Southern California Regional final at the Sports Arena and was trailing early. McKnight, looking for a spark, walked to where O’Connor was sitting at the end of the bench.

He remembers the conversation this way:

McKnight: “Well, Mike can you do it?”

O’Connor: “Yeah, I can do it.”

So he sent in O’Connor, who hadn’t played in a game in more than a month.

“The next thing I know, (Crenshaw guard) Stevie Thompson is flying outta bounds (thanks to a body-block by O’Connor), people are diving on the floor after loose balls and we’re back in the game,” McKnight said. “He was the type of kid who could come in, and his spark and drive ignited the team.”

After two overtimes, Mater Dei lost.

But O’Connor’s game that night was the stuff bench-warmers’ dreams are made of.