Vagabond Guru Works Magic at Fullerton : Preps: Andreas has been an assistant for Bob Knight, Bill Mulligan and now Chris Burton.

Quiet. Andy Andreas, basketball guru, is talking.

The Fullerton High School players are riveted, listening to every word during the timeout. Andreas says to be patient. They’ll be patient. He says to look inside. They’ll look inside. If Andreas said to hit the showers, they’d be wet before the last syllable was out.

Play resumes and the Indians, after three passes, score on a layup.

Andreas smiles. This is life as he knows it.

For the better part of 44 years, Andreas has taught the game. He has sat side-by-side with Bobby Knight at the NCAA Final Four. He has helped Laker coaches prepare for the playoffs. He has been an aide-de-camp for six different colleges and community colleges during the past 12 years.

And now, in the 16th year of retirement, Andreas has returned to the high school level as an assistant to Chris Burton, a 25-year-old coach who asked him to lend his experience to the team.

“I continue coaching because I’m selfish,” Andreas said. “I like the environment and I enjoy the practices. It doesn’t matter what level you coach on, the teaching of the game remains the same.”

His teaching has paid off for Fullerton.

The Indians had only three players and no starters back from last season. However, they are currently 7-6 and have finished third in the Fullerton and Century tournaments.

It’s the best start in Burton’s three years at Fullerton and, to him, the reason is obvious.

“There is no doubt in my mind that we’re further along because of Andy,” said Burton, who still does most of the coaching during games. “I even understand the game better with him around.”

Andreas came to Fullerton as a favor to Burton, who was tired of having mediocre seasons. True, the Indians have been co-champions of the Freeway League the past two years, but their overall record last season was only 13-13.

Furthermore, Burton said his team wasn’t beating quality opponents.

“We weren’t beating anybody we shouldn’t beat,” Burton said. “I was tired of 15-12 seasons. I wanted to be competitive on the highest level, and I wasn’t able to supply that at this time.”

Enter Andreas, who retired as a high school administrator in Ohio in 1975 and has spent his golden years bouncing from school to school as a volunteer assistant coach.

Burton and Andreas have been friends for nearly two years, since being introduced by Western Coach Greg Hoffman. The three still have dinner once a month.

Andreas was an assistant at Rancho Santiago College the past two seasons and helped guide the Dons to a state championship in 1990. He decided not to return because he didn’t like the rush-hour drive between the school and his home in Placentia.

The hassles of travel were also one of the reasons Andreas turned down an assistant coaching offer from a Division I program this year.

“Fullerton was just seven or eight minutes from my home,” Andreas said. “That made it convenient. It has been a good experience for me. I started my career coaching in high school, and I have enjoyed going back to it.”

Together, Burton and Andreas have 44 years of coaching experience. Of course, 38 of it belongs to Andreas.

At 25, Burton is one of the youngest coaches in Orange County.

Andreas won’t admit his age. It’s safe to say that he’s older than the shot clock, but younger than peach baskets.

But age and experience are only part of their differences.

Burton has been a proponent of shoot-it-if-you-got-it basketball.

“When I got this job, I didn’t know as much about the game,” Burton said. “I went with what was easiest, run-and-gun. I understand now that this is a game against the clock.”

Andreas, on the other hand, teaches the game the old-fashioned way. He preaches tenacity on defense and restraint on offense.

“I feel that, no matter what the sport is, defense is how you win,” Andreas said. “Sure, you can shoot yourself into a championship, but you can shoot yourself out of one as well.

With Andreas, the Indians have changed their style. They no longer have that shoot-on-sight attitude. Instead, they work their half-court offense.

The patience has paid off. After a 2-4 start, Fullerton has turned things around. The past two weeks, the young Indians have looked like a veteran team.

Although Andreas doesn’t attend all the games, Burton allows him run things in practice. In fact, he encourages it.

“In practice, my other (assistant coach) Kevin Reynolds and I are like Darryl and Darryl from the Bob Newhart Show,” Burton said. “We keep our mouths shut and listen. Andy has been a part of more than 800 wins and I’ve have been a part of about 80. There’s certainly a lot I can learn from him.”

Andreas, who played basketball at Kent State, coached on the high-school level for 23 years in Michigan and Ohio. He twice took Kent Roosevelt High to the Ohio state championship game.

Among the assistant coaches who have worked for Andreas are Bill Bertka, now an assistant with the Lakers, and Bobby Knight, who has won three NCAA titles at Indiana.

After retiring, Andreas became Knight’s assistant and helped coach the 1975-76 Indiana team, which won the national title.

Andreas left Indiana in 1977 and became a vagabond coach.

He has been a volunteer assistant at Edison Community College in Florida, Chapman College, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Riverside City College, UC Irvine and Rancho Santiago since.

Andreas was also asked by Bertka to scout the Lakers for weaknesses before the 1989 playoffs.

“I keep coaching to stay young,” Andreas said. “If you’re around young people in a young environment, it rubs off. You’re forced to think young. If you go to an old folks’ home, you become an old folk.”

While staying young, Andreas has also been able to help other coaches. He has the ability to make the intricacies of the game understandable.

“Sometimes, as coaches, we get too complex,” Rancho Santiago Coach Dana Pagett said. “Andy simplifies everything. I think that’s a great benefit for a young coach.”

The return to high-school basketball has not been difficult for Andreas. He works with the players much as he did 40 years ago, drilling them on fundamentals every day.

“Anything Coach Andreas says, we do,” guard Chris Hartshorn said. “It was obvious right away that he knew what he was talking about.”

Andreas said he’s not sure whether he will return next year. At the end of every season, he evaluates whether he still wants to coach.

“This is an ideal situation for me,” Andreas said. “I can be a visiting prophet. I can come in, lecture and leave. Of, course, I’m not really a prophet.”

No, but when he speaks, the Indians listen. So does their coach.