THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHED : Calabasas High’s Bellatty Has Returned With Vigor After Stress Forced Him to Take a Coaching Hiatus

What do you do if your dream job is killing you? That was the dilemma facing Calabasas High boys’ basketball Coach Bill Bellatty three years ago.

Outwardly calm during games--incurring only one technical foul in five years of coaching--he was a jangle of nerves inside, which brought on ulcers, hives and insomnia. He lost nearly 50 pounds that season and alarmed his friends.

“He was coaching himself into a grave,” said Lee Shagin, a teacher at the school.

Strangely, Bellatty had coached golf and girls’ tennis without breaking out in rashes or getting worked up, but boys’ basketball made him crazy.

“I wanted to win so badly I put too much pressure on myself,” he said. “If we’d lose, I’d carry it around until we’d win.”

Bellatty has “loved basketball ever since I was a little squirt,” but he knew he had to stop coaching it. So after the 1987-88 season, he took a hiatus from boys’ basketball but continued teaching earth science and physical education while coaching the other sports. He even coached girls’ basketball last season, with no ill effects.

Bellatty planned to repair his body during his time away, but he also wanted to reshape his attitude. “I did a lot of thinking,” he said. “I tried to figure out what I would do differently if I went back.”

Bellatty wrote his thoughts in a notebook, “listing the pros and cons of coaching basketball,” he said. Looking for insight, he watched basketball games on television and wrote down pertinent comments from coaches’ interviews.

Bellatty eventually decided that his perspective had been warped. He had been overemphasizing winning instead of creating a positive experience for his players.

“If you lose a game, millions of people don’t really give a damn,” he said. “The most important thing is doing something for the kids.”

During his hiatus, Bellatty built a log cabin on George’s Pond in Maine, where he goes almost every summer to rejuvenate himself. The construction of the cabin no doubt had a therapeutic effect on his psyche, but the experience that may have helped him the most occurred in an unlikely arena: the casinos of Las Vegas.

Bellatty, along with Shagin and former Taft football Coach Tom Stevenson, began making one-day trips to Las Vegas to play craps. Their “Vegas runs,” as Shagin called them, were more like blitzes--”We’d hit 25 casinos in eight or 10 hours”--and they provided an important lesson for Bellatty, Shagin said.

“You’d get used to a lot of winning . . . and a lot of losing,” said Shagin, who teaches U. S. Government. “If you took a loss too personally, you didn’t get through the day.

“Bill learned that it wasn’t the end of the world if he lost.”

When Bellatty went on hiatus, Calabasas hired an off-campus coach, Dave Hoffman. But Bellatty was still involved on the periphery--a faculty member was required to be present during sixth-period practice, so Bellatty volunteered.

But he could not make himself go to games.

“I went to one game in two years and left after one quarter,” he said. “I missed it so much.”

Last April, however, Hoffman told Bellatty he was not returning. Bellatty immediately went to see Principal Dorothy Schneider.

“I didn’t even think about it,” he said. “I just reacted.” He asked her for his job back--and got it.

The Coyotes have lost more than they have won this season, but Bellatty can still eat Mexican food. The Coyotes are 10-11 and placed third in the Frontier League with a 3-5 record. They open the Southern Section III-A Division playoffs Friday at San Luis Obispo.

“I’ve calmed down on the inside,” said Bellatty, who has gained back 25 pounds. “I still get excited but I’m much more relaxed. I have a handle on things.”

Indeed, Bellatty, who turned 50 earlier this month, was nearly unflappable at a recent game. He did not have to consume a roll of Tums, as was his habit during every game two years ago.

His most emotional moment came in the third quarter when his players messed up a fast break and he slammed the floor with his hands, but not too hard.

“I used to have fun coaching,” Bellatty said, “but it’s a lot more fun now.”