SPORTS NOTEBOOK / DICK WAGNER : Bellflower Bears Try to Improve and Keep Dreams Alive

Bob Schremp, a thickset former security guard with a perpetual devotion to football, did not try to hide the truth Saturday morning when he addressed candidates for his Bellflower Bears semipro team.

“We’re coming off a very disastrous year,” Schremp told about 20 prospective players before a tryout at Bellflower High School.

He also told them that he has purged many of the perpetrators from that 1-10 team, his worst in 12 years as owner and coach of the Bears.

Schremp, who is 53 and weighs 310 pounds, has assembled a staff of 10 volunteer assistants, including Stacy Miller, a 350-pound strength and conditioning coach whom everyone calls “Hoss.”

Then there are the former NFL players who have told Schremp that they will help--Dick Bass and Charlie Cowan, who were all-pros for the Rams; longtime place-kicker “Bootin’ Ben” Agajanian; Reggie Berry, a former San Diego defensive back, and Carver Shannon, who was a punt returner for the Rams and Chicago Bears.

Most of the coaches, however, were absent Saturday morning.

“Dick Bass was here earlier, but he had to be at a parade in Norwalk,” Schremp said. Bass is executive director of the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce.

“And Charlie had a rough treatment,” Schremp noted, referring to Cowan’s dialysis the day before.

Hoss? Off somewhere playing in a rugby match.

The tryout would include a 40-yard dash, but the strength of the players would have to be assessed later.

“We couldn’t get the weight bench here because the back of my truck is full of beer and stuff for a golf tournament,” Schremp explained.

Accustomed to the glitch-filled world of semipro football, Schremp was undaunted, and he left little doubt that he wanted the players to take this as seriously as he does.

“We’re not going to waste our time with people,” he said. “Last year we had crybabies.”

Schremp is always hopeful of finding someone with pro potential. He said that former Bears Doug Gandy and Matt Allen reached the NFL, and Troy Hunter played pro football in Canada.

The Bears plan to carry a roster of 45 for the Southern California Football League season that starts in August. The players, who do not get paid, must each contribute $150 to help cover the cost of officials, liability insurance and equipment.

Schremp introduced Sherry Houston, who owns the American Eagle Gym in Norwalk, which is listed as the Bears’ conditioning gym.

“Once you make the team you can go to Sherry’s gym,” Schremp announced. “She’ll charge you a flat $100. And she carries those power drinks.”

If the Bears are to overwhelm such teams as the Orange Coast Dolphins, the Beach Cities Slayers, the Valley Freelancers and the Fresno Bandits, they will do it with strong, fast players.

“That’s what the NFL is looking for, and that’s what we’re trying to develop,” Schremp said. “We’re not going with big 300-pound linemen anymore.”

After calisthenics, the candidates, most of them chugging, were timed in the 40-yard run as player/coach Keith Hamilton exhorted, “Come on, baby, all the way through! Drive!”

Hamilton’s own time in the 40 was five seconds, though he insisted he could get down to 4.8. A Compton Unified School District police officer who wore horn-rimmed glasses, Hamilton, 32, said he had to get his wife’s permission to play.

“I thought I’d give it one more shot,” he said, adding that he had been a receiver on a club football team at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

The tryout continued with a pass-catching drill. One ball hit a receiver on top of his head.

Afterward, Schremp said that he had seen some players with possibilities and others who at least had heart. “I never cut somebody with heart,” he confided.

Asked why he keeps the Bears going, he said: “I love the game. You get close to kids and see that their dream is there. If you fold your tent and go away, that dream dies. I find it hard to close the door on people’s dreams.”