Track Team Coach Doubles as Childbirth Coach

The discussion was about labor and delivery of newborn babies when teacher Terry McFate was interrupted by a former student standing in the doorway of his classroom at Riley High School in Watts.

She had her 2-year-old daughter in tow, but McFate, of Long Beach, was not surprised to learn that she might soon be back in his class.

“What? Naw! Really? You’re not pregnant again are you?” he said to the girl. “I told you to concentrate on one.”

McFate, a former decathlete and football player, has taught physical education for six years at the continuation school, but the emphasis is on labor and delivery. The class covers everything related to pregnancy, from conception to the late stages of birth.

All of his students are girls from South-Central Los Angeles who want to fulfill their academic requirements during their pregnancy. About 170 girls from seventh to 12th grade are enrolled at the school, which offers basic academic courses and two free meals. All of them come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and a lot of them come from broken homes. Some are only 12 years old.

“The state of California says they cannot kick you out of school because you’re pregnant,” McFate said, “but a lot of these girls drop out because they’re embarrassed. They feel the peer pressure.”

McFate has seen more than 2,000 pregnancies. Each student is excused for two to three weeks for the delivery. After the baby is born the mother comes back for another six weeks before being sent back to her original high school.

“These are kids having kids. The problem is parents are not open with their children,” he said. “I tell them one child is a mistake and two will keep you in the house forever. But they keep taking chances. I call it sex roulette.”

Many former students choose to return with their children for a visit or two with McFate, who they view in a fatherly way.

“He’s a funny guy,” said Mary Lazos, 17, whose baby is a little over a month old. “I was scared when I came here, but he taught me a lot. He’s so easy to talk to. I told him everything. I mean at first I thought it was weird that a man was teaching the class, but the first day he made me feel right at home.”

The walls in the classroom are decorated with posters depicting the fetus in the various stages of pregnancy and instructional posters on everything from breast feeding to prenatal exercises.

Pictures of young girls holding infants are displayed on a bulletin board along with several “announcing arrival” cards with photos of newborn babies in the center. A magazine called Lamaze sits on McFate’s small desk along with a book titled “First Egg. First Stage of Labor.”

McFate uses a game called “family feud” to help his girls learn. He walks around the room asking questions from index cards and the student with the most correct answers wins.

Some of the questions include:

* How long do you stay in the hospital with natural delivery?

* What determines when a Cesarean goes home from the hospital?

* Should you rush to the hospital after your first contraction?

* When do you start menstruation again after having the baby?

Some of the girls giggle through the day’s lesson and others take mental notes. Most of them say that McFate has made a big difference in their young lives.

“If it wasn’t for breathing I wouldn’t have made it and he taught me how to breathe,” said Alma Cobian, a 16-year-old who gave birth to a girl last month. “He says everything straight out. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. He helped me so much. I just can’t tell you.”

McFate also stresses physical fitness. His girls run and lift weights once a week. They also play volleyball.

“Mary Decker (the American record-holder in the 800-meters, 1,500-meters and the mile) ran five miles through the seventh month,” he said. “Do you know how much a baby weighs in the fifth month? One pound! That’s it. You can do anything. A lot of these girls are exercising more now than they did before they came here.”

When McFate finishes around 2:30 p.m., he drives to El Camino College near Torrance, where he has coached the women’s track team for eight years. He has guided El Camino to five Southern California and three state titles.

McFate was a two-sport athlete at South Hills High in West Covina and in 1968 won the junior college state decathlon for Citrus College. He also was a wide receiver for the Owls’ highly ranked football team.

He received a football scholarship to the University of Texas El Paso, but sustained a severe knee injury during preseason practice that forced him to give up athletics. He transferred to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he majored in physical education.

While studying to get his teaching credential at Cal Poly Pomona, McFate coached football at South Hills for two years. He led his alma mater to the CIF 4-A Division title in 1972. After that he led Drew Junior High to four consecutive L.A. Unified track championships.

In 1980, McFate took over the Manual Arts boys’ and girls’ track and cross-country programs. In four years his teams never lost a dual meet and he compiled more than 80 wins. The girls won four Southern League titles and two L.A. City titles. His cross-country teams also placed first in league every year he was there.

In 1984, McFate moved to El Camino. The principal at Manual Arts told him he would lose his physical education teaching job if he quit coaching track at the school, so McFate looked elsewhere for work, including at Riley.

“The lady that taught the labor and delivery class knew me,” he said. “She was leaving and recommended me for the job. When she told me what I’d be teaching, I said, ‘You gotta be kidding!’ I was shocked to see 75 pregnant girls.”

McFate is married--his wife, Fran, is a five-time U.S. National roller-skating champion--but has no children. He says he attended numerous classes on childbirth.

Dave Shannon, El Camino’s associate athletic director, says McFate is great at spotting raw talent.

“He can evaluate talent. He knew Sharette Garcia (a two-time 800-meter state champion and 1,500-meter state champ) when she was in junior high and he knew she was a tiger,” Shannon said. “And he’s a great teacher. I’ve seen him teach people how to throw the javelin and I’ve seen them go on and be successful in that event.”