Buenafe Takes the Heat and Stays on the Field

The mid-morning sun sizzled over the Garden Grove High School football stadium Saturday, turning the bright metal bleachers into a dizzying sheet of heat and glare. It was a nice place--for a broiled shrimp or a sunspot.

But sitting there didn’t seem to bother Jeff Buenafe. As a much-criticized football coach--but one who is 3-0 this year--he has gotten used to the heat that comes from these stands.

Four years ago, Buenafe was a Garden Grove assistant on an 0-10 team. The next year, when the head coach quit just before Hell Week, Buenafe was handed the top spot. The Argonauts improved--they went 1-9.

Two years ago, it was 3-7. And last year was 5-5.

But the gradual, long-term improvement Buenafe was aiming for--and achieving--was knocked by parents and fans. Getting better wasn’t good enough, they said. We want a run at the league championship, they said. And hey, why aren’t you playing my son?

Buenafe tried to please everyone and succeeded in pleasing almost no one. Some of the players’ parents wrote letters to the administration, asking that he be fired. The complaints were as varied as can be, from “He’s too easy on the kids,” to “He’s too tough,” to “He’s responsible for the Cokes being too sweet at the snack bar.” (I’m not kidding.)

No one really agreed on any particular flaw, except perhaps that Buenafe wasn’t starting the players they wanted him to start.

Even opposing coaches sitting in the press box noticed the flak Buenafe was getting. Some, hearing what Garden Grove fans were yelling during games, asked Buenafe how he put up with such a thing. Others actually yelled back themselves.

But Buenafe says what really hurt was the disloyalty of some members of his own coaching staff. He says they questioned his coaching style and his play-calling--not in an up-front, helpful way, but behind his back.

“Every coach gets second-guessed by the fans,” he says. “That doesn’t bother me. I mean, I like to play armchair quarterback, too. That’s your right as a fan, that’s what makes it fun.

“But I’d like to think the guys that you work with . . . well, there was a lot of second-guessing going on--off the field.”

It was enough to drive a young coach crazy. But Buenafe, now 35, kept his wits. In fact, he describes the entire episode of last season as a blessing. He says it made him stronger. He says it made him learn how to be a head coach and a leader. He calls it his on-the-job training.

“It was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me,” Buenafe says. “It challenged me. Made me take a better look at myself as a person and as a head coach. The blessing in it is I’m so competitive that I wasn’t about to sit still and let this thing gracefully die out. I was going to rise to the challenge. I was going to take them all on. . . . “

If he sounds like a 20th-Century John Paul Jones, it’s for good reason. Buenafe is a fighter, no doubt about it. As a three-sport letterman at Rancho Alamitos High--and later an infielder at USC--he was something of a terror competitively.

“He was the kind of kid who’d point a finger,” Garden Grove’s longtime equipment manager Bill Ritchey says, “but he could back it up.”

The casual observer probably looks at Buenafe and wonders what he’s doing on the sidelines of a football field. At 5 feet 11 and 168 pounds, he doesn’t exactly fit the mold of the average football coach. And with his coiffured hairdo, baggy silk pants and leather loafers, well, it’s no wonder a certain number of local old-timers questioned whether he was all flash, no substance.

“They see this skinny-butt guy running around on the sidelines in baggy pants,” Buenafe says. “But I’ll tell you, no one knows what makes me tick.”

Buenafe is a player’s coach, passionate about developing winning attitudes and self-esteem, which has been an uphill battle at Garden Grove. He knows overcoming lack of discipline and bad attitudes--ingrained in a lot of Argonauts--will take time and patience. And he’s accepted that commitment.

More importantly, Buenafe says he has learned to deal with the naysayers--even the one who occasionally comes from within. He has replaced self-doubts with self-confidence. He’s replaced a few mistrustful staff members with new, positive types. He’s comfortable with his decisions.

“I’ve learned to tune certain things out. I’ve learned to do what’s best for me, what’s best for this team, what’s best for my family and staff,” he says. “It’s been a wild, fun, exhausting, challenging, rewarding time. I’ve really tried to take this thing--all the negatives--and turn it into one big positive. . . . “

Buenafe cuts himself off and looks out on the field, where 12 hours earlier, his team won its third consecutive game of the year.

“It’s been a bittersweet time for me,” he says softly. “There have been some tough times, but I love this place. . . . I think it’s going to be all right.”