At Laguna Beach, Losing Doesn’t Have to Mean Failure

He stares at the ground, shakes his head and sighs. Sure, he says, he had hoped for more. A league title, perhaps. A winning record. A season of redemption, perseverance and pride.

But it wasn’t meant to be. The Laguna Beach football team--2-7, 0-4 in the Pacific Coast League--will finish far out of playoff contention this year, just as it has every year since 1988. And senior Eric Fegraus--team standout, All-Southern Section wide receiver, three-year starter, etc.--will once again have little to show for 10 weeks of football.

“Sometimes I think about how good we could be,” says Fegraus, second on the county receiving charts with 39 catches for 675 yards. “But it’s useless. . . . It’s not going to happen.”

Don’t get Fegraus wrong. He’s not a pessimist. He’s a realist. And understandably so.

Although Laguna Beach won a league title in 1987, the Artists have since plummeted. In four years, including this one, Laguna Beach is 7-31-1, 3-16 in league. The last league victory came in 1989, against Costa Mesa.

A sad case? Perhaps. But with only 650 students, Laguna Beach is the smallest of Orange County’s public schools, meaning the Artist football team, with a roster of about 20, is always stretched to the limit, or beyond.

It’s a numbers game. And the equation--the greater number of injuries, the less chance of success--can be cruel. Or in last week’s case, devastating.

Trigg Garner, the Artists’ starting quarterback, was lost for the season Nov. 1 after doctors discovered a blockage in a vein in his left (throwing) shoulder. Garner, a junior who was among the county leaders in passing efficiency, underwent surgery Thursday afternoon. Doctors removed a large part of his first rib and some fibrous tissue that was pressing and pinching the vein, diminishing its capacity by nearly 99%.

The loss was tough for all of Garner’s teammates, especially Fegraus, his longtime friend. The boys grew up on the same street and played football together in the park. Garner was always the quarterback, Fegraus his No. 1 receiver. Last year, Fegraus had to talk Garner, a basketball player, into coming out for football.

“I said, ‘Come on,’ ” Fegraus said. “ ‘Remember when we were like 10 years old, playing in the park and you threw me that touchdown pass?’ He finally said OK.”

Which wasn’t the answer most guys gave Fegraus, the team’s unofficial on-campus recruiter. He’d ask them to come out, but everyone had a different excuse. They had to work. They didn’t want to get hurt. They didn’t want to miss out on their daily surf session.

For Fegraus, it was nearly as frustrating as losing games. There were times toward the end of last season when some of his teammates would simply give up on last-minute drives, he says. So in a way, he was glad to see those quitters quit. But he also knew they needed every body they could get.

“We could’ve been good this year--really,” he says. “But it’s the typical Laguna flake attitude. There were 12 kids who could’ve played football but just didn’t want to.”

The beach, Fegraus says, is partly to blame; the stereotypes, he says, are basically true. Laguna kids can be as fickle as the summer surf. Why spend the afternoon sweating on the football field when you can veg out on the beach a few blocks away?

“Here, football just isn’t the thing ,” Fegraus says, shaking his head in disgust.

Although he appears every bit the Laguna Beach surf rat in his beat-up huarache sandals, surf trunks, strawberry-blond hair and slightly modified goatee, Fegraus adheres to priorities--school and sports. Sure, he hits the beach and skis Mammoth whenever possible, but he has a 3.6 grade-point average, and scored 1,110 points on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

He’s more impressive on the football field, especially since he, like almost all Laguna Beach players, didn’t play organized football until ninth grade. Unlike most cities, Laguna Beach doesn’t offer Pop Warner or Junior All-American youth leagues. But Fegraus is a natural, known for his spectacular catches, his athletic moves and his never-say-quit attitude.

Of course, Fegraus knows he wasn’t able to make the difference for the Artists alone. Not this year. Not last year. Not the year before that. Weeks ago, in a 42-0 loss to Pius X, Fegraus was hit by the ugly realization: The Artists weren’t going to win a league title--again.

It was a depressing moment, one perhaps incomprehensible to athletes at traditional powerhouse programs such as Esperanza and Valencia, where winning seems automatic, where fan support is fanatic, where boys can’t wait to grow up and play.

But Fegraus handled it as he always has, with poise and maturity. Losing doesn’t have to mean failure.

Friday night, Laguna Beach lost to Laguna Hills, 22-20. The Artists turned the ball over on downs on their final drive, ending the threat of an upset, but Fegraus still praised his teammates. They played tough, never gave up and were truly inspired, he said.

Maybe they were just returning the favor.