PREP PREVIEW ’92 : BOYS’ CROSS-COUNTRY : Love Is Developing Quite a Following at Katella

Entering this cross-country season, Mike Love of Katella has emerged as his team’s leader.

A few years ago when Love was entering his teens, he was hardly leadership material. Rather, he often was in trouble at school.

His mother, Cheri, remembers some frustrating moments.

“He didn’t like school. He didn’t like to go to school,” she said. “I think he was one of those kids who are disruptive in class.

“He started going to the principal’s office when he was in kindergarten.”

Love had mastered an old trick. When he came home from school, his mother would ask if he had homework. And he’d say, no.

Cheri Love believed her son, but discovered the truth when she got calls from worried teachers who said Mike would fail his classes because he wasn’t turning in homework.

A trumpet and the Katella cross-country team changed all that.

Love, who lives with his mother (his parents are divorced), received the trumpet from a family friend before he started high school.

“He (the friend, Mike Stearns, a former neighbor) is a very nice man,” Cheri Love said. “He would take Michael to the movies and flying.”

He also introduced Mike to the trumpet. Stearns would play his trumpet for Mike. Eventually, one Christmas, he gave Mike the trumpet.

Love tried out for band and cross-country his freshman year. He made both, which gave him a strong incentive to keep his grades up.

But that wasn’t easy because Love had never been motivated and he had difficulty with the work.

“I’ve always been kind of slow, especially when trying to remember something,” said Love.

“I think he may have a slight (learning disability),” Cheri said. “He had trouble with words, in reading, putting them together and communicating them.”

Love, a senior, acknowledges the difficulty but says his main problem with school was that he didn’t do the work required.

“Before, I had an attitude that school is garbage, but after I started cross-country and band, I had to do better to stay in them.”

His confidence also grew as he excelled in sports and music.

Love placed seventh in the Division II State cross-country meet as a sophomore. Despite suffering from a stress fracture in one of his legs during his sophomore track season, Love continued to run.

“He was out there running when he was in so much pain,” Cheri said. “At one meet, he had run a mile and was getting ready for the two-mile. He came over to me and I asked him, ‘How do you feel?’ He said, ‘If I tell you, you wouldn’t let me run.’ ”

Love recovered from the injury and placed fourth last year at the State cross-country meet.

He capped off the year by running 4 minutes 14.72 seconds in the 1,600 meters, placing sixth in the Southern Section Masters meet and breaking the school record of 4:17.03, set by Brad Clary in 1982. Love had started the season with a personal best of 4:26.

Love said he didn’t know he was running that fast until the race’s end.

“They (the other runners) were just kind of pulling me along,” he said. “That was pretty much the first time I had that much competition in the same race in track.”

This cross-country season, he’ll have competition from his teammates as well as rivals. According to Katella Coach Dave Wilson, Mike Moreno and Delphino Resendiz are pushing Love in practice.

Love will also have company in the Empire League with Esperanza’s Shawn Frack.

“At the end of track season, Shawn was doing a lot better than he was before, so I think he’ll be a key person to be running against,” Love said.

Last year, Katella defeated Esperanza by two points in the teams’ dual meet, and Katella eventually won the league title.

Wilson said Love is now the team leader.

“He’s come so far from the first time I met him,” Wilson said. “He’s gotten his grades up and I think success has boosted his self-esteem.”

Cheri said during the summer, the team has been running from school to her home to splash around in her pool and then run back to school.

“I was there one day this summer when it was time to go back to school,” she said. “Mike was ready and he got his running shoes on and started running back and the other kids were scrambling to leave, to follow him. They were saying, ‘Mike says it’s time to go, we’d better go.’ ”

Boys’ Cross-Country at a Glance

Top athletes: John Biondolillo, Dana Hills, Jr.; Greg De Clark, Villa Park, Sr.; Fredrico Duran, Santa Ana, Jr.; Shawn Frack, Esperanza, Sr.; Ben Flamm, Huntington Beach, Sr.; Dylan Guggenmos, Newport Harbor, Sr.; Peter Ho, Estancia, Jr.; Matt Huss, Santa Margarita, Jr.; Mike Love, Katella, Sr.; Brendan Mahon, La Habra, Jr.; Robert Mahon, La Habra, Sr.; Jaime Martinez, Orange, Jr.; Mike Moreno, Katella, Jr.; Hector Ochoa, Saddleback, So.; Johnny Ochoa, Saddleback, Sr.; Pat O’Mara, Mission Viejo, So.; David Niednagel, Dana Hills, Sr.; Jared Overton, Newport Harbor, Sr.; Sky Peterka, Newport Harbor, Sr.; Peter Reyes, Santa Ana Valley, Sr.; Ralph Spennato, Esperanza, Sr.; Cory Thomas, Corona del Mar, Sr.; Sergio Victoria, Valencia, Sr.; Ryan Wilkinson, Santa Margarita, So.

League favorites: Arrowhead: Sherman Indian; Century: Villa Park; Empire: Katella; Freeway: La Habra; Garden Grove: Garden Grove; Olympic: Orange Lutheran; Orange: Valencia; Pacific Coast: Laguna Hills; Sea View: Saddleback; South Coast: Dana Hills; Sunset: Huntington Beach.

1991 final poll: 1. Laguna Hills; 2. La Habra; 3. Esperanza; 4. Dana Hills; 5. Santa Ana Valley; 6. Villa Park; 7. Newport Harbor; 8. Corona del Mar; 9. Santa Margarita; 10. Saddleback.

Key dates: Woodbridge Invitational, Sept. 19; Laguna Hills Invitational, Sept. 26; Dana Hills Invitational, Oct. 3; Orange County championships, Oct. 17; Mt. San Antonio College Invitational, Oct. 24; Southern Section preliminaries at Mt. SAC, Nov. 14; Southern Section finals at Mt. SAC, Nov. 21; State championships at Fresno, Nov. 28.

Notes: Other top Orange County teams include La Habra, Esperanza, Laguna Hills, Corona del Mar and Santa Margarita. . . . Schools who lost several runners to graduation are Santa Ana Valley, Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills. Santa Ana Valley lost six of its top nine runners, and Mission Viejo, which got better as last season progressed, lost four of its top seven. The Diablos were eighth in the State Division II meet last year behind sixth-place La Habra. Laguna Hills, the Division III champion, is expected to rebound.