A Few Bad Sports Spoil the Barrel : Prep Wednesday: Demonstrative behavior, such as taunting and end zone antics, is on rise in high schools. When players are too physical and emotional it sometimes leads to violence.

A linebacker for Mission Viejo High School came up to fill the hole and help with the tackle. The Mater Dei running back was stopped for a short gain.

The linebacker emerged from the pile screaming in celebration. That was only the beginning.

He then ran toward the Mater Dei sideline and yelled at the Monarch coaches.

“Better (run) to the other side. Don’t come over here no more.”

Moments later, he was chasing the quarterback and was knocked off his feet near the sideline. An adult wearing a Mater Dei jacket laughed.

“You got pancaked there, (expletive). Bet that’ll look real good on the game film.”

It was Thursday, Oct. 22, National Sportsmanship Day for high schools.

Sportsmanship, that catch-all word that encourages athletes, coaches and fans to take the high road, seems to have been bogged down on that purer path.

Being a gracious winner and good loser was once--at least theoretically--part of the game. In recent years, it has become an ideal that too often is ignored in high school football.

Players taunt, coaches rant, and parents complain. In some cases, it’s not enough to beat opponents, you have to beat them badly.

“I’d be lying if I said there weren’t any problems,” Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas said. “We’ve had coaches pushing people, and kids hitting kids. When that happens, everybody loses.”

It’s a paradox for coaches, who want their teams to be physical and emotional but don’t want them to be too physical and too emotional. Once that line gets crossed, things escalate and sometimes end in violence.

“This is just a game, not life,” Brea-Olinda Coach Jon Looney said. “People have to realize that and get some perspective.”

Looney’s team got handed some last season.

Brea was 5-0 going into its Orange League opener against Savanna. The Wildcats received two penalties for taunting in that game, which helped the Rebels gain a 23-20 victory.

“Our kids thought they were pretty good and started getting a little carried away,” Looney said. “They learned the hard way. It cost us the game.”

But not enough players get that lesson.

Demonstrative behavior during games is on the rise. Coaches and administrators put the blame on college and professional players, whose antics are on television for all to see.

It’s a trickle-down theory that actually works.

“The professional players are the strongest and fastest, but that doesn’t mean they are the best role models,” said Richard Lister, a clinical and sports psychologist. “A guy makes a decent hit, then gets up and starts waving like the Pope to get the crowd to cheer him. Kids pick up on that and do the same.”

Ryan Roskelly did.

Roskelly, a running back for Valencia last season, was watching an NFL game one Sunday and saw a Detroit Lion player, about to score a touchdown, pause on the one-yard line for a moment before crossing the goal line.

The next game against Brea, Roskelly got free for an easy touchdown run. He stopped on the one, then stutter-stepped into the end zone.

“I wasn’t trying to show anyone up, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do,” said Roskelly, who now plays at Fullerton College. “I guess the Brea guys must have thought I was a creep. But I didn’t think about that then.”

Most players don’t. They are so emotionally charged that emulating college and professional players becomes a reflex.

Sean O’Brien, Santa Margarita quarterback, said he had a problem with that earlier this season. He would score a touchdown, then put the ball in an opponent’s face or point at him.

It was something he said he picked up from watching USC. O’Brien said he never thought about it being wrong until his coaches told him to stop.

“I’m usually so quiet around school that other kids are surprised to see how I act on the field,” O’Brien said. “I get so amped on the field that I take it a little overboard. I guess that’s bad. But I go crazy on Friday nights.”

O’Brien isn’t alone.

This season:

--A defensive lineman for a Sea View League team got a sack, then put his cleats over the quarterback’s face for several seconds.

--A running back for an Orange League team scored a touchdown, then pointed at opposing players as he ran back to the bench.

--A running back for a Garden Grove League team would face the crowd with arms extended after scoring touchdowns.

--A Sunset League player, being interviewed by a cable television station after a victory, verbally abused the losing team.

These incidents and others like them, taken separately, are generally not vicious. But they represent a trend that concerns those involved with high school sports.

“I’ve seen more than a couple of instances where a kid sacks a quarterback, then puts his foot on the guy’s helmet,” Garden Grove Coach Jeff Buenafe said. “I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Not a week goes by that we don’t tell our kids that pitting their best skills against an opponent doesn’t include mouthing off.”

But talking trash is just another way players can intimidate an opponent. Sometimes, it’s the only way.

In a South Coast League game, a running back was pushed out of bounds by a defensive back, hardly a jarring hit. The running back had gained 14 yards on the play for a first down, so it was not a big defensive play.

Still, the defensive back began pointing his finger and yelled a string of obscenities at the other player.

“It seems sometimes that a player makes any sort of play, then struts around like a rooster,” Sunny Hills Coach Tim Devaney said. “It’s in vogue right now.”

While all agree that professional and college athletes have tutored high school players in this behavior, administrators and experts say the final responsibility still rests with the coach.

“The coach is the leader,” said Lister. “The team’s behavior and mood and spirit is absolutely in his control.”

To be more specific:

“You bench a kid when they do something like that and everyone else gets the message in a hurry,” Looney said. “You’ve got to nip it in the bud.”

Many coaches do just that.

Roskelly said he was chewed out by Coach Mike Marrujo the second he got to the sideline after his maneuver in the Brea game.

Buenafe benched a player in the middle of a game this season when informed by officials that he had taunted an opponent.

“We tell our kids that talk is cheap,” Edison Coach Dave White said. “We stress to them each week that we win with class, and we lose with class.”

But players don’t always get such a strong signal from their coaches. One example of that is not only winning, but running up the score.

There have been several lopsided scores this season, including Costa Mesa’s 65-12 rout of Laguna Beach. Afterward, Mustang Coach Myron Miller had to defend his team’s play.

Miller said that three of his team’s second-half touchdowns were the result of turnovers deep in Laguna Beach territory.

“That’s true,” Laguna Beach Coach Mike Barron said. “I don’t think their intent was to run up the score. But there wasn’t any effort to slow it down.”

Said Thomas: “If it’s 60-0, I would hope that everyone gets in the game.”

Rancho Alamitos, one of the top-ranked teams in Orange County, routed Bolsa Grande, 61-0, two weeks ago. The Vaqueros then beat La Quinta, 42-8, Friday.

They scored on the last play of the game in both cases.

“I really want to leave that alone,” Bolsa Grande Coach Gary Stephens said. “But as far as sportsmanship goes, you should respect your opponent, not go out and embarrass him.”

La Quinta Coach Steve Castle was more direct. He was particularly angry about the last touchdown.

The Vaqueros ran a pass-and-pitch play, where a receiver catches the ball, then laterals it to another player running by. It added insult to injury, according to Castle.

“I’m not sure where people are coming from in their approach,” Castle said. “The game was well in hand. There was no need to humiliate my players. There was something dirty about it.”

Rancho Alamitos Coach Mark Miller said the final touchdown against Bolsa Grande was an honest mistake. He said he thought time was going to run out, but the clock was stopped. The Vaqueros ran one more play and scored.

The player who scored the touchdown is usually a lineman.

But Miller admits running up the score against La Quinta. He said it was in retaliation because the Aztecs had taunted his players and took cheap shots at running back Leon Vickers.

Castle denied that they went after Vickers or that his kids were taunting.

“Before the game, two of the players came up to me and my assistants and said, ‘(expletive) Rancho,’ ” Miller said. “During the game, one of their assistant coaches was yelling, ‘Cut his knees out,’ when Vickers carried the ball. After enough abuse, I gave my kids the green light to score.”

Miller said he didn’t believe he was answering unsportsmanlike behavior in kind.

“I don’t think it was sinking to their level,” he said. “Maybe I should take a course on morality, but I don’t see it that way. We played the game within the framework of the rules. I have players who . . . wanted to respond in another way. But we responded in a legal manner.”

That “other way”--violence-- occurs far too often.

Three years ago, the Brea/Sonora game was stopped because of a brawl. Looney said that parents were also involved.

In a recent Pacific Coast League game, a linebacker punched another player in the groin because he had been knocked down on the previous block.

“You see that usually in games that are one-sided,” Ocean View Coach Howard Isom said. “There’s a certain amount of frustration when you’re getting your tail kicked.”

Coaches have gone out of their way to prevent such incidents and keep the competition on a higher level.

Two weeks ago, Servite defeated Ocean View, 41-0. In that game, the Friars’ kicker was injured early, so when they scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter, they were faced with going for two on the extra point.

But instead of embarrassing the Seahawks, Coach Larry Toner had his quarterback take the snap and kneel down.

Those type of gestures can prevent bad feelings.

“I still see a lot of kids who help an opponent up after the play is over,” Buenafe said. “That sort of positive thing means that people still care and are not just trying to knock each others block off.”

To promote and further that idea, the Southern Section has taken steps to improve sportsmanship in recent years with seminars and newsletters.

In the Blue Book, the section’s rule book, there is even a code of ethics--a 10-step checklist for interscholastic competition. No. 1 on the list is “to emphasize the proper ideals of sportsmanship, ethical conduct and fair play.”

“Any time someone from our office attends a league meeting, they strongly stress sportsmanship,” said Thomas.

But to put those ideas into practice, players and coaches must go against the credo of the game.

In a sport that has been described as organized violence, being a “good sport” can be seen as a sign of weakness, according to coaches. They find getting past that stereotype is a constant battle.

“Football is such a macho thing,” Buenafe said, “but we try to teach our kids that’s it’s OK to be a nice guy, too.”