A Man Among Boys at Esperanza : Prep football: Kirschke has a reputation of being the best lineman in county history.

You have come to meet Travis Kirschke, who just might be the finest high school lineman ever to play in Orange County.

You have heard all the stories and all the praise, but you want to find out for yourself:

Is he really the best? And if so, why?

“How ya doing?” Kirschke says, smiling and extending a big right hand.

Your hand disappears in his. His grip is strong, but you know he’s holding back.

A 6-foot-4 1/2, 250-pound senior, Kirschke stands out in the crowd of Esperanza students hurrying to their sixth-period classes. Later, standing among the Aztec football players at practice, you notice that he still dwarfs those around him.

You also notice Kirschke bears a striking resemblance to longtime Raider standout Howie Long. “People have said that before,” he says, smiling again.

You have heard that he excels on both sides of the ball, but later you learn that he’ll play defense in college.

His legs look to be as strong as steel beams. His arms seem molded from bronze. His chest appears to have been built with cement blocks.

You begin to feel as if those you had spoken to weren’t exaggerating.

-- “I think he’s the ultimate high school football lineman,” Cypress Coach John Selbe has said.

-- “He’s not satisfied,” El Dorado Coach Rick Jones said. “He has the intensity to match his ability. It’s a combination every coach would like to have in a player.”

-- “He’ll go down as the greatest high school lineman I’ve ever coached against,” said Katella Coach Larry Anderson, who has been in the business 21 seasons.

-- “I told (Esperanza Coach) Gary Meek when Travis was a sophomore that he should bypass college and go directly to the NFL,” Loara Coach John deFries said, laughing.

-- “There aren’t many times that a defensive lineman sets the tempo for a team, but he does,” Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes said.

Suffice to say, all five opposing Empire League coaches will be happy to see the last of Kirschke. In three varsity seasons, he has turned the trenches into a chamber of horrors for opponents.

With Kirschke leading the way, Esperanza is 13-2 against the league. The only losses have been to Los Alamitos, which has somehow managed to neutralize him.

Unless there’s a playoff meeting, the nightmares for league coaches end tonight when Esperanza (8-1) closes out the regular season against El Dorado (8-1).

From now on, most coaches will be content to catch Kirschke’s act on television. It will certainly be more enjoyable that way.

The scene: a darkened office at Katella. On a TV monitor, a tape of Esperanza’s game against St. John Bosco this season is playing.

Kirschke settles into his defensive stance. The quarterback calls out the count and takes the snap, and the offensive linemen begin to seek their blocking assignments. Before they get far, Kirschke grabs two by their jerseys and yanks each to the turf. The play is snuffed out.

Laughter fills the room.

The coaches rewind the tape, then hit the play button again.

More laughter.

“It was a pretty awesome play,” Anderson says.

Kirschke has had a high school career filled with such startling feats, but he seldom remembers anything.

“Sometimes I pull people down or make a big hit, but I don’t really realize it,” Kirschke says. “You’re focused. You don’t hear the band playing or the crowd cheering. You might hear it for a second, then you’re back in the zone. You’re focused on what you have to do.”

Kirschke rarely says two words in a row on the field, according to Los Alamitos offensive lineman Bill McMullen.

“You know, he doesn’t talk,” McMullen says, “and that can be intimidating.”

There is simply no room in Kirschke’s game for such frivolous expenditures of energy. He is too busy concentrating on ruining the next play.

“I just want to dominate,” he says. “I want to go through the blocker and get to the ball as fast as I can.

“You have to have anger plus control. Otherwise, you’ll miss the play. I’m thinking, ‘What have I got to do? What am I going to do with this guy to get to the ball?’

“I don’t try to do much with mind games. I’ve learned to play the game and ignore the other guys.”

Perhaps this is what separates Kirschke from others his size. Some might be bigger. Or stronger. Or faster. But no one seems to combine the physical and mental aspects as well as he does.

The opposing coaches agree that he never takes a play off, even when he probably could coast a little and still overwhelm a blocker.

“Whenever I see him, he always plays as hard as he can on every down,” Barnes says. “He plays like it’s the Super Bowl, and it’s the final play, and the game’s on the line.”

Next week, Kirschke will fly to Seattle for a recruiting visit at the University of Washington. In the coming weeks, he will travel to Colorado, Notre Dame, UCLA and USC.

Although some believe he’s ready to play college football right now, Kirschke is content to be a high school senior. Nothing more, nothing less.

Football is always on his mind, but he lives a life that is not unusual for an 18-year-old senior. After practice, he heads home to do his homework. When he’s done, he watches TV to unwind. One night a week during the season, he works at a pizza joint.

To others, he might be the best, the most talented, but that’s not the way he sees himself.

“I never thought it would turn out this way,” he says. “My goal was just to go out and play my best.

“My freshman year, I was just learning. I didn’t have any goals. When I went up to varsity, I just didn’t realize I was as good as I was.

“I didn’t feel any pressure until after my sophomore year. I was unknown until then. Once I got to be a junior, then people began to know me. As a junior, I had to prove myself in order to get scholarship offers nailed down.

“This year I just wanted to have fun.”

To Kirschke, “fun” is pushing himself relentlessly. Somewhere along the way, he has discovered that it isn’t easy to be better than the next guy. But he has been willing to pay the price to stand out.

“I’m always thinking that I could have done better,” he says. “I like to push myself. I feel it’s something you have to do.”

As he improved and began to control games, he noticed things began to change. Hardly a play went by when he didn’t have two players beating on him. Other teams began to see it was the only way to run the ball against Esperanza.

Sometimes, a quarterback would look to see where Kirschke was lined up, then change the play.

“I’d switch a side late, and you could hear them say, ‘What do we do now?’ ” Kirschke says.

Then it was fun again.

“It’s always fun, but it kind of gets old fighting two people instead of just one,” he says. “I don’t mind, though. It just makes you better.”

Perhaps that’s the bottom line: As the years pass, Kirschke is bound to keep improving.

And you wonder what opposing coaches in the Pacific 10 or the Big Eight will be saying about Kirschke. Surely, they will mention his size, his strength, his speed, his aggressive attitude and willingness to work hard.

Why should anything change?