Coach Started When Valley Growth Was Charted in Farmer’s Almanac : Ramirez Has Spent 39 Years at Birmingham

On yet another picturesque autumnal Friday night, several high school football players were engaged in that time-honored tradition: trash talking.

The setting was a game between Birmingham and Los Angeles highs. The year: 1957.

When the self-praise and chest-pumping reached a crescendo, Birmingham Athletic Director and then-assistant football coach Lou Ramirez admonished his charges. He told them men are judged by their actions--not their words. He talked about playing with dignity and showing respect for opponents.

Ramirez made his point. So much so his words still ring in one former player’s ears almost 40 years later.

“I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but he was 100% right,” said Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer, who attended Birmingham from 1957-59. “I have a great deal of respect for him because he has always supported kids and tried to help them grow.

“I took a lot from him about dealing with kids. He taught me, and a lot of others, a collage of things about doing things right with athletics. You could say it is something he is very dedicated to.”

When classes begin at Birmingham this fall, Ramirez, 67, will enter his 39th year at the reins of the Braves’ athletic program. The dean of City Section athletic directors, Ramirez at various times has coached the Braves’ varsity baseball, basketball, football, track and water polo teams.

Ramirez has been in tune with area high school sports since the area was in its infancy. He can take nostalgic journeys back to a period when the San Fernando Valley was dominated by fig orchards, orange groves, strawberry patches and wheat fields--to a time when there were five City Section high schools in the Valley.

All the while, Ramirez has done the things he loves: developing young minds and encouraging Birmingham athletics. And his touch with the students is still golden.

“You can’t even put into words what he means to the school,” said 1992 Birmingham graduate Casey Doherty, who played baseball and football. “He’s gets (to school) early and stays late seven days a week . . . he’s totally dedicated.

“He’s at all the games and he has so much school spirit. He’s an amazing guy.”

Longtime area sports observer Pete Kokon has known Ramirez since 1955, the year Ramirez became Birmingham’s athletic director.

“He’s as good as they come,” Kokon said. “The hours he puts in . . . coordinating all the events. He does a very good job for the kids. I always kid him that he’d be lost if he ever retired because that school has been his second home.”

Birmingham opened its doors in 1953. Ramirez arrived on campus in February of 1954 after teaching at a junior high in East Los Angeles for two years following his graduation from USC in 1951.

The Valley was still more farmland than metropolis in those days. To get from Van Nuys to Canoga Park, one could not simply travel along Victory Boulevard--unless you could maneuver around the farmland that interrupted the road.

Ramirez saw potential in the area. And a challenge he was eager to accept.

“It was exciting . . . there was a lot of building going on,” Ramirez said. “We were just the fifth high school in the Valley behind Canoga Park, North Hollywood, San Fernando and Van Nuys. It was a time of change.”

As a boy, Ramirez used to travel from his home in Hollywood to the Valley with his father and grandfather to hunt and fish (yes, at one time you could fish at a pond in Sherman Oaks).

As a teen-ager, he and friends came with girlfriends for hayrides. As an adult, the thought of coaching and teaching in the Valley intrigued him.

“People now really can’t understand how different things were back then,” Ramirez said. “Going anywhere in the Valley was like going way out into the country. San Fernando was so far away most people never even thought about going out there.

“The Valley has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, but I’m talking about the last 40 to 45 years. It’s incredible.”

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Ramirez’s second home, and the hub of Birmingham athletics, is a spartan 20-foot by 8-foot room decorated with tattered furniture, including a desk covered by mounds of papers. The office within classroom J-108 is where Ramirez works most--and best.

In the classroom he teaches history, as he has every year at Birmingham. Fallen junk bond wizard Michael Milken, actresses Sally Field and Cindy Williams, and singer Bobby Sherman were among his former students.

In addition to his duties as athletic director and history teacher, Ramirez advises several youth service organizations at Birmingham. Not surprisingly, Ramirez’s office is a popular Brave meeting place. It is not the office, however, of a man with a secretary. Phone calls interrupt Ramirez constantly.

No problem, though.

“There is a lot of work to do, but it’s something I enjoy,” Ramirez said. “The positives still outweigh the negatives.”

That is his style. If something has to do with helping Birmingham students compete, Ramirez will gladly deal with some headaches.

“It’s true things are much harder now than they used to be,” Ramirez said. “The number of sports offered has grown over the years and things are a lot harder to manage. We have to check ages and addresses a lot more than in the past. But a good work ethic never hurt anyone.”

Ramirez’s attitude was shaped by the Great Depression and fortified by his service in the South Pacific during World War II. Ramirez knows how to cope with problems.

“Most people didn’t have very much when I was growing up,” Ramirez said. “Kids were expected to go to work to help the family. My generation had a strong work ethic because we had no choice.”

In World War II, Ramirez was once on a ship following a battle when a typhoon struck. Ramirez saw a man falling overboard and risked his life to save him.

He reached the man and tried to pull him to safety when he also started to fall. One of Ramirez’s friends grabbed him and another man grabbed his friend.

“There we all were, a human ladder hanging on this ship right in the middle of a typhoon,” Ramirez said. “All of us saved each others’ lives many times in the service.

“You learn to work together and work out problems.”

After his discharge in 1946, Ramirez fulfilled a dream when he enrolled in classes at USC.

“My father and grandfather took me to the Coliseum to see (USC) play for the first time in 1938,” he said. “I was 12 and I decided then I wanted to go to SC. They were really the only game in town in those days and it was great.”

University life was never dull.

Matter of fact, it was sometimes out of control.

Ramirez and his fraternity brothers were often involved in holy wars with fraternities at UCLA. The battles included trashing fraternity homes on each campus with paint and manure.

A cease-fire was eventually declared.

Between fraternity pranks and parties, Ramirez managed to earn a degree in history. It was at USC, appropriately, that he planned his future.

“I decided I wanted to coach and teach,” Ramirez said. “My friends couldn’t believe it. Most of my fraternity buddies were going into business and the law.

“I’ve always liked kids and I wanted to coach so it seemed like the natural thing to do.”

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Birmingham’s football stadium is among the City’s best facilities and is used often during the postseason. That means extra work for Ramirez. City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness is grateful for the help.

“I couldn’t exist without Lou,” said Harkness, who is retiring in October. “We use Birmingham for football, soccer and track. Lou does all of the administrative things and then he also does the thousands of little things he doesn’t have to do. His help is invaluable.”

As if he needs more work, Ramirez is the meet director of the National Scholastic Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which began in 1991.

“I do it because I love track and it is one of the dying sports,” Ramirez said. “I remember when 60-70,000 people used to go to the Coliseum relays.

“Kids aren’t participating in track like before because there is more money in other things. It’s really a shame.”

Ramirez’s first sports love, however, is football--Trojan football.

When not administering, coordinating and advising during the fall, Ramirez heads for the Coliseum. He’s been a USC season ticket-holder since 1951. USC football Saturday is often a family outing for the Ramirez clan. His wife, Joan, and their three children are also graduates of the school.

The walls of Ramirez’s classroom at Birmingham are adorned with USC football posters and banners. He even manages to work in questions involving USC on his history exams.

“USC has meant a lot to me and my family,” said Ramirez, who has two grandchildren. “I owe that school a lot.”

Said Harkness: “Lou is the most loyal Trojan of them all.”

Although Lou relaxes at football games and when visiting with the grandchildren, Joan would like to see him work less.

“He has worked so hard for such a long time now,” said his wife of 41 years. “I’d like to see him take some time and relax, but he wants to keep going.

“The school and the kids have been a big part of his life.”