EMPIRE LEAGUE : Self-Effacing by Day, Super Linebacker by Night

Esperanza linebacker Jim Stewart has heard them all, folks.

Every wisecrack. Every insult. Every smart-aleck remark. Yeah, he rubs black paint around his eyes before each game. What’s it to you?

“You get that from your mom’s make-up kit?”

Stewart never comments. Oh, sometimes he bursts out laughing and sometimes he gets angry, but he holds his tongue. There are other ways to get even.

“Hey, Batman.”

Even his coaches get in a shot from time to time.

“You look like something from ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ ”

What they don’t understand is that Stewart hides behind those painted eyes. That mask-like appearance allows him to stalk ballcarriers on the football field. He usually catches them.

Without the paint, he’d be just another player.

“The paint gives me a feeling of power,” Stewart said.

Believe it or not, Stewart has trouble believing in himself. People see him as a rough-and-tumble linebacker who always seems to be around the ball.

It would be difficult for them to imagine the same guy hanging his head after every game, or dreading film day because he knows the coaches are going to point out every one of his mistakes.

Yet, Stewart shoulders both personalities.

“He’s weird that way,” said Esperanza linebacker Brad Kircher, one of Stewart’s best friends. “We’ll be going in to watch films and Jim will say, ‘I know they’re going to chew me out for all those mistakes.’ Of course, we get in there and the coaches say things like, ‘Here, watch this great play by Jim.’ ”

Said Stewart: “I know, I have low self-esteem. I don’t know why. After games, I walk off the field feeling real down, even after we win. I just feel like I didn’t play well.”

Stewart, a senior, thought that after the Long Beach Poly game. Of course, he had set the school record with 14 tackles.

He had so unnerved the Jackrabbit linemen that they came off the field after each offensive series grumbling about “Batman.”

“I came away from that game wishing that I could put that kid in the trunk of my car and take him back to Poly so we could use him,” Poly co-coach Jerry Jaso said. “He was as good a linebacker as we’ve faced in many, many years.”

Such praise is common.

“He makes plays where he sees fit to make plays,” Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes said.

Said Capistrano Valley Coach Eric Patton: “He makes tackles. He doesn’t miss.”

Said Irvine Coach Terry Henigan: “He was in our backfield so much, we probably should have given him one of our jerseys. He’s really, really, really good.”

Those are coaches whose teams have or will have to face Stewart. For an impartial opinion, there is Ram quarterback Jim Everett.

Stewart said that after he had a three-sack performance last season, he received a letter from Everett. It contained two tickets to a Ram game with a note that said, “Keep up the good work.” Stewart doesn’t know Everett.

Still, such praise often falls on deaf ears. Stewart just can’t fathom his abilities.

“I hear all that talk, but it’s hard for me to believe it,” Stewart said.

Until he dons his other persona .

Stewart first painted his face before the the Southern Section Division II championship game against Los Alamitos last season. The teams tied, 14-14, and Stewart decided to continue the ritual this season.

Kircher and Stewart both painted their faces before the Irvine game. The other defensive players liked the look, so they joined in.

Their coaches were not pleased.

“I told them, ‘It’s the first game. You haven’t done anything yet,’ ” defensive coordinator Bill Pendleton said. “I made them all wash it off.”

And it might have ended there, except Stewart and Kircher had used so much paint that they couldn’t get it all off.

“They looked like they were wearing eye shadow,” Aztec Coach Gary Meek said. “Bill gave up. He told them to put the paint back on.”

Stewart had two sacks and intercepted a pass against Irvine. He has painted his face since.

Opponents have tried to rattle him with insults. Yet, it’s Stewart who gets on their nerves.

“Guys will laugh at me and I’ll laugh right back at them,,” Stewart said. “Then they really think I’m nuts. I really can be a different person on the field because of that.”

And, for a moment, he even has confidence in himself. It lasts through the game, then the questions begin again.

“I just wish I would do better sometimes,” Stewart said. “When I was a kid, I was really, really shy. I wasn’t into sports or anything like that. I guess that’s where it comes from.”

Stewart’s childhood was rough. He grew up in San Bernardino, in a neighborhood where fists often settled debates. Stewart’s parents divorced when he was young and he came to live with his father in Anaheim when he was in the eighth grade.

Aztec coaches appreciated his abilities from the start. Stewart played only one game for the Esperanza freshman team before breaking his wrist in practice. Still, one game was enough. The next season, he was starting for the varsity at defensive end.

“He’s got the best combination of speed and explosiveness we’ve ever had,” Pendleton said.

But try selling that to Stewart. As a sophomore, he thought he was going to be sick before his first game. He felt worse when the game began.

“The first play, they ran a trap,” Stewart said. “I saw the guard pull and come at me. I thought, ‘This guy is going to kill me.’ ”

Instead, Stewart hit the guard and stacked up the play. “I think I cried that game because I thought I was doing so bad,” he said.

Stewart finished the season with six sacks.

He led the team with 11 sacks last season. A considerable accomplishment, as the Aztec defense included Travis Kirschke (now at UCLA) and Bryan Werner (Stanford).

Stewart, who moved to linebacker this season, has four sacks, giving him 21 in his career, three short of Kirschke’s school record.

The single-game record for tackles had stood since 1978 before Stewart broke it against Poly. He then tied his record with 14 tackles last week against Katella.

Whether he likes to hear it, Stewart paints an awfully pretty picture for Aztec coaches.

“He picks guys up and slams them,” Pendleton said. “They way he plays, he can wear anything he wants on his face.”