Despite 0-7 Start, Centurions Never Lost Hope

You’re a high school football player. You and your teammates just suffered a 62-2 loss. As you walk off the field, all you can think is . . .

A. I want my MTV.

B. I’m burning my uniform and going to Fiji.

C. Wow! We sure played great in the first quarter.

If you think that last choice sounds far-fetched, you don’t know the Cypress High football team. The Centurions are as optimistic as a New Year’s Eve toast. They’re blind to all but the bright side. If “Up With People” played football, they’d be Cypress ’93.

Now no team enjoys losing its first seven games, or being outscored, 241-37. But until two weeks ago, this was Cypress’ reality. The Centurions were 0-7, 0-2 in the Empire League, oh-for-everything with their fans. As seasons go, it seemed a lost cause and nothing less.

That’s where it gets weird. See, even though they lost to Los Alamitos by 60 points, even though they were shut out by Magnolia, 26-0, even though their classmates sneered and opponents jeered, the Centurions managed to believe. They focused not on failure but having faith--faith in themselves, their coaches and most of all their motto: Good things happen when you don’t give up.

Now don’t get too excited. This isn’t another Rudy-type turnaround. But in the last two weeks, Cypress managed two fairly impressive feats. First, the Centurions beat Loara, 35-34, scoring nearly as many points in one game as they had all season. The next week they tied Katella, 34-34.

Go ahead and yawn, ye spoiled fans of Los Al, Mater Dei, et al. For some football programs, a victory is something to celebrate. Especially when it puts you in contention for a playoff berth--your first in 13 years. That’s where Cypress (1-7-1, 1-2-1) finds itself entering tonight’s game against El Dorado (4-5, 2-2).

A victory would provide welcome relief in more ways than one for Cypress. The players have had three head coaches in the last 12 months: Longtime Coach John Selbe resigned to become the school’s athletic director. Lance Neal was hired as coach then resigned two weeks later. Jack Jensen, a former assistant, settled in as head coach, but by then, some of the players decided it was no longer worth it.

“People said, ‘Oh, this is Cypress. I don’t want to play for a losing team,’ ” quarterback David Wheeler says. “I said, ‘Well how do you expect us to get better if you don’t even play?’ ”

But for those who stuck it out, Jensen’s rallying cry this week--” Thirteen years, guys! Thirteen years! “--sounds all the more sweet. Thirteen years since Cypress made the playoffs. Thirteen years since Centurion fans lined up for tickets to post-season play. One victory tonight, and happy days are back. At least for a week.

Selbe, now an assistant as well as the A.D., was in his first year at the school when the Centurions last qualified for the playoffs. It was 1980. Punk rock was big. Most of the current Centurions were 3 or 4. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” Selbe says.

Jensen was on that team. So were current assistants Ray Fenton and John Lombardi. Cypress lost in the first round to Lynwood. Still, Centurion fans figured it was the start of something big.

It wasn’t. But now, who knows? Cypress has a glimmer of hope and the Centurions are psyched.

“There’s a big change at school,” running back Greg Cleave says. “When we were only 0-7 we were nothing. Then all of a sudden we’re 1-7-1 and have a chance for the playoffs. People are excited again.”

Being 1-7-1 might make some players run for cover, but the Centurions think differently. It’s like with that loss to Los Al. How many teams wouldn’t cringe at a 60-point loss? It was ugly. Painful. Embarrassing. Right?

“It was a high point for us,” Wheeler says.

Now before Los Al players tack that on the bulletin board, know that Wheeler is merely referring to the first quarter. The first quarter, as in: Cypress 2, Los Alamitos 0.

“We totally shut them down on defense,” Wheeler says, relishing the memory. “Their quarterback couldn’t get a pass off. That’s a high point.”

OK, so Los Al later reeled off 60 points. Cypress isn’t ashamed. In Centurion eyes, no loss is a total loss, especially when it’s against the county’s top team. You find positives in a negative, no matter what.

You pick up victories where you can, even in defeat.

Barbie Ludovise’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Ludovise by writing her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, 92626, by calling (714) 966-5847 or by fax at 966-5663.