Common Language Is Common : High schools: Some football coaches, often transgressors themselves, cite difficulty in enforcing profanity rule.

When Beetle Bailey says “%$--&+’$(*’()!!!” in the comic pages, profanity seems harmless or even amusing. But in a formal setting such as a public high school, salty language still raises eyebrows.

On high school athletic fields, however, you’ll often hear a “$%--(::” here and a “?!* 5/8%” there. Profanity isn’t encouraged, but it is often excused.

In this era of well-publicized political correctness, rough talk is as common on the high school football field as blocking and tackling. But should it be?

“I’ll be honest with you--it’s a very, very difficult rule overall to enforce,” Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson said. “We can do it individually. Sometimes even we as coaches lose a little self-control.”

For some, though, it’s a simple matter. Earlier this season, Hart Principal Laurence Strauss suspended a lower-level assistant football coach for one week because of profanity.

“There’s a lot of emotion,” Strauss said, “a lot of responsibility, and sometimes a great deal of stress and pressure, especially on coaches as well as athletes, and I understand that intensity and pressure can mount to a point that they need to express themselves in an emotional way.

“I understand and accept that. But I don’t believe that that expression should ever be in the form of any kind of verbal or physical misconduct.”

But opinion varies as to what degree profanity is harmful. Different scenarios--who said it, how it was said--allow for different responses.

When administrators are not around--at practice or on the 50-yard line--and no third party is there to complain, it’s up to coaches to police themselves. And as officers, they aren’t always such fine gentlemen.

Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman disapproves of profanity but is the first to say he operates from a house of glass.

“There’s no place in sports for it,” Engilman said. “Unfortunately, I’m one of the worst offenders. In the heat of the battle, it’s kind of tough. You forget what you’re doing.”

Dan Wyatt, a Sylmar assistant principal, said he has received two or three complaints from passers-by about the use of profanity at practices, in more than one sport. The coaches involved were admonished, but no disciplinary action was taken, said Wyatt, whose explanation reflects the confusion about enforcement.

“It wasn’t obscene,” Wyatt said. “It was what I would call swearing. . . . It wasn’t calling anybody an obscene name. It was general displeasure.”

Former Sylmar tailback Tobaise Brookins, now a defensive back at Washington, said Engilman’s use of profanity during Brookins’ years at the school did not offend him.

“It was just a part of the game,” Brookins said. “It’s always been a part of the game. . . . Profanity can be used to encourage and to put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence. So when Coach Engilman uses profanity, instead of saying, ‘C’mon guys, get going,’ he’d say, ‘C’mon guys, get your (butts) going.’ ”

Using profanity out of frustration does have a logical basis, according to Dr. Roderic Gorney, professor of psychiatry at UCLA.

“There is the common human impulse to do precisely what is forbidden, particularly when great hostile emotion hits us,” Gorney said. “We want to throw over the traces, violate the taboos. Profanity is one of those taboos.”

It’s no surprise, then, that some people believe profanity can be excused.

“I don’t think (profanity) is as big of a concern as other things that we have in the game of football,” Reseda Coach Joel Schaeffer said.

California Interscholastic Federation officials are less forgiving about the use of profanity.

“I think when we’re dealing with minors, this isn’t the U.S. Army and this isn’t an adult community on the university level,” said Thomas E. Byrnes, commissioner of the CIF. “These kids are 14, 15, 16 years of age and I think it’s inappropriate to use that type of language. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen--probably by accident, or somebody slips.”

However, CIF rules against profanity can be vague, sometimes humorously so.

The City Section code of ethics, for example, contains a passage that would make any bureaucrat proud: “Use discretion when providing constructive criticism and reprimanding players.”

Beyond those types of guidelines, the CIF defers responsibility for policing profanity to individual schools. Thus, there is no consistent policy from one school to another.

“It’s something that officials and school people should be saying, ‘Don’t do that,’ ” Southern Section administrator Bill Clark said.

Instead they are asking, “Don’t do what?”

For example, how much latitude should football coaches be allowed in the use of profanity? They are educators, but they are also involved in an emotional sport.

“I try to discourage it,” Buena Coach Rick Scott said. “I don’t like it. On the other hand, there’s times I use words that probably would disappoint some parents. . . .

“Sometimes in order to communicate with certain kids you have to be on their level. Sometimes to get their attention you have to say certain things.”

When is it legitimate and when isn’t it? Royal defensive back Rommel Butler said that his coaches curse on occasion. But would the same ever be tolerated of a classroom instructor?

“No, I would never hear it from a teacher,” Butler said.

Hart is one school that takes an aggressive stance against profanity. The suspension of the lower-level, walk-on assistant football coach came in response to an anonymous complaint from a parent.

“We investigate all complaints, even if they are anonymous,” said Bill Beauer, a Hart assistant principal. “(The suspended coach) didn’t quite admit to it and I talked to a good part of his staff and the kids anonymously. . . . He didn’t complain (about the suspension) and he’s back on our staff.”

Lawson notes that a walk-on coach might be more susceptible to letting a curse word slip than a full-time teacher.

“You have a guy, who knows what’s going on at their work?” Lawson said. “Profanity may be part of their (workplace), so therefore, when they come here, they have to switch it off.”

In 1992, Thousand Oaks offensive coordinator Paul Gomes, also a walk-on coach, was terminated during his 14th year at the school. Circumstances surrounding his dismissal are in dispute, but profanity was an issue.

Gomes said he was dismissed in response to an incident of verbal abuse, adding that “My situation goes much deeper than that one incident.”

Gomes doesn’t deny the incident took place, saying that he and the player reconciled. His larger complaint is that he was let go without a warning, much less any specific guidelines regarding the use of profanity.

“There was no policy or procedure followed at Thousand Oaks High School for any situation that arose,” Gomes said. “That’s where the problem came from.

“It’s pretty difficult when in society as a whole, especially when you’re dealing with high school-age kids, profanity is a quite frequent, normal way of expression out there.”

Thousand Oaks Principal Keith Wilson denied that Gomes’ firing had anything to do with profanity, although last year Wilson said Gomes was fired for “verbal abuse of a player.”

Wilson said that the school has taken an aggressive stance against profanity.

“Our instructions to our coaches are that profanity on the sidelines should not be tolerated,” Wilson said.

Profanity among high school students is not confined to the playing field. Many teachers and administrators long for fewer R-rated hallway conversations.

“You could say it’s not only the high school athletic teams,” Poly Coach Fred Cuccia said. “Profanity in high schools is just getting outrageous.”

Even if a football coach sets a spotless example, he may not have as much influence on students as in previous years. More than one coach cited cable programming and sideline microphones on sports telecasts as major culprits.

“I’m only with them a couple of hours a day,” Lawson said. “The influence of their friends has a lot more impact.”

Like coaches, many players will curse despite themselves when caught up in the game.

“It comes as you’re playing, because you really get mad,” Antelope Valley safety Chris Tapia said. “You don’t want to lose, because you play so hard, and it just comes out.”

During games, officials usually provide a warning when they hear profanity before resorting to a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.

“Usually, the warning takes care of it right there,” Ventura County football official Gary Cockerill said. “Most kids know it’s going to hurt the team.

“If you’re going to let guys go out there and use profanity, they’re going to think they can get away with anything, and pretty soon the whole game’s out of control and you’re going to have chaos out there.”

If one of his players is flagged for using undirected profanity, for example, Engilman, the Sylmar coach, views the incident more as brain lock than as an offensive act.

“We tell them, ‘Hey, that’s a stupid penalty,’ almost like a kid forgetting to put his mouthpiece in,” he said.

Like coaches, this is in direct contrast to what is tolerated from a student in the classroom, as Canyon Coach Harry Welch illustrates.

“I pulled a starting defensive lineman off the field when he was using inappropriate language in frustration (not directed at someone),” Welch said. “I said, ‘Just sit down until you control your mouth.’ And a few plays later he said, ‘Coach, I’m all right,’ and there wasn’t another problem.”

But what would happen if you took that same student-athlete and put him and his mouth in Welch’s English class?

“If someone were freely swearing in class, he would be subject to suspension from my class for several days,” Welch said.

Amid all these distinctions, there is one type of profanity that provokes the most universal condemnation, from school to school, in the classroom or on the field. That is verbal abuse--profanity that is directed at another person.

“In (football) there is a level of frustration, and under frustrating circumstances people do what they shouldn’t do sometimes,” Hart Coach Mike Herrington said. “One of them is to use profane language. (But) we definitely don’t abuse any kids or call them names.”

For some, verbal abuse is a satisfactory place in the spectrum of profanity to draw the line.

But that line can be fuzzy, too. How should one respond when a player swears at another player? When a player swears at a coach? When a coach swears at a player?

“Who decides where the line is to be drawn?” City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege asked. “If we decide that profanity is illegal in any athletic contest, there’s no need to determine where the line is to be drawn. (Anything short of that) is sending out a mixed message.”

If people universally decided that profanity were intolerable, could it be eliminated? As much as he tries to cut down on his own use of profanity, Engilman doesn’t think so.

“I think it’s almost an impossible situation,” he said. “Again, it’s the nature of the game. Here, you’re throwing your body around and guys are trying to beat you up and you’re trying to beat them up. . . . Tempers will run short.”

There are coaches who disagree.

“I’m just a firm believer that hey, it starts at the top and as a head coach if you nip it in the bud right away, it doesn’t happen,” said Coach Mike Plaisance of Village Christian, a private school in Sun Valley.

Plaisance recalls a drill his high school coach once ran.

“It was something I could never do here,” Plaisance said. “He took out a stopwatch and said, ‘OK, you guys can use any profanity you want for two minutes.’ After about 45 seconds, you kind of run out of words and you kind of realize how ridiculous you sound.”

Ridiculous as it may be, the issue of profanity defies easy resolution. The only ways to defuse it may be the rare times one can laugh at it.

“Invariably we will say our team prayer and somebody will say, ‘Amen,’ ” Scott said. “We always say the team prayer right before we go out the door. Then somebody will say, ‘Now let’s go kick their (butts). It’s kind of funny--this religious thing, this thing of doing reverence--it always makes me laugh.”