1994 LOS ANGELES TIMES : All-Valley Baseball Team : Coach of the Year : A Class Act Takes a Curtain Call : Mike Maio: During trying times, he offered a steady guiding hand.

Baseball season is over, but life on the road continues for El Camino Real High Coach Mike Maio.

Maio and his wife are living with their son in his Moorpark home after being forced from their damaged residence in Thousand Oaks by the Northridge earthquake two months before the season’s first pitch. The displacement shook up Maio’s coaching preparation considerably, to say nothing of his life.

But finally, nearly six months, $100,000 worth of repairs and a City Section 4-A Division championship later, Maio is counting the days until he moves back into the house in which he has lived for the past 20 years.

“It’s been an inconvenience,” Maio said. “You lose stuff. And you have to pack stuff away and then you forget where you put it. But I think after you get over the initial shock, you realize that it’s no reason to feel bad and use it as an excuse to do poorly. You just kind of adjust. You just do it.”

Under Maio’s guidance, El Camino Real, despite earthquakes and emotional turmoil, accomplished what no team has done in 15 years--win consecutive City titles. Earlier this month, the Conquistadores defeated West Valley League rival Chatsworth, 7-6, in nine innings at Dodger Stadium.

Maio also repeated. For the second year in a row, he is The Times’ Valley coach of the year.

Much of the 1994 spotlight shone on senior left-hander Randy Wolf, who pitched a complete game at Dodger Stadium and was voted City 4-A player of the year for the second consecutive season.

In March, Wolf’s father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 56, prompting an outpouring of sympathy and a decision by players to don a black arm patch bearing James Wolf’s initials.

Throughout the season, Maio, 54, ever humble and among the most likable of area coaches, steered the team along a steady course consistent with his stick-to-business style.

“He’s an extremely classy guy,” Wolf said. “He had a real feeling for what I was going through, but he doesn’t want to bring down the atmosphere by talking about bad things. He’s tried to teach us to be thankful.”

The coach’s personal tribulation was never a topic of team discussion. “He never brought that out to the field,” first baseman Craig Carlton said. “He might have looked a little fatigued, but you would never hear him complaining.”

Earthquake insurance lessened the financial blow for Maio. Yet the shake-up wreaked havoc on his coaching plans.

Detailed scouting reports of opponents, carefully prepared and relied heavily upon by Maio in his 12 years as El Camino Real coach, were lost in the move, hastily packed away among piles of paperwork. Some might be gone for good.

Not that Maio found much time to search. In recent months, he has been busy coordinating home repairs.

Still, he kept the team focused and intense.

“Last year, it was like we were the team to beat,” Carlton said. “But this year, he had to spend all his time trying to get everybody up. That’s why it was kind of sweet to win this one for him. It probably meant more than last year.”

Probably not, Maio said. Comparing one City title to another, Maio said, “is like asking if you love your father or your mother better.” Both titles are special, he said, only this season’s rise to the top was more difficult.

“I might have had an easier time if I hadn’t pushed so hard,” Maio said. “At times, I caught myself getting a little too uptight.”

That’s OK. Rounding third, Maio soon will be safe at home. Maybe then he can relax.

1st-Team All-Stars Invited to Times’ Awards Ceremony

Players selected to the All-Valley and All-Ventura County baseball and softball teams are invited to a Times’ awards brunch Sunday at 9 a.m. at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The guest speaker is Rich Hill, baseball coach at University of San Francisco who formerly coached at Cal Lutheran.