A Hollywood Spin on a Horror Script : O’Connor Directs Downtrodden Football Program Into Postseason

Bob O’Connor has authored a virtual library of college textbooks, but it is the latest chapter of his football coaching career that has many taking note.

Tonight, he will lead Hollywood High, a longtime laughingstock, into the City Section 3-A Division football playoffs in the team’s first postseason appearance since 1978.

The task of overhauling an unsuccessful high school football program usually falls to some 22-year-old right out of college with boundless enthusiasm and a dire need to build a resume.

So why would O’Connor, 62--who has written 22 books, coached in Europe and built his own three-story mountaintop dream house--take take on a $1,400-a-year project many would consider impossible?

“You’ve got to do it for love,” said O’Connor, in his third season with the Sheiks. “I gave up (coaching) ‘forever’ to build the house in 1964. Two years later, I was back. There’s a pull there.”

That pull has led him through four high school head-coaching positions, including one at Taft. Throw in a duffel-bag full of assistant positions and a stint as athletic director at Pierce College, and the last thing O’Connor needs is another line on his resume.

When O’Connor took over a woebegone Hollywood program during the first week of the 1992 season, he was greeted by seven players.

The team lost all its games that season, and did the same in 1993. The streak reached 19 games before the Sheiks won the second game this season.

They finished 5-5 and will meet Washington tonight at Banning High in the first round of the playoffs.

“We think we’ve got it turned around,” said O’Connor, who resides in Agoura Hills. “These guys are so surprised to be where they are right now.”

Especially considering from where they have come.

It’s been 15 years since the Sheiks last won a league championship and their only City title came in 1927, the same year Al Jolson’s “Jazz Singer” hit Hollywood theaters as the first talking motion picture.

From 1987 to 1989, Hollywood was winless, dropping 27 consecutive games. Add to that the recent 19-game skid and you’ve got a real Hollywood tear-jerker.

But O’Connor and his Hollywood team are now drawing rave reviews.

“There’s never been so much spirit with the team,” Hollywood Principal Jeanne E. Hon said. “We’ve received letters from people commending us on the team. They’re impressed with the sportsmanship and manner of the team. It’s been a long time since we’ve received one of those.”

The Sheiks may be seeded 12th in the 16-team 3-A playoffs, but don’t bet against O’Connor. He loves longshots.

In 1985, he attempted to lure a professional football franchise to Pierce as part of an effort to build a 70,000-seat stadium on campus.

He succeeded in recruiting the Steve Young-led L.A. Express of the United States Football League to play its final game of the ’85 season in Woodland Hills.

The game was a success, drawing an overflow crowd of 8,200 to Pierce’s 5,000-seat stadium. The Express, however, folded soon after.

Young went on to star in the National Football League, while O’Connor tackled other challenges.

His latest undertaking is a book co-authored with Seattle Seahawks Coach Tom Flores titled “Football: A Violent Chess Match,” the third published by the pair. The others are instructional books on coaching.

“I had an idea for a book and he had the name,” O’Connor said of his first contact with Flores. “I cold-called him and he said, ‘Let’s have a meeting.’ ”

O’Connor’s other writing ventures have included college textbooks on physical education and health.

“I haven’t written a word of that stuff since the season began, though,” he said.

Perhaps. But O’Connor, who teaches physical education at Hollywood, already has begun composing the next chapter in his coaching story.

In March, he will coach Norway’s national football team in the European Championships.

It will not be O’Connor’s first football foray overseas. He has coached at the club level in Europe, and as athletic director at Pierce, he arranged for the Brahmas to play an exhibition in Finland during the summer of 1985.

This time, however, when the season ends in Norway, O’Connor might stay.

“There’s still a small chance I may come back to Hollywood,” he said. “This has been a great experience.”