Pure Vanilla : Rooney Has Notre Dame in Final While Eschewing Spotlight

This is Kevin Rooney’s moment in the sun. So why can’t he soak up the spotlight and enjoy it?

Come on, Kevin. Shed the shyness routine and string together a few sentences for us to digest. There’s plenty to talk about this week--a Southern Section football championship game, 15 years as coach of Notre Dame High, a job well done this season.

Notre Dame (12-1) will play Ayala (12-1) tonight at Pierce College for the Division III title. Never in its 47-year history has Notre Dame, a Catholic school with a strong athletic tradition, played for a football section championship.

Rooney, who also is the school’s athletic director, is as aware as anyone of the significance of this game.

But on the eve of the biggest game in school history, Rooney--wide open on the playing field in his pass-catching prime at Santa Clara University--characteristically is making like a clam in his office, fidgeting his way through an early-morning interview, visibly and admittedly uncomfortable.

“I don’t know why I’m that way, I just am,” Rooney, almost apologetically, says. “I’m just . . . bashful, I guess. I never knew how to deal with the media very well.

“I think it’s great that newspapers cover high school football as much as they do. But for me, personally, I don’t care if there is anything ever written about me.”

Frustrated sportswriters might concur. Comments from Rooney routinely are cautious and usually as bland as they are brief. “Our guys played well,” or “This is a big win,” is about as catchy as it comes with this Notre Dame coach.

“He laughs sometimes because he says reporters always tell him he’s dull,” says Maureen Rooney, Kevin’s college sweetheart and wife of 14 years. “But he’s just uncomfortable being the center of attention. I said, ‘Gosh, Kevin. It’s really great what you’ve done.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s the kids who have brought us there.’ ”

And so it goes for Rooney, 44, who prefers to discuss the contributions of others--even if it means filling reporters’ notebooks one tight-lipped, hand-wringing, pause-fractured, dry-as-dust utterance at a time.

A clam? You bet. But just as happy as one.

Coaching, Rooney says, is his favorite recreation. And a trip to the final means another joyous, workaholic week spent scrutinizing game film every spare minute and huddling with his tight circle of assistants until wee hours.

“What I’ve learned is that you can win if you prepare well and you execute well,” Rooney said. “I think this team is, probably, not as talented as last year’s team. But our kids are sold on the fact that if they prepare hard enough and they play hard enough, they can win.”

Rooney leaves his Palmdale home at 5 each morning in order to get in a 90-minute workout at school before classes begin. He returns late in the evening, preferably before his three young daughters are put to bed.

But the Spartan life is the good life for Rooney, who doesn’t swear, rarely drinks, ceaselessly exercises and leads his team in the Lord’s Prayer before games, during halftime and moments after the final gun.

Recognition be, er, darned.

“You look at some programs and you see recruiting violations and illegal players, and they’re almost commonplace,” said Jeff Kraemer, a Rooney assistant since 1980. “But those things will never happen at Notre Dame. Kevin just won’t allow them to.”

“The guy has a lot of class,” quarterback Ryan Bowne said. “And he’s a great coach. You look at our team and there are no big guys there. But the big thing he keeps telling us is that we can win if we work harder than the other team.”

The Knights, with only three starters returning from last season, are far from overflowing with talent. The team’s top college prospect is kicker Chris Sailer, who has booted a state-record 20 field goals.

Yet Notre Dame hammered Mission League rival Chaminade, 41-8, and twice defeated both Royal and Serra on its way to the final. A swarming defense yields an average of 10 points and 209 yards a game. A ball-control offense keeps the chains moving and the clock ticking.

“We sit and talk after the games and we all scratch our heads as to how we’re doing it,” Kraemer said. “But the success of our program is due to Kevin Rooney.”

Assistants have been few and fiercely loyal during Rooney’s reign. Aside from Kraemer, who coaches the offensive line, Rooney, recruited defensive coordinator Joe McNab out of Santa Clara in 1981. Assistant Bob Hamm played for Rooney at St. Francis High in Mountain View, where Rooney was a varsity assistant from 1973-79. Jerry Slimak, a former St. Genevieve assistant, joined the staff three years ago.

Rooney himself was recruited by Father John Bitterman, a former principal at Notre Dame who was dean of students at St. Francis. “I think it’s important to surround yourself with people you trust and believe in,” Rooney said. “One reason we have such success is because we have a talented coaching staff that’s been here a long time and they all believe in the things we’re doing.”

For his part Rooney, his teams mired in mediocrity for much of his tenure, appears to be hitting his stride. The Knights, two-time defending league champions, are 22-4 over the past two seasons and have advanced to the section semifinals three times since 1989, including each of the past two years. Notre Dame has won four league titles in the past seven years.

“His teams are always well-prepared,” said St. Francis Coach Bill Redell, who squared off against Rooney four times as coach at Crespi during the 1980s, as well as in each of the past two years.

“We beat him when I was at Crespi, but, quite honestly, our talent was better than his. But even when we won, his teams played with great character and class.”

Still, Rooney, whose career record is 90-69-4, has never been voted coach of the year by any league or publication. “I don’t really care about those things,” he said.

What he does care about is humility and character. In line with his own beliefs, players are counseled to be humble and are encouraged to credit teammates when talking with reporters.

A prohibition on profanity is another longtime edict that stems from the top. In 1983, players presented Rooney with a plaque with the inscription, “God Bless America!”, the coach’s favorite interjection when angry.

“I always made sure to make numerous references to the offensive line,” said Errol Small, who rushed for 1,567 yards and 21 touchdowns for Notre Dame in 1989 and is now a linebacker for USC. “And I know I used to swear all the time and he used to tell me to cool it. I’d let my emotions get the best of me, but he would never lose his cool.”

Attention to detail is what Small remembers most about playing for Rooney. “Little things,” he said. “Fundamentals. Blocking, tackling. Simple things that other coaches take for granted.”

The second of six children of a prominent Bay Area forensic pathologist, Rooney transferred from American River College in Sacramento to his father’s alma mater and immediately became one of Santa Clara’s top receivers.

As a sophomore, he hauled in 39 passes from quarterback Dan Pastorini, who went on to star for the NFL’s Houston Oilers and Oakland Raiders. His junior and senior years, Rooney caught 40 and 52 passes to lead the team. With 131 catches, he ranks fourth on the school’s career list.

He also played rugby, a sport he continued to play on a club basis until suffering a rotator cuff injury that required surgery in 1989. Rooney coached that season with his arm in a sling.

At 6 feet 2 and a trim 180 pounds, Rooney is 10 pounds lighter than his playing weight. When he’s not working out, he’s shooting baskets in the school gym or embarking on ski trips with his family and members of his coaching staff.

“He can’t stand it if he doesn’t get some kind of exercise each day,” Maureen said. “He’s not a guy who ever wants to sit around the house.”

As a player, Rooney was worth writing about, and newspapers featured him in several articles--whether he liked it or not. Usually, he didn’t.

“I was never very happy how they came out,” Rooney said. “I don’t know why. It was just friends giving me a hard time about things I said and that kind of stuff.”

Rooney doesn’t dislike the media, but he admits being miffed at times by what he considers over-aggressive or careless reporters.

Several years ago, he was angered when a story about the firing of a campus coach was published before he could notify the coach. On another occasion, he says he was misquoted and his remarks angered administrators at Crespi.

And he has answered more questions than he cares to about his relationship with Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson, a former assistant whose contract was not renewed after he served one year under Rooney in 1980.

Lawson has declined to discuss the matter, saying only that it was “a personality conflict.” For the record, Rooney, who likewise has said little about the matter, said he simply wanted to assemble a staff of his own assistants. “It wasn’t anything he did, necessarily,” Rooney said.

“Rich Lawson is a good football coach and he’s done a great job at Chaminade.”

And as for himself?

“I think the measure of whether you’re doing well or not is the attitude of the players and whether they’re still playing hard at the end of the season,” Rooney said. “The bottom line is, we play as hard as we can.”

Oh, come on, Kevin. Enough already. Go ahead and say it.

“I guess I just don’t feel . . . comfortable talking about me.”

God Bless America! The guy is a good coach.