PREP FOOTBALL ’95 : SOUTH COAST LEAGUE : Hunger to Teach Kids Keeps Brown in Game : Football: Capistrano Valley coach knew he belonged once a visitor showed him the way.

Dave Brown was at a crossroad 19 years ago, and he was hungry.

That day put him on a path that led him to Capistrano Valley High, where he is now the head football coach.

Brown stopped for a bite to eat at a restaurant after his shift at a meat packing company in 1976. His professional football career, such as it was, had come to an end the year before when the World Football League folded.

While he ate, Brown mulled over his next move. At that moment, he was approached by a young man.

“He shook my hand and said, ‘You’re Coach Brown. You taught me a lot about life,’ ” Brown said. “I had spent a year as an assistant coach at Glendale College three years earlier and he had been one of my players.

“I went home and told my wife and she said, ‘You really should be a coach. That’s your calling.’ ”

Brown answered it.

He has spent 15 years coaching, working as an assistant and head coach in Oregon, before settling in Orange County in 1989. Once again, he was in the right place at the right time.

Brown received an unexpected opportunity in January when Eric Patton resigned as Capistrano Valley’s coach to become an assistant at Saddleback College.

“At one time, being a head coach was real important to me,” Brown said. “I learned that a lot of times you’re the head gofer. There’s a lot of things with the job that take away from coaching kids. But I decided it was something I wanted to try.”

Brown’s life, it seems, had been leading to this moment.

He had been a starting center at USC and was a member of the Trojans’ 1972 national championship team. As with most players, he dreamed about a professional career, but also had the idea of coaching, preferably on the college level.

The first plan worked out, sort of. Brown spent two years with the Portland Storm, then the WFL folded during the 1975 season.

Linemen in the NFL had grown beyond Brown’s 6-foot, 245-pound frame. So he went to work lugging beef while deciding his next move.

“I was out of the limelight for the first time,” Brown said. “It’s a problem many players have because they haven’t planned for the future. I needed to plan mine.”

All it took was a nudge from a former player.

“That night, I decided to dedicate my life to trying to make a difference with young kids,” Brown said.

He returned to Oregon and got a master’s degree in public administration from Lewis & Clark College and spent the next 12 years coaching in the state.

Brown was looking to return to Southern California when he called Patton in 1988.

The two had crossed paths for years.

Brown was an All-Los Angeles City lineman at Eagle Rock High in 1968. Patton, who played at Mater Dei, was an All-Southern Section selection the same year.

Patton played at Notre Dame, while Brown was at USC. Both also played in the WFL.

“We seemed to always be playing against each other,” Patton said. “He was a guy I always respected, but we never really got to know each other.”

Patton had no openings at Capistrano Valley but referred Brown to San Clemente, where former Cougar assistant Dave Elecceri was the head coach.

“Dave [Elecceri] was really high on him,” Patton said. “Dave kept telling me what a great assistant he was and how well he worked with the kids. When I got a chance to hire him, I did.”

Brown was the team’s defensive coordinator the past two seasons. Patton was impressed with Brown’s work ethic from the start.

“He would be looking at game films on Sunday nights until 10 p.m.,” Patton said. “He’d be by himself, charting every play. There were times I would say, ‘Dave, go home.’ He works that hard.”

Brown is so focused that he was the object of the players’ respect. “Yeah, I can get hard core with kids sometimes,” Brown said. “But I try to treat them like they were my own children. It’s important to be fair. I remember their names and let them know they are an important person.”