Bell-Jeff Goes Hunting for Title, Wall Decoration

We’ve got spirit, yes we do. We’ve got spirit, how about you?

The age-old cheer echoes through the Bell-Jeff High gymnasium, repeated over and over by the nearly 500 students who have gathered for a pep rally to support the girls’ basketball team.

The cheers are loud and the noise level is high, but Coach Jim Couch stands at one side of the gym, staring at an empty wall space between a Southern Section Division IV-A runner-up banner for the 1992-1993 girls’ basketball team and a Division IV-AA runner-up banner for the 1991 boys’ cross-country team.

These days, that empty space looks a little bigger to Couch, who has coached six different sports since arriving at Bell-Jeff in 1973. The size of the space grows proportionally to the empty feeling he has whenever he looks at it.

Yes, the Guards have spirit, but what they don’t have, and what Couch wants, is a section championship.

Bell-Jeff has won 33 championships in nine sports and in different leagues since the school opened in 1945, and all of the banners line the gym walls. The plaques and trophies are showcased in the foyer.

But no section championship in 52 years.

Couch and his team have a chance to change that today when the Guards face five-time defending champion Cerritos Valley Christian in the Southern Section Division IV-A final at 4:30 p.m. the Pyramid in Long Beach.

“I’ve stayed in coaching this long because I haven’t captured a championship,” Couch said. “In 1992, I was supposed to retire but I couldn’t because I wasn’t fulfilled. I’m not going to quit until I get that championship.”

Couch isn’t saying he will step down if the Guards win tonight, only hinting at the possibility.

“I don’t know if I would say I’m going to retire for sure,” he said. “But there would be more of a chance.”

B. . . . J. . . . H. . . . S. . . . Go! Fight! Win!

There was a noticeable emphasis on the last word of this cheer during Wednesday’s pep rally.

The team is going, and it certainly will fight. But if is doesn’t win, the players will consider it a failure.

“No one wants second place,” said Jaclyn Johnson, Bell-Jeff’s leading scorer. “We want to win it all. We have the opportunity and we’re looking to take advantage of that.”

There is an aura surrounding this Bell-Jeff team, an attitude that some might call cocky or arrogant but others might call confidence.

“The idea of succeeding is exciting here,” Principal Mary Ellen Rausch said. “It doesn’t happen here every year, but when it does, it’s exciting.”

The Guards (28-1) rolled through the season, frequently winning by 40 or 50 points without seemingly feeling sorry for their opponents.

But this is a team so focused on winning that nothing else is an issue. What is important to the Guards is how well they played, not the score or the opponent.

“We focus on what we do,” said guard Felicia Flores, the team’s only four-year varsity member. “We don’t like to judge teams and we’re not going to change anything no matter who the opponent.”

Nonleague victories over Alemany, Santa Ynez and Moorpark--teams that have reached the finals in their divisions, which are all higher than Bell-Jeff’s--prove that the Guards are for real. Their only loss was by two points to perennial power Crescenta Valley, which is playing in the Division I-A final.

But Couch and his players say that without a section championship, those victories were wasted effort.

“There’s only one thing we are thinking about and that’s winning,” Flores said. “Second place is the first loser. What would happen if we lose? I think I’ll cry.”

The hurt is almost visible in Couch’s eyes as he sits in a chair after the pep rally and his team is warming up for a practice.

“Every true coach works for a championship and that’s what I’d like to achieve,” he said.

“The pep rally, the second-place trophies--these are all peripheral things. I pride myself on doing things that other people don’t. The ultimate would be to put that title banner up there. I’d like to do that.”