Bare-Bones Football : Liberty Christian Has County’s Last Eight-Man Team

Midway through the third quarter with a 44-0 lead, Liberty Christian elects to punt to Los Angeles Pacific Christian and that sends six parents scurrying toward the end zone at quiet Hare School Park.

A broken post in a six-foot high wooden fence a few feet from the end line reveals a large, snarling dog, and Liberty Christian supporters are concerned that a strong kick means the school’s new football will disappear over the wall and be chewed to bits.

“Jump as high as you can to save the ball,” said Athletic Director Ray Clifton, standing in flowers between a pair of staked saplings.

But to everyone’s glee the punt falls short.

As small-time as it seems, the county’s only eight-man football program provides a refreshing blend of faith, family and football in a picnic-like atmosphere on autumn Saturday afternoons. Played on hand-lined park fields, without the trappings of traditional football stadiums, eight-man football nonetheless provides followers a sense of community that larger, mostly public institutions, only dream about.

“Liberty Christian is really a family school,” said student body vice president Tiffany Potter, a junior who leads the cheerleading squad, which has 14 members, one more than the football team suited up. “The students really have a relationship with teachers. We’re not just numbers. We go to dinner at their houses and have socials together.”

Founded in 1970, Liberty Christian, in North Huntington Beach, has 87 students in grades 9-12. Tuition is about $4,000 a year. Students are not required to belong to the Central Baptist Church, with which the school is affiliated, but most do. Dances are prohibited and drinking and smoking--on campus or off--or having sex, are grounds for being expelled.

The most popular varsity sports are boys’ basketball and girls’ volleyball, for which 31 students tried out.

“Kids don’t usually come to Liberty for football,” said assistant coach and trainer Todd Price, a 1990 Liberty Christian graduate. “The students’ commitment to sports is great and the level of support is great, but the focus of the school is the academic and spiritual life of the students.”

High-scoring six-man and eight-man football have been popular for decades in small towns and rural communities in outlying areas of the 494-member Southern Section. There are 38 schools, mostly private, in seven eight-man leagues, as well as five eight-man freelance teams in the Southern Section.

With former county rivals Heritage Christian, Capistrano Valley Christian and St. Margaret’s moving up to the 11-man game in the last few years, Liberty Christian plays in the Express League, which has six schools spread between Redlands and Santa Monica.

Generally, the rules for the eight-man game are the same as the 11-man version. But the playing field is 40 yards wide by 80 yards long, instead of 53 1/3 yards by 100, and usually has no goal posts. Most team members play on offense and defense.

Liberty Christian does not have space on campus for a football field, though it is in the middle of a fund-raising drive to build a $1.3-million gymnasium, Principal Clark Stephens said. So the football team is transported by van to a small green area behind the outfield fence of a city park that abuts the back door of a convenience store. Several tall oaks protect the open-air locker room, and players have to lug water jugs onto the field.

Using a couple of orange cones and a few tackling bags, first-year Coach Guy Wilson, who played eight-man football at defunct Newport Christian and Price, constructs a practice field of sorts. A few students played junior high flag football, but most admit they had never played a down of tackle football until they arrived at Liberty Christian. Most say they are having the times of their lives.

“I went to Marina for two years, but I didn’t like it there,” said Mike Hann, 16, a senior. “I wasn’t good enough to start on the freshman team, so I played a year of Junior All-American and then went out for the team here.”

That is the beauty of short-sided football, supporters agree.

“Basically, this kind of football is played to allow kids at small schools to take part in a school activity for the sake of participating,” Southern Section football administrator Bill Clark said. “It’s a different game, but you’d be surprised at the skill level of those kids.”

Liberty Christian players say they think they are in better shape than their counterparts on teams that are two or three players deep at each position. Clifton points out that three current starters on the football team at Chapman played at Liberty Christian.

“In eight-man you are always on the field,” said Chapman tight end Dave Vaccaro, who was a standout at Liberty Christian. “In regular football you get breaks like special teams. We never really had that in eight-man. I expected when I got to college that I would have problems adapting, but I found I was in better shape cardio-wise and endurance-wise.”

Vaccaro said he wouldn’t change his small-school experience, although he felt he could have played 11-man at a larger high school.

“You don’t have big crowds and you know everybody in the stands personally,” he said. “It’s not just anyone coming out to see the game. They know you.”

That appeared to be the case in the recent 50-0 victory over Pacific Christian, one of two Liberty Christian victories to go with two losses this season. The game ended with 4 minutes 51 seconds left in the fourth quarter because of the Southern Section mercy rule.

Stephens, the school principal, walked the sideline with a long cable attached to a gasoline-powered scoreboard, which he operated. It was anchored to a table at the west end of the field not far from where several young boys played catch with their fathers. Dozens of parents and family members pitched lawn chairs or blankets under colorful umbrellas to avoid the sunshine. Some sat on benches under one of several large avocado trees, or watched from inside minivans or cars at the edge of the parking lot just a couple of yards from the field.

Clifton’s wife, Bonnie, went around the park asking spectators, who are not required to pay, for the $3.50 admission fee.

“Everybody is good about paying,” she said. “We’re all parents and we don’t mind supporting the school.”

Chas Trowbridge, a junior running back, took up a spot under the shade of an umbrella belonging to his grandparents, John and Beatrice Trowbridge, during the second quarter. Later, Wilson’s halftime chat--and that’s what it was--took place under the blazing sun near a sign on a chain-link fence that warns that parking is for library patrons only.

Sporting a button bearing the school’s name on a floral-print blouse, Liberty Christian’s secretary, Clarice Burkholder, 64, walked the sideline. Warmly referred to as “The Boss” by spectators, she is known to arrive at school on Mondays hoarse after cheering for the Minutemen. Burkholder has been a part of the school for 21 years. Two of her three sons attended the school and one, Steve, was a Liberty Christian football coach in the mid-1980s.

“I think football is a great kickoff for the school year,” she said. “When we can get off to a decent start, it gets the school spirit going and everyone seems to pull together as a unit. In a small school you can really see it. We’re a family.”

Back on the field, Clifton doesn’t want the game to become too much of a rout. Wilson shuttles players into positions they seldom play to keep the score down. When Liberty Christian scores after recovering a fumble deep in Pacific Christian territory, Clifton walks the mid-field stripe to the opponents’ side of the field and apologizes for the blowout.

There are timeouts to allow water breaks for referees, little criticism from spectators and when Pacific Christian’s only serious scoring threat ends just shy of the goal line on a running play on fourth down, there are groans from both sidelines.

The game ends with both teams sharing a prayer together not far from the broken fence where the snarling dog has fallen asleep.