‘We Are Not Losers’

Just before halftime, with the score 41-0, the football players from Poly High in Sun Valley realized they were headed for another big loss.

Linebackers during last Friday’s game at Sylmar started arguing with defensive linemen. The quarterback hung his head.

“That’s when I get worried,” cornerback David Valencia said. “I wonder if things will ever get better.”

Poly is smaller and slower than most of its opponents. Drawing from a predominantly Latino campus, the team includes immigrants who are so new to football that the coaches assign them football games to watch on television every weekend.

And the losses keep piling up. Poly has not won in almost two years.

With scant hope of victory, players at Poly must find other reasons to love the game. They must find small victories for which to fight.

At John H. Francis Polytechnic, this battle is led by two new coaches who are attempting to counter the winning-is-the-only-thing ethos that pervades all levels of athletics today. They have challenged the team with some old-fashioned ideas about high school sports.

They are teaching their players that the final score is not the only way to judge success, that striving for a win can be as valuable as logging a win, that many of life’s most valuable lessons can be learned, not just in victory, but also in defeat.

The two coaches, Bobby Mesa, 40, who quit a profitable business to devote himself to teaching, and Lee Jackson, a 28-year-old health teacher, both played for Poly years ago, back when the team’s record was respectable. They know all about this neighborhood of older houses and salvage yards against the backdrop of the red-and-white smokestacks of a nearby power plant.

When they took over in May, it was too late to have the team lift weights, too late to persuade the transfers to stay. They concentrated on bolstering the attitudes of the players who were staying.

The coaches created a mandatory study hall for those in danger of failing classes. They demanded that players be attentive in class and earn good grades. On game days, they required the players to wear ties to school.

And at practice, they laid down the law. No more absences. No more talking back.

“The things we’re doing here are going to build backbone,” Mesa announced. “Things like showing up every day, just like you’ll have to show up for a job.”

No coach can teach size to a team. Half of Poly’s players are 5 feet 8 inches or shorter, and several weigh less than 150 pounds. The coaches hoped to compensate for this lack of size by emphasizing teamwork and just plain hard work.

They suspected that their players would respond to a traditional approach.

“These are the kids of working-class families,” Jackson said. “You don’t have to tell them they are great. Just give them a job and they’ll work.”

Some players bristled at the new order. They either quit or were dropped from the team. Some were seniors who had to be replaced by inexperienced juniors and sophomores.

Mesa and Jackson could see no other way. They needed a group of kids willing to toe the line, on and off the field.

Kids like Alex Marroquin, the Guatemala-born quarterback who lists as his career goal “Make my mom proud.”

Or Valencia, the defensive back whose deep voice and solemn demeanor belie his youth--he’s the youngest varsity player.

“We are not losers,” Valencia said. “We’re building something here.”

*

So far, Poly’s innovative approach has not translated into winning football. The Parrots have played about as ferociously as their nickname suggests, having lost their first five games by an average score of 50-7.

But for every high school powerhouse, for every team rolling toward a championship, there is a squad mired at the other end of the standings. And until the Parrots’ ability matches their attitude, the losses will continue.

Last Friday, the team suffered its worst defeat of the season, 68-0. As the score mounted, senior linebacker Ramon Ayala could only shake his head.

“It gets so frustrating,” Ayala said. “I don’t know what to do.”

Yet, the next morning, Ayala and most of the 49 other players dragged themselves out of bed and gathered in a dank, graffiti-marred locker room for a voluntary session to watch game film. It was proof they still had faith, in themselves and their coaches.

“We have our pride,” said running back Albert Diaz, who leads the offense. “People don’t see that we are working our butts off.”

Last season, Diaz’s mother wanted him to transfer to another school. She thought he deserved better.

When the 5-foot-8-inch back looked around Poly, he saw a modest campus of brick and blacktop in a neighborhood troubled by gangs. He saw some of the best players skipping practice and failing classes, others jumping ship, leaving for better programs at Sylmar, Dorsey and Crespi high schools.

There was no off-season training program and not much of a booster club. No one seemed to care.

But Diaz could not bring himself to leave.

“These are my friends,” he said. “This is my family.”

*

A longtime assistant, Mesa had not been promoted to head coach because he did not have a college degree. But then he gave up a gardening business and moved in with his parents so he could study at Cal State Northridge. Less than a year before graduation, he was hired as co-coach with Jackson. As co-coach, he now splits his time between the team and his final year of classes.

Stocky and loud, Mesa was born to the football field. He is in his element among clacking shoulder pads and cleats kicking up dust.

One moment, he flashes the ring he received as an assistant on Poly’s 1990 3-A Division championship team, telling his players, “We can do this again.” The next, he delights in subjecting perceived slackers to a punishment known as “Mesa Road.”

“They crab-crawl 120 yards, then do forward rolls all the way back,” he said. “When they roll back, it’s the dizzy thing.”

The team’s building process is painfully slow.

Some players miss practice because they must work after school. Others are simply not accustomed to football.

Leo Molina, a talented young fullback, sometimes appears less interested in learning his plays than in dabbing himself with scented oil.

“My dad gave this to me,” Molina said, holding up a vial of yellowish liquid. “He is a real smart and religious man. He says it’s good luck.”

Said Jackson, “Leo’s out there.”

The inexperience shows. Against Chatsworth last month, a starting cornerback began arguing with an official. Mesa sent in a second-stringer with instructions to “get that guy out of there.”

The reserve did exactly as he was told, grabbing the starter and pulling him to the bench. It never occurred to him that he was supposed to remain on the field.

Chatsworth ran a sweep to the unmanned corner and scored easily.

“We’ve got kids who don’t know the game,” Mesa said. “We don’t have enough time during the week to teach all this stuff.”

The coaches patiently explain to their players, frustrated by the string of defeats, that, come spring, the team will lift weights together. By next fall, everyone will be stronger and everyone will know the plays. This is no consolation to the seniors, such as Diaz and lineman Matt MacLearn, who try to offer advice to younger players. It does nothing for Ayala, who barks from his linebacker spot, urging his teammates on.

“I feel bad, because it’s my last year and we aren’t winning,” Ayala said. “But I have a lot of respect for the coaches, and I won’t give up on them.”

Jackson tells his seniors, “Whether you win games or not, you’re going to be part of something special. When you come back in two or three years, you can say that you were a mentor to the freshmen and sophomores who became city champions.”

Beyond earshot of the team, however, Mesa frets.

“Call it bad luck or whatever,” he said. “I’d do anything to steal a win for those kids.”

Poly may already be winning in ways that don’t show in the standings.

The players scored their first small victory the first day they wore ties to school.

“The other kids were watching,” recalled Tracy Boobar, a teacher. “Were they going to be supported or were they going to be ridiculed? You never know with kids.”

By the end of the day, other students were approaching players to wish them luck. The ties have become a symbol of pride, of the strides the team has made.

“Last year, all the players were quiet. They were embarrassed,” Valencia said. “This year we show that we’re confident.”

The coaches have tried to promote that attitude by dressing up the school’s aging football field. With donations from the community, they have put new lightbulbs in the scoreboard and painted the goal posts bright yellow.

But perhaps the biggest improvements can be seen in the classroom, where teachers see a new attitude. In Boobar’s English class, one player has raised his grade from a D to a B, and another recently asked for extra-credit work because he did not want to show up empty-handed for team study hall.

“The kids see that success is not just about football, it’s about being a successful person,” she said. “It gets back to what athletics should be about.”

*

At halftime of the Sylmar game, the visitors’ locker room was deathly quiet. There weren’t nearly enough benches, so most of the players slumped down on the floor with their backs against the bare walls. All the trash talk by Sylmar players and fans--all the people calling them losers--seemed all too accurate.

Mesa and Jackson had no rousing speeches, no words of inspiration. Instead, they went about the task of coaching, talking to linebackers about pass coverage, talking to linemen about blocking.

“You’ve got to give them something to look forward to,” Jackson said. “Can they make that block?”

The players gradually raised their heads to listen. A cautious chatter arose. Then lineman George Lomavita jumped up and bellowed.

“We’ve got to have some fun out there,” said the New Zealand native, his white jersey streaked with mud. “We’ve got to get dirty.”

The team came screaming out of the room.

Not that things went much better in the second half. Lomavita and his line were simply unable to block Sylmar’s linebackers. Ayala and Valencia could not wrap their arms around Sylmar running back Donald Carpenter, who ran for 160 yards and four touchdowns.

But the coaches were quick with a slap on the helmet and a “Keep working” for each kid who came off the field. In the final minutes, Hector Rodriguez, a 5-foot-6-inch defensive lineman, not only got into the game but helped make a tackle, bringing a raucous cheer from his teammates.

Afterward, as players stripped off pads and ankle tape on the sideline, there was talk of the game against Canoga Park tonight. With the toughest part of the schedule behind them, they dared think about winning.

“I bet we’ve got more heart than other teams,” Valencia said. “No matter how many games we lose, we’re still trying.”