Coach Warms to Challenge of Football

It’s so warm on the practice field, even at 5:30 p.m., that the grass seems to glow, as with a fever. The wind that blows through the Granada Hills High varsity football field is a mockery; it’s about as cooling as the exhaust from a clothes dryer.

Coach Darryl Stroh, clipboard in hand, watches with an assessing eye as the 48 boys and one girl of the varsity strain through their stretching exercises and jog a half lap around the field.

In accordance with the division of labor devised by Stroh and Tom Harp, who shares head-coaching duties, the linemen lumber off for an arduous meditation in the weight room. The backs and receivers, meanwhile, commence high-stepping and swiveling, sprinting and belly-flopping through short-distance speed drills, lashed by Harp’s exhortations.

“Set . . . GO!” Harp yells, and the first player in each of half a dozen lines bursts from a standstill. “Set . . . GO!” and the second is in flight.

“Now, crab out and roll,” he yells, “and when I say ‘roll,’ I mean tuck those helmets under!” The first rank crab-crawls forth, then somersaults, then regains feet and sprints to the finish.

“How many times can you screw up one drill, Padilla?” Harp calls. The offending player hangs his head ever so slightly.

A lot of heads are hanging a little lower than usual on this late afternoon earlier this week. This is the first day on which the rules of the California Interscholastic Federation’s Los Angeles City Section permit players to wear helmets.

During a passing drill, receiver after receiver muffs dead-on throws from the quarterbacks. “A little different view with a helmet, huh?” Harp offers. He has the quarterbacks loop high passes over the shoulders of the downfield-sprinting receivers, to get them used to looking up and spotting the ball from beneath the cumbersome headgear.

“Oh-for-seven. . .oh-for-eight . . . oh-for-nine,” the coach counts aloud, as the incompletions proliferate.

Across California, an estimated 93,000 high-schoolers like those at Granada Hills currently labor in triple-digit temperatures and under the implacable demands of their football coaches. Their training is precisely regulated by the local sections of the California Interscholastic Federation. The L.A. City Section, for example, mandates that all of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 49 high schools and estimated 5,000 football players will don helmets for the first time on the same day.

August football practice used to be even more taxing. Typically, high schools maintained the hellish tradition of twice-daily practices. In 1996, the City Section abolished the so-called “two-a-days,” and permitted August practice to begin earlier in the month so no practice time was lost. In addition, busing of players from distant parts of the city was extended so coaches had the option of setting workouts for relatively cooler times of day.

At Granada Hills High, as elsewhere, preparation for this football season actually began in January with a daily conditioning class. In April, the so-called “skill” players--quarterbacks, backs and receivers--began participating in weekend, non-contact, seven-on-seven passing tournaments against teams from other schools; those lasted right through summer. The linemen, meanwhile, continued to rendezvous daily with heavy iron in the weight room.

But, whatever elegance has been developed, and whatever muscle density has been achieved, the real day of reckoning is Monday.

That’s when City Section rules permit players to don “full pads” and begin actually hitting one another. That’s when the game is reconnected to its essence and when the quality of the players comes irrefutably into focus.

“We’ve done all we can do with the skills part of the game,” Stroh says. “What’s left now is the running game and the contact, to see who’ll be able to stand up under contact, because it’s a different game then. We don’t even know if we have a guy who can take a hit with the ball.

“Some kids will surprise us and some will let us down. You get a big, strong kid who looked like he was going to be good--and it turns out he doesn’t like contact and sometimes didn’t even realize it himself. And sometimes you find a little runt who looked like he couldn’t play--and he beats the heck out of everybody.”

At 59, Stroh is something of an expert on the unpredictable, eminently distractible teenage athlete. He was one, after all, in El Centro at the end of the 1950s, when August practice included no water breaks and especially brutal and sometimes misguided physical drills, all in the service of developing general toughness.

Stroh has taught and coached at Granada Hills since 1963. He was a member of the staff when John Elway, the superstar quarterback of the NFL Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, wore a Granada Hills uniform. For nine seasons, he was head football coach.

Then, four years ago, he sensed that his enthusiasm had ebbed, leaving only a keen awareness of the stress and long hours and frustrations. He left football coaching, intending never to return.

His resolve lasted through three seasons, during which Granada Hills won three of 30 games. Having returned, he’s found, somewhat to his surprise, that the old enjoyment has been restored.

Walking the overheated practice field, Stroh sees not wiltedness, but freshness, hope. It’s the old feeling, and it flows in every football coach on every practice field in California right now as the days tick toward the first game of the season (for Granada Hills, Sept. 11, at North Hollywood).

“It’s almost like opening a gift,” Stroh says. “You don’t know what’s inside, and you’re looking forward to finding out what it is. You’ve got to open it up and see. It’s exciting. And as long as you stay undefeated, like you are right now, everything is wonderful.”