Hart to Hart

Jim Bonds, Alemany High’s second-year football coach, knew just the place to hang out after another victory.

He drove to a Saugus pizza parlor last week, right into enemy turf, like a confident gunslinger blowing into some old, dusty saloon.

There he found the Herrington brothers--Mike, Rick and Dean--the football brain trust at mighty Hart, savoring their latest conquest.

In a flash, the verbal sparring began.

“We were joking around a lot,” said Mike Herrington, Hart’s coach. “[Bonds] was saying, ‘Don’t you run up the score on us,’ and we were saying, ‘Don’t you run up the score on us.’ ”

Neither side is likely to do that when top-seeded Hart (10-2) hosts upstart Alemany (9-3) in a Southern Section Division III semifinal tonight at 7:30 at College of the Canyons.

Good friends don’t humiliate each other, and Bonds and the Herringtons consider themselves more than buddies.

“This is going to be awkward,” Bonds said. “All those guys are like brothers to me. . . . It’s going to be tough seeing those guys across the field.”

Bonds and the Herringtons. Bonds and Hart. They’ve been linked seemingly for ages, their relationship growing stronger over the years.

It started when Bonds was the ball boy on his brother Tom’s sophomore team at Hart in 1981, a kid soaking in the atmosphere and hoping to someday play quarterback for the Indians.

At the time, Rick Herrington was Hart’s sophomore coach, Dean was the varsity quarterback and Mike was a varsity assistant. Bonds soon was under their tutelage.

“Dean taught me as much about being a quarterback as any coach,” Bonds said. “He taught me about the proper release, about the proper footwork. I was at such a young and impressionable age. He helped pave the way.”

In fine fashion.

Bonds, who at 29 hasn’t lost the boyish looks of his playing days despite adding a few pounds to his 6-foot frame, passed for more than 3,000 yards in each of his two varsity seasons. He led Hart to a 13-1 record and a section championship as a senior in 1986.

He went to UCLA and learned more from quarterback guru Rick Neuheisel, now Colorado’s coach, and started briefly for the Bruins as a junior in 1990 before giving way to Tommy Maddox.

After college, Bonds turned to teaching and coaching. He spent four years at St. Francis, running the offense under Coach Bill Redell and waiting for a chance to head his own program. It came last year.

Bonds took over an Alemany team that was 1-9 in 1996. He managed to squeeze one more victory from the Indians last season, finishing 2-8. The remarkable turnabout this season includes a Mission League championship, Alemany’s first league title since 1975.

All along, as Alemany battled its way through the season, Bonds started thinking about a possible playoff game against Hart. The matchup became reality in the quarterfinals last week when Hart crushed St. Francis, 51-12, and Alemany edged Lancaster, 14-7.

Bonds was on the sidelines at some Hart games, and the Herringtons did the same at some Alemany games.

“He’s been real excited,” Tricia Bonds, a Hart graduate, said of her husband. “The entire weekend he spent watching [game] film. He can’t shut down his mind.

“[The Herringtons] have a lot of things up their sleeve. They told Jimmy they’re going to suit up [record-setting quarterback Kyle] Boller in Jimmy’s retired [No. 7] jersey. It’s all in fun.”

And it’s all serious too.

Although emotionally and physically connected to Hart--he and Tricia live with their two children in Valencia, Bonds would love for Alemany to extend its winning streak to six games.

But neither Bonds nor the Herringtons relish the prospect of beating the other.

“To tell you the truth, I’d rather not play against him,” said Dean Herrington, Hart’s offensive coordinator. “It would be like me playing against Mike or Rick, because we’re so close.”

That doesn’t carry over to the golf course, where Bonds and Dean Herrington meet regularly.

“We’re pretty competitive,” Bonds said. “We don’t give each other anything. We used to give each other gimmes. Not anymore.”

Regardless of the outcome tonight, none of the men expect their friendship to suffer.

“It’s been a strange feeling all week,” Mike Herrington said. “I’m trying to take [the friendship] out of the picture and think it’s just our kids against his kids.

“After the game, everything will be the same. I don’t know if we’ll go and have pizza, but I suspect we’ll hook up down the line.”