Big Men on Campus

For college football fans, it’s one of the most intriguing times of the year.

Preseason practice in late summer.

The anticipation has started building for a new season. For now, no game-deciding passes have been dropped in the end zone. No fumbles have slipped away on the one-yard line. And--as far as the most optimistic fan is concerned-- a championship might be only a few dramatic touchdown runs away.

“This is just great,” said Joe Essy as he watched his beloved USC Trojans in one of their two-a-day workouts at UC Irvine this past week. “There are a thousand things I could be doing right now, but this is where I want to be.”

Essy is among a legion of Trojan fans in Orange County, and he has been enjoying the team working out only a few miles from his home in Laguna Beach.

This is the Trojans’ 11th year training at UCI. The first year was 1984, when they were displaced from their campus facilities by the Los Angeles Olympics. The practice was discontinued from 1994-97 under Coach John Robinson, but Paul Hackett brought the team back to UCI last year in his first season as coach, and the Trojans have returned this year.

They will continue workouts at UCI through Friday, though the team is scheduled to practice in Los Angeles on Tuesday. This afternoon’s workout is closed to the public.

“I really like the camp concept,” Hackett said. “It gives us the opportunity to build some team unity. And the weather has been spectacular. You still have the heat, but there always seems to be a breeze, and it saves you.”

The Trojans have three lined practice fields in the open area near Crawford Hall and the Bren Center, and there is a constant whirl of activity.

“Irvine has made it great for us,” Hackett said. “We use their dormitory, cafeteria and meeting rooms, and we even have their swimming pool for conditioning. Moving our weight room here is something of a project, and a lot of the administrative parts of the program are still back on campus, but we think doing this is worth it.”

For Essy, it’s a time to get ready for the new season, as it is for the players.

“By the first game, I’ll know every player’s number and his first name,” Essy said. “There are a lot of new numbers to learn each year and about 10 players have changed their numbers since last year. I don’t ever use a program in the Coliseum. I don’t need one.”

Essy, of course, is one of the die-hards.

He wears a cardinal Trojan hat with “JOE SC” on the back. “The ‘SC,’ that’s the way my last name is pronounced,” he said, smiling. “Trojan football is my passion. These guys can do things for me that I can’t. I’ve been following them since 1965. I hitchhiked all the way to Arkansas for the season opener in 1972.

“If the team was practicing on campus, I’d probably be up there at least a couple of days a week, but when they practice here in Irvine, I can come just about every day. And now I’ve retired, so I can do it more often.”

Essy knows most USC fans can’t visit practice, and he said he occasionally will post a report on one of the Internet sites to help keep fellow fans informed.

“But I’m careful to not post anything that would help the opposition,” he said. “I don’t post any plays or anything like that. There’s one guy who posts negative stuff all the time, so I just don’t read what he posts anymore.”

Not all the fans who stop by Crawford Field are as faithful or have as much free time as Essy.

Some, dressed in business clothes, stop in for only a short time on their way home from work. For others, practice is an escape for a small part of the day, maybe during an early lunch break. A few high school players and coaches are also among the spectators.

Jeff Zakaryan of Dana Point, who has his own business coaching executives, stopped by practice one afternoon this week. He’s a longtime Trojan fan, and he says he also can pick up a tip or two for his work by watching Hackett and his assistants.

“Most fans don’t have any idea of all the work and detail that goes into all this,” Zakaryan said. “By coming out here for a practice, I think I have a greater appreciation of that when the team runs through the [Coliseum] tunnel. If you watch the workouts, you know how complicated a game football really is.

“It’s like running a business, with a lot of additional pressures. I coach executives on leadership and communication skills, and I like to see how the coaches handle different things. You just have to do things with a little more finesse in business. One of the things I see here, though, is that Hackett has brought a sense of discipline to this team, and you can see that in the practices.”

Barry Sher, an assistant coach at Los Alamitos High, makes regular training camp visits.

“I go to five or six practices at different schools, and I usually pick up something I can use every summer,” Sher said. “It might be something different I see a team doing on one of the same drills we use.

“Several years ago, I noticed how UCLA had a clock running on its workout drills that everyone could see. I liked that, and we adopted it. Another time I saw a piece of workout equipment a college team was using, and we bought two of them for our team.”

Bill Catton of Long Beach didn’t let an afternoon of caring for his 4-month-old son keep him from attending a Trojan practice. He brought the baby along, feeding bottle and all.

But it wasn’t because he’s an avid USC fan.

“Actually, I’m a huge Notre Dame fan,” Catton said with a laugh. “But, really, I just love college football.”