Artistic License

Travis Loidolt walked into his leadership class at Laguna Beach High a few Mondays ago, his first class of the day. Uh-oh. He was late.

So he went gingerly through the door and . . . everyone applauded.

That’s how things have changed at Laguna Beach, where a football team that has suddenly won a few games has won a few hearts, too.

“The whole class was so excited,” said Loidolt, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound tight end and linebacker. “It felt so good to know they cared and that we had so much support.

“It’s actually turned around.”

The Artists, formerly known as losers, have won their first three games. And there’s talk of (gulp) making the playoffs for the first time since 1987.

“If you have a bad volleyball team,” senior cross-country runner Mackenzie Brown said, “you don’t notice as much.”

But everyone notices a bad football team, and Laguna Beach is long overdue for a good one. Since 1969, it has had four winning seasons: 1977, ‘80, ’86 and ’87.

“Other athletes would say, ‘At least we win,’ ” Loidolt said. “The water polo team used to give us a lot of garbage.”

To be fair, the Artists’ victories haven’t come against world-beaters--La Quinta, Calvary Chapel and Capistrano Valley Christian--but a win is a win is a win, especially when there are three of them.

The central figure in this turnaround is Coach Dave Holland.

This is his fourth season at Laguna Beach, and before this year, his teams had only three victories . . . and one of those was a forfeit. The Artists were 0-9-1, 0-10 and 3-7 his first three seasons.

After a year out of coaching, Holland, 63, discovered that he really hated the free time, so he staked a claim in one of the county’s biggest reclamation projects.

In doing so, Holland went from the county’s second-smallest public school, Corona del Mar, to its smallest.

And where the Sea Kings took pride in the program Holland helped develop over a 26-year span, from 1967 to ’75 and 1983-93, Holland inherited a Laguna Beach program with a bad nickname and a worse football team.

Excluding last year’s forfeit (the Artists were awarded a victory after a 39-0 loss) in a 3-7 season, this year’s three on-field victories are the most since 1987, when Laguna Beach was 10-2 and made the playoffs for the last time.

At Corona del Mar, Holland compiled a 106-92-10 record over 20 seasons and won section titles in 1988 and ’89.

Despite being undermanned, he won more often than not. At Laguna Beach, he faced worse problems.

“There just wasn’t any confidence,” said Holland, who played guard at Whittier College in the 1950s for coaches George Allen and Don Coryell. “The toughness wasn’t a problem. The kids were tough enough and could make tackles, but it was the attitude that they could actually be competitive.

“They needed to believe they could win. And they finally did. They saw that they weren’t cursed. That’s not the way it has to be. They don’t have to lose.”

One way Holland did that was to separate the wheat from the chaff. He disciplined players. Prima donnas who thought they could skip practice and still play were dismissed. Starters were treated the same as third-stringers. “You could respect him,” Loidolt said. “A team like this can’t afford guys who aren’t dedicated.”

The roster numbers have remained about the same in Holland’s four years. When he arrived, there were 23 freshmen in the program and 35 others. Today, there are 25 freshmen and 30 others. But there’s a distinct difference.

“During the summer, it finally hit us that we’re a program, and we have some football players, not just people playing positions,” said quarterback Ryan Schissler. “The biggest reason we’re winning is Coach Holland. He didn’t expect anything that couldn’t be done.”

Holland’s first commandment? Eliminate the junior varsity and concentrate on a freshman program, then preach long and hard about making the weight room a second home.

Twelve of those original 23 freshmen are still in the program, and today they are bigger and stronger than those seniors he inherited. Eight starters are back on defense and nine are back on offense, including the entire line.

With some competent skill players like Schissler (60.9% passing, 330 yards) and running back Pat Chesley (358 yards, 7.3 per carry), and a transfer at fullback, Jack Arnold (five touchdowns), the Artists have offensive weapons.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Featured Game

OCEAN VIEW VS. LAGUNA BEACH

When: 7:30 tonight

Where: Laguna Beach HS

Records: Ocean View (3-0); Laguna Beach (3-0)

Rankings: Ocean View is 10th in Southern Section Division VI; Laguna Beach is unranked.

Noteworthy: Ocean View is averaging 43.7 points but faces a defense that’s allowing only 5.7. Quarterback Deshai Houston has 14 touchdown passes (eight to Luka Levu) in three games. A Laguna Beach victory will give the Artists more than they’ve had in the previous three seasons combined.