DOUBLE AGENTS

Free at last from Orange County gridlock and American Government lessons, Zaverio Brenner would hit the school parking lot at Newport Harbor High with the palm of his hand squarely on the horn of his 1988 Ford Ranger.

On the practice field, football players would chuckle at the man and his truck and the commotion of their 4 p.m. arrival, the end of a journey that brought him from Irvine High, from the campus of their enemies, into their camp.

“He’d come flying in, going about 60,” Newport Harbor lineman Blair Jones said, laughing. “He’d slam on the brakes, start yelling stuff, grab his clipboard and start coaching.”

Like clockwork, at a rate of about once a week.

Before he combined his teaching and coaching trades at Northwood High this year, Brenner spent two seasons as a social studies and psychology teacher at Irvine and an assistant football coach at Newport Harbor, simultaneously.

Like others in similar teach-and-coach situations, their jobs separated by miles of freeway and unpredictable traffic, his trick was in his love of the young men he coached, in his quest for the competition, and, of course, in his full-throated, no-holds-barred commute.

“Split loyalties is a tough thing,” Brenner said. “Teaching kids at Irvine, then coaching against them at Newport, was a tough thing to do.

“The weeks of those games, I felt enormous ambivalence. I mean, I really wanted to win, but I didn’t want Irvine to lose.”

The dual--and dueling--affections are not uncommon.

Tim Mang, the accomplished tennis coach at Corona del Mar, teaches world history at Edison.

During football season, Lawrence Shumer steers his 1988 Ford Probe GT from Canyon High to Buena Park.

Ken Sjobom teaches English and woodshop at Mission Viejo High in the mornings, then turns his vintage Mustang around and coaches boys’ soccer and freshman football at El Toro in the afternoons.

Chris Sorce, the pitching coach at Fountain Valley High, teaches at Estancia.

At 3 p.m., Katella social studies teacher Dave Mikesell becomes Foothill’s girls’ water polo coach and boys’ water polo assistant.

They straddle the lines of rivalries. They dance between loyalties. They educate a kid in the daytime, then have him schooled at night.

How can you not pull a little for the bright-eyed girl in your history class? The A student, a sucker for higher education and high fastballs? On the next play, why not go after the cornerback whose brain is fried because he flunked Friday afternoon’s geometry quiz?

But it doesn’t happen, they say. They say they wouldn’t allow it.

“You coach your own kids and that’s what you do,” said Sjobom, the soccer and freshman football coach at El Toro. “I don’t watch the other team too much. Actually, it’s never crossed my mind, rooting against someone.”

Some athletic directors aren’t so sure. If nothing else, they say, they don’t like the students’ perception of it.

“Purposely, we try to fight that situation like mad,” Loara Athletic Director Marty Johnson said. “A person gets to know kids and it’s real hard to walk off campus and redevelop relationships with 20 or 30 more kids. Especially today, those kids are looking for a lot more than they were 30 years ago.”

Added Savanna Athletic Director Larry Anderson: “That arrangement has always bothered me. I’m old-school, I guess, where loyalty is such a factor. And coaches are so tough to come by, especially on-staff people, and we’re already dealing with walk-on situations.

“That,” Anderson said of the opposing loyalties, “would be very uncomfortable.”

Like others, Sjobom has made it work. The line blurs at times, he said, but never dissolves.

*

Ben Squirrell and Sam Allen, senior soccer players at Mission Viejo, once were Sjobom’s freshman English students.

They have remained easy acquaintances, though Squirrell and Allen have spent some of the past three soccer seasons playing Sjobom-coached teams at rival El Toro. They will play again Wednesday afternoon.

“Sometimes we play around, and I always say I’m going to score on him and beat him,” Allen said, laughing. “The situation doesn’t bug me at all. He’s doing what he has to do and I’m doing what I have to do. It’s really a respect thing.”

Squirrell, senior class vice president, often visits Sjobom in the woodshop, where the two talk about soccer, and about the programs.

“It’s interesting,” Squirrell said. “We’ll see him at school, then see him at games. It’s fun. After the game’s over, we’ll shake hands again, and that’s it. There’s no lingering resentment because he coaches at El Toro.”

Sjobom said he no longer concerns himself with thoughts of institutional superiority. He deals instead with the personalities, with good kids like Allen and Squirrell, with the good kids on his soccer and football teams.

“It really hasn’t gotten weird,” Sjobom said, clearly pleased that it hasn’t.

Lawrence Shumer, who merely likes to coach, is dealing again with the rigors of it.

He was varsity football coach at Canyon until just before the 1994 season, when his doctor asked him, “Do you want to live?”

In order to calm his ulcers, Shumer, then 47, stepped down.

He’s been back at it for two seasons, concocting blocking schemes during his commute up and down the Riverside Freeway. The ulcers are under control, perhaps because Canyon and Buena Park have not played each other since Shumer joined Manny Saiz’s staff.

Between the end of the season and spring practice, Shumer said, he won’t see many of his players for months.

“That’s a detriment,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s getting older, but I’d come into spring football, see a kid and have to say, ‘What’s your name again?’ ”

*

Sometimes, the issue is not in the geographical distance, but in the emotional familiarity.

Emilio Espinoza was an offensive lineman for three years at Irvine. For two of them, Zaverio Brenner was his position coach. For the last, in 1997, Brenner coached against Espinoza at rival Newport Harbor.

The prospect of it was somewhat awkward.

Then Espinoza received his class schedule for the fall of 1997. His psychology teacher was Brenner.

“We talked about football all the time,” Espinoza said. “But, that week of Newport, we didn’t talk the whole week. We just said, ‘Good luck tonight,’ that Friday at school. The next week, it was old times again.”

It was not so simple, however, and not so painless.

Newport Harbor, Brenner’s new team, won the game, 28-17, in the season’s ninth week. Newport had a decent season. Irvine did not.

Afterward, through the mass of people, Espinoza spotted Brenner coming toward him, and he gave a little half wave on his way across the field. Angry at the season, Espinoza turned and walked off, leaving Brenner and, presumably, a kind word or two behind.

He would never know. On Monday morning in psychology class, Espinoza said, “We never really brought up the game.”

“That is something I did, and I regretted doing it,” Espinoza said of the on-field snub of Brenner. “I remember walking away. That’s something I regret to this day. I never did tell him. But, I wish I could.

“The funny part is, in terms of the offensive line, and even though we lost the game, that was one of the greatest performances we had all year.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised. They often played well with coach Brenner on the same field.

“I was fine with it the whole time,” Espinoza said. “But that week I got weird, myself. I tried not to make an issue of it, but I got a little bitter that week.”

That is the very situation that makes athletic directors cringe. These are the conflicting loyalties--or the idea of them--that have them scouring their campuses, searching for able-bodied, able-minded adults who would coach for a few hundred dollars a month.

*

Mikesell, 29, has an emerging girls’ water polo program at Foothill High.

Ten freeway minutes away at Katella, Mikesell teaches classes in American and world history.

For Mikesell, the daily transition from classroom to poolside is seamless. But he has had recent conversations with Katella’s athletic director, Mike Cochrane, and principal, Mike Shelton, about coaching in one of their programs.

“I don’t think any athletic director is happy when you have a guy teaching on your campus and coaching elsewhere,” Cochrane said. “It’s kind of an awkward situation [with Mikesell]. We understand the situation, but we’d rather it not continue. We’re hoping this is the last year of it.”

Mikesell said he’d stay with the current teaching-coaching configuration for as long as the administrations of both schools allowed.

“I’m happy with both places,” he said. “For me, it’s been great. I have no complaints. I hope they’re happy with me at both places. I think they are.”

Mikesell has never coached against Katella in a regular-season game, and therefore has not been tested in that regard.

A few have. Ken Sjobom has. Tim Mang has.

While both cited minor inconveniences, and perhaps the occasional uncomfortable conversation, neither believed a change was required.

Mang, who coached at Edison before taking over the tennis program at Corona del Mar, frequently encourages the Edison players in his classes, and freely supports the Edison program.

During homeroom announcements over the public address system, Mang has been heard to say, “Hey, quiet. They’re talking about your tennis team.”

“Tennis is different than football or baseball or basketball,” he said, “because most of the kids are more in tune to those sports.

“I’m not sure how the kids feel. I know how I feel. I’m going to root them on. I have no problem with it.”