Hitting Books Is Key at Loyola

It’s 7:15 on a Saturday morning, and Matt Appenfelder’s eyes have finally cracked open, courtesy of the annoying beeping of his alarm clock.

After a week of attending classes at Los Angeles Loyola High and a night of playing receiver and defensive back for the Cubs, Appenfelder rises as if he has the aches and pains of a 70-year-old.

His legs, hamstrings and calf muscles are sore, he has bruises in other places, and he could use a couple of more hours of sleep.

He leaves his Culver City home to make the 30-minute drive to Loyola near downtown Los Angeles to watch game film, run, lift weights and hear from his coach, Steve Grady.

He arrives back home at 1:15 p.m., but there’s no time for rest. He has an essay due Monday about the Black Plague in 14th century Europe. He has several problems to solve for his advanced-placement statistics class. And he has a chapter or two to read from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

Welcome to life as a senior honors student and standout football player at a demanding Jesuit-run all-boys school.

“It’s a love-hate relationship,” Appenfelder said. “I need the challenge, but I don’t like it at times.”

There are small schools known for their academic excellence and there are large schools recognized for their sports success. But Loyola manages to combine both, winning consistently in the toughest sport of all, football, without compromising its mission to prepare students for college and beyond.

It’s no wonder that Grady, in his 29th season as head coach, doesn’t want to mention the word “retirement” anytime soon. He has players whose soaring grade-point averages are approaching their 40-yard times.

Appenfelder has a 4.2 GPA and 4.4 40-yard time. Receiver Marcus Lawrence has a 4.4 GPA and 4.5 40-yard time. Linemen Andrew Maxwell and Matt Hammel have 4.2 GPAs. Free safety Adam Stout’s GPA is 4.1, and lineman David Rutkowski’s GPA is 4.0.

Twenty-seven players have GPAs of 3.3 or better. If Grady wanted a lesson on Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, Appenfelder and his football buddies would be happy to comply.

“I know we’re smart because we can do things with the offensive line and make adjustments easier than other schools,” Grady said.

Loyola, the defending Southern Section Division I champion, has reached the playoff semifinals 11 times in the last 16 seasons. The school has 1,198 boys, all of whom had to pass an entrance exam. Their average SAT score is 1,232, and 99% of the student body moves on to college.

The football program doesn’t produce the yearly half-dozen or more NCAA Division I prospects of a Long Beach Poly, but Ivy League schools know that Loyola is fertile recruiting ground.

“To me, they’re 17-, 16-year-old kids trying to find their way through high school, trying to balance their way from books to my yelling,” Grady said.

Other schools are gaining recognition for athletic and academic excellence, thanks to the Southern Section’s awards program. San Luis Obispo was awarded seven team championships last season for having team GPAs of 3.0 or better.

But determined, dedicated players in the mold of Appenfelder allow Loyola to succeed in football.

Besides his ability to catch passes and tackle ballcarriers, Appenfelder is a real student of the game. He might be in the running for a spot in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for watching the 1999 football movie, “Any Given Sunday,” at least 100 times on his home computer.

“Last year, I watched it every night before game day,” he said. “I get to hear all the grunts and noises players make. It’s more the way modern football is played, with all the drama on the sideline.”

Appenfelder, who has an AP physics class at 7:15 each morning, might one day become an engineer. He’s surrounded by future investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, pilots and accountants. He attended a public middle school and was awed at first by the competitive environment at Loyola.

“It was a little overwhelming because everyone was so smart, but it also pushes you,” he said. “You want to keep going to match them or better them.”

Grady jokes about “waiting for my dowry to come in” from the many ex-Loyola football players who have gone into the financial sector. He knows what his job is.

“I have a job to try to get them to realize their potential,” he said.

Appenfelder appreciates the reward for hard work. He experienced it last December when Loyola defeated Poly in the Division I final.

“That feeling was so overwhelming, I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

It’s clear that brains and brawn matter at Loyola.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.