THE NEW CENTURION : Flaherty Has Been Enlisted From Canyon to Boost Morale of Troops at Saugus

A graffiti-splashed pipeline snakes along the rocky western boundary of Saugus High, a multicolored conduit that supplies millions of gallons of water to the arid Santa Clarita Valley.

It’s part pipeline, part grapevine.

“You think it looks bad now, you ought to see it at the end of the school year,� Saugus football Coach Dick Flaherty said. “All you have to do is look at that thing and you can see who’s dating who, what’s going on where, who’s having the parties, everything.�

The pipeline runs along the edge of the Saugus practice field, where the team is working out. As he speaks, Flaherty moves closer to his team at midfield. The players already are laboring under a hot summer sun, probably wishing the pipeline would burst a weld.

“It runs up that hill,� Flaherty said, pointing to the horizon, “all the way into Canyon Country.�

Ah, yes, Canyon Country, where a flood of talent has made Canyon High one of the most successful teams in the state. Canyon, grand Canyon, where football pastures seem much, much greener. To the southwest lies Hart High in Newhall, which also has given Saugus plenty of headaches and stolen plenty of headlines.

Maybe it’s appropriate that the pipeline flows past Saugus without leaving a drop of water. After all, the Centurions are in the midst of a wicked drought. In the football-rich Santa Clarita Valley, Saugus is the dust bowl.

Last season, Saugus was 0-10. In 1985, the team was 1-7-2. This year’s seniors have a history of, well, consistency.

“Hart has never lost to Saugus,� said Flaherty in a grim tone, as though he was recounting battle fatalities. In actuality, Saugus defeated Hart in 1978, 1980 and 1981. But Flaherty is speaking rhetorically, and the details aren’t really the point.

“Hart comes into a game expecting to win,� Flaherty said. “The seniors there are 33-1: They were 10-0 as freshmen, 10-0 as sophomores and 13-1 last year.�

“Our seniors are 2-26-2, or something like that, and have beaten Canyon once, way back when they were sophomores or freshmen. I’m not really sure about the exact records. We don’t really accentuate the past around here.�

Flaherty has another reason to de-emphasize the fact that Saugus isn’t august. The team that lost 43-6 to Burroughs, 40-7 to Canyon, 39-6 to Quartz Hill, 40-14 to Antelope Valley and 56-0 to Palmdale last year was not his team.

After serving as an assistant coach for two years at Hart and the past seven at Canyon, Flaherty is the new Centurion, here to rescue a floundering program. He has promised a watershed season.

Flaherty, sporting an SMU Mustangs T-shirt, is offering a candid examination of his new team when he is interrupted by the ring of a telephone.

“I need a set of quarterback pads as soon as possible,� Flaherty tells an equipment salesman. “Size? He’s a pretty big kid, about 6-1, 185. Big shoulders. How soon can you get them here? So that would be right around Labor Day, right? I can have the purchase order ready. Good.�

The conversation reminds Flaherty of just how bad things were when he first arrived.

“I don’t mean to bad-mouth anybody,� he said, “but the condition of this program--the kids, the equipment, the attitude, the weight room--was really in bad shape. We had shoulder pads being used that were left over from when the school first opened in 1975.

“Last year the freshmen played their home games in jerseys that were five different styles, a mishmash of colors. It was embarrassing.�

So Flaherty got down to business, and he got down on his hands and knees. The school bought $4,000 in new weight equipment and 120 sets of shoulder pads, and Flaherty and the head groundskeeper installed several new sprinklers on the practice field.

From the grass roots on up, Flaherty, 41, hopes to pattern the Saugus program after Harry Welch, the coach at Canyon. Welch is 60-7 in five years at Canyon, including three Northwest Conference championships.

“Harry is an organizer,� Flaherty said. “He knows exactly how he wants it done. His booster club raises a hell of a lot of money, and our booster club doesn’t have a clue.

“We’re selling cookies and doughnuts and they’re selling cars and boats and trips and planes. But we’re learning.�

Flaherty probably would admit he’s a bit of a slow learner himself--his familiarity with Hart and Canyon comes from experience. While an assistant at Hart, he twice applied for the head coaching position with no luck.

It was the same story at Canyon, where his application was turned down on two occasions. Last year, Flaherty applied for the Saugus job and was snubbed. Saugus, you’ll recall, was hot off a 1-7-2 season. Hart, Canyon and Saugus are all members of the William S. Hart Unified School District.

“I started to get the feeling the school district was trying to tell me something,� said Flaherty, who was an assistant at Alemany, Harvard and St. Genevieve before Hart.

If the team inherits Flaherty’s resolve and little else, Saugus likely will make progress this season. When first-year Coach Dave Gross quit last fall after the winless season to accept a position as an assistant at Golden League rival Quartz Hill, Flaherty reapplied.

“I told the administrators that I had some serious reservations about even applying. I was 0 for 5 in this district, and quite frankly I wasn’t ready to put myself on the line again. I said, ‘I don’t know that I want this job unless I get some support from you and the community.

“This school needed to make a commitment to winning. And I think it has.�

Welch, who applied for the Canyon position seven times before finally being hired, knows exactly how Flaherty felt. Not surprisingly, Flaherty is Welch’s kind of guy.

“Dick is intelligent, dedicated, knowledgeable, and of course, persistent,� Welch said. “You have to hang in there, and if you do long enough, you’ll get the chance.

“I recommended very highly to Dick that he apply there. He deserved the chance.�

Saugus last won the Golden League championship in 1981. Nobody--including Flaherty--would be so bold as to presume the team will challenge Antelope Valley, Palmdale or Canyon for the league title.

Yet if Saugus is to start back on the road to respectability, much of the load will rest upon the back of senior Jared Snyder--he of the broad shoulders and new quarterback pads.

At times last season, Snyder was quite good. He ranked 11th among Valley-area Southern Section passers, throwing for 1,253 yards and seven touchdowns out of a run-and-shoot offensive set.

With a weak line in front of him, however, Snyder often had to run and hide. He led the Valley area in attempts with 328 but averaged just 3.8 each attempt.

The running game didn’t divert attention from Snyder, either. Saugus rushed for 531 yards all season.

“Jared has the tools to be a good player,� Flaherty said. “He has a very strong arm, but he developed some bad habits. He also led the Valley in interceptions.�

Snyder, in fact, had 18 of the nastiest of nuisances. But to place the blame on one player for last season’s debacle is unfair. Flaherty compiled a list of problem areas, things he observed from the opposite sideline. He now threatens to sideline anybody who crosses him.

“Last year they had a tremendous problem with kids who could miss practice and still play in the game because the coaches felt they needed them,� Flaherty said. “I told the kids we have one rule: You miss practice and you don’t play.

“They were also in terrible physical condition, one of the worst I’ve ever seen. In the third and fourth quarter they were dead. We’ve had a running program all summer. Believe me, their cardiovascular system is in shape.�

Now when they play Hart, a non-league opponent, at least they’ll have the you-know-what.

“It’s hard to explain how the practices were last year,� Snyder said. “They weren’t like any I’ve ever been to, that’s for sure. It seemed like last year we were coasting and this year we’re working.

“In four years here I’ve never been on a team that worked any harder.�

In his own workmanlike style, Flaherty also is educating the entire campus community.

“There are parents, faculty and administration around here that say ‘Gee, if we could just win five games, or if we could win four games, wouldn’t that would be great?’ � he said. “They really have no concept whatsoever--the parents and some of the kids--of any talent these players might have.�

Welch agrees that the Saugus talent pool isn’t a problem. When asked if Canyon and Hart just had better personnel, Welch laughed.

“The kids there are very good kids; just give them some time,� Welch said. “Don’t expect them to win it all this year, that wouldn’t be fair. But I think he’ll eventually have them on a par with Hart and Canyon.�

Welch said he almost wishes Flaherty would have taken a job a little farther down the road.

“I’m sure Dick wants to show everyone out here what he could have done if they’d given him the chance,� Welch said.

Before Flaherty can really seize that opportunity, he has to sell a losing team on the notion that it can become competitive.

“Kids are really a poor judge of talent,� Flaherty said. “They read things in the paper about a certain player, and they begin to get intimidated. What they don’t realize is they might be just as good and that nobody’s told them.�

The players apparently are listening.

“The team thinks he knows what he’s doing,� Snyder said. “He came from a pretty successful program.�

Gross, the previous coach, says he thinks Flaherty can pull it off.

“I didn’t leave that school because we were 0-10,� Gross said. “I was actually quite happy with the way things were progressing. Saugus just had an extremely weak senior class last year.�

Gross won three league titles at Imperial Valley and two at Rosamond before he took the Saugus position, so he likely has a pretty good eye for ability. He believes Saugus will surprise some people this year.

“I think they’ll do much better for a couple of reasons,� Gross said. “First, they have some good kids back this season. Jared is one of the best around and LaMark is as explosive as anybody--and I mean anybody.�

As a junior, LaMark Allen rushed for 203 yards and had 34 receptions for 287 yards. Others likely to contribute are returning senior receivers Jimmy Johnson, who caught 19 passes last season, and Mark Osment, who averaged 13 yards a reception. Chad Keene, a 6-3, 220-pound junior, will play tight end.

“And the early schedule is more in their favor this year,� Gross said. “They have their first two at home, and they took Burroughs off the schedule and replaced them with San Marino. I can see them having two or possibly three wins heading into league play.�

Whether it’s two wins or three, it would still be more than the team won in two whole seasons. Flaherty won’t predict where his team will finish. If it’s a rebuilding year, so be it. If they win a few games along the way, great. Heading the team in the proper direction is what’s paramount, laying the groundwork, doing the basics.

“You’re not always going to be 9-0; there are going to be some down years where you really have to struggle,� Flaherty said. “But if you know what you are doing as a coach, and the kids have confidence that you know what you’re doing and believe in you the way you believe in them, then you have as good a chance as anybody at being successful.�

If everything falls into place, perhaps someday Flaherty will see “We’re No. 1� splattered across the pipeline, preferably in a nice shade of Centurion blue.