PREP FOOTBALL ’99 : Private Appeal : After Years of Sharing Leagues With Reluctant Public School Programs, the County’s Catholic Football Teams Anticipate a Competitive Revival

After all the gripes and protests and the dozens of releaguing proposals, the all-Catholic school Serra League is finally open for football business with Servite, Mater Dei, Santa Margarita and Bellflower St. John Bosco.

But that doesn’t mean the reality of it has hit everyone.

“Actually, I’m not sure it’s absolutely sunk in yet,” said Santa Margarita Coach Jim Hartigan, whose school fought the all-parochial league proposal the hardest. “When we get on the bus and go play another Catholic school, I think it’s going to be like, ‘Wow, this is what Catholic school football is all about.’

“I think it’s going to be an adjustment for us and it may take a couple years to really get used to it.”

Even at Mater Dei, which once played in the all-parochial Angelus League, not everybody is exactly sure what to expect.

“I’ve told our players and our coaches that they don’t understand what they’re getting themselves into,” Monarch Coach Bruce Rollinson said. “Week in and week out, it’s a flat-out war. There are no weak sisters. And if you get beat one week, you’ve got 48 hours to lick your wounds and prepare for the next war.”

But Rollinson is hardly dreading the weekly battles. If anything, he is relishing the challenge of moving from the South Coast to the Serra.

“I’m surprised the public school format lasted as long as it did,” he said. “We played a lot of games in the South Coast League that didn’t have any consequences. Now, we’re going back to the crowds.”

The biggest crowd figures to convene at Edison Field for the Santa Margarita-Mater Dei clash on Nov. 6. Though he believes he has an above-average team, especially since the transfer of quarterback Chris Rix from Bishop Amat, Hartigan is already making Mater Dei the early favorite for the showdown.

“To Mater Dei, this is old hat,” Hartigan said. “They play these kinds of games all the time in front of big crowds. I’m sure there’s going to be 20,000 there at Edison Field, which is like a home field to them.”

Hartigan, whose team won two Southern Section Division V titles while playing in the Sea View League, said his biggest objections to an all-Catholic league were increased travel and the move up to Division I.

“The kids are excited, but kids are kids,” Hartigan said. “If you’re successful, you forget about all the objections and the sniping that went on before the league came to be. But if you’re the doormat, you won’t. I hope it’s good quality football and people play hard, but there’s going to be some mismatches.”

But probably not as many as there were in the South Coast League when Mater Dei played a weak sister, or in the Sea View League when Santa Margarita and Carson Palmer had the game in hand before the first quarter ended.

Trabuco Hills Coach Bill Crow, who recalls being blown away by the Monarchs, won’t shed any tears over Mater Dei’s departure from the South Coast.

“There’s no doubt we’ll lose some money over the gate of a Mater Dei, but that’s like saying Cal State Fullerton will lose money by not playing Auburn every year,” Crow said. “This year, we’re not playing for second place. I never felt like the playing field was level. I think they are where they belong.”

Comments like that will not be missed by Rollinson.

“We took a lot of heat and criticism and it got old,” Rollinson said. “When you face another Catholic school, you don’t see all the garbage. They think, ‘I know I do the same things you do. I have the same dress code, the same tough teachers and I prayed as hard as you did.’ It’s more of a respect and a camaraderie between each other.”

Jim Staunton, the new Southern Section commissioner and former chairman of the Orange County releaguing committee, said he’s just glad the bickering is finally dying down.

“I think a lot of people in the public schools are very relieved,” Staunton said. “Mostly because they’re not playing against kids from their own neighborhood anymore.

“But I think the Serra League will bring great competition, great crowds and lots of support.”

San Clemente running back James Allen, whose school handed the Monarchs one of their two league losses in seven years, isn’t quite sure what to think of the South Coast League without Mater Dei.

“We seemed to play better against them than a lot of other teams because we always felt we had nothing to lose,” he said. “It’s definitely not unfair playing against them, even though they draw players from all over. But it’s nice having a chance to win the league.”

For the first time in awhile, Crow said the South Coast League is wide open.

“I’ve enjoyed it when a reporter asks me who’s going to win the league; I actually have to think a little bit,” Crow said. “In years past, I’d say, ‘Huh, well of course, Big Red.’ ”