Brinkley’s in the game

At one dinner table in an impeccably designed house in Santa Ana Heights, there is little talk of football, but there is unity, love, and mutual respect.

It obeys the laws of logic that such a neatly-presented man would come from an equally manicured home. It’s the home of a silver-haired football stalwart, a tanned, steadfast tough guy who’s almost never seen with a hair out of place.

In public, Jeff Brinkley is the picture of serious, even-keeled control. The steely gray and blue of his Newport Harbor football shirts are always tucked neatly into his shorts or pants. The 22-year head coach conducts himself with military-like discipline, and that is what most people see.

But Brinkley, 54, is more than a pensive football coach.

There’s an unexpected, ironic sense of humor that lurks behind his brown eyes, masking the man who will crack jokes with his 16-year old daughter, Kendall, or do a wacky dance during summer practice when the football team has an impromptu dance competition.

“I know my dad has been up there,” Kendall said, a devilish grin spreading across her face. “He has this signature dance move and it’s so funny. Most people would be embarrassed, but it’s so funny.”

She giggled.

“He’ll probably be so mad at me if the only thing he reads in the paper is about him dancing.”

He’s a person who finds value in the music of both Bob Dylan and John Legend, who is nearly consumed by his passion for football but still makes time to discover and appreciate the talents of Kendall or his 13-year old stepdaughter, Rachel.

He is deeply loyal, and he is a man who appreciates beauty in a variety of forms, even if he doesn’t always understand it, but he can also be, in Kendall’s words, “a total goofball.”

Kendall was entrenched in football before she could even utter the word. The noises of the crowd, the band, and the tackles that compose Friday night football were seeping their way into her skull while her mother was still gestating. Some expectant mothers put earphones over their pregnant bellies and turn up the Mozart and Beethoven, hoping it adds a few extra I.Q. points down the line.

Kendall got whistles and something akin to, “Face mask on the defense. Fifteen-yard penalty. First down.”

Still, the five-foot-10 Long Beach Millikan High junior grew up to be completely different from her father.

Thursday afternoon, Kendall sat outside a coffee shop in Long Beach, not far from Millikan, clad almost entirely in faded navy blue. Her brown hair, layered 70s-style, was mussed and a little unkempt. A pair of retro buff-and-blue oxfords completed a punkish, artsy, teenage reincarnation of Brinkley.

Their musical paths cross at Dylan, but Kendall strays further toward Pink Floyd and underground music, while her father never misses the annual “Gammy Nominees” album.

Kendall is one of the lead editors of Millikan’s literary magazine “Visions,” and she’s currently reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. She’s an avid writer and film photographer, and she consumes poetry the way Brinkley laps up game film. She’s the one who reminds her father that football is “just a game.”

“Football isn’t my favorite sport in the world, but I do appreciate it and everything he’s done,” Kendall said. “Despite what sport it is, he’s still my dad. This is what his passion is, and I like to see him in the moment and in the action. It’s really cool.”

Kendall prefers longboard surfing, and she’s on the Millikan surf team. Outside of her father’s football team, she doesn’t pay attention to football at all.

But if you told her to run a slant route, she could, no questions asked, and she regularly attends Brinkley’s games.

Kendall was at the stadium when her father had to be taken to the hospital during halftime last week, and she was the one who had to round up the family before Brinkley was transported to Hoag Hospital because of an irregular heartbeat.

After he started to feel better, Brinkley told his daughter, “I’d rather lose and feel good, than win and just be hospitalized,” Kendall said.

Newport Harbor beat Aliso Niguel, 16-3, in the season opener.

Kendall lives with her mother, Kristlyn, in Long Beach, and she usually sees her father on the weekends.

“One thing I totally appreciate is the fact that even though he is busy, he always makes time for the people he loves, like his family, which is really great, because we don’t see each other every day,” Kendall said. “When I go up there, he usually sets his work aside, and it’s just me-and-him time.”

Brinkley and Kristlyn divorced nearly eight years ago, and Brinkley has since remarried. His wife, Laura, is an interior designer. She decorated their house in Santa Ana Heights.

“I sometimes laugh because my dad is so intensely passionate about football,” Kendall said. “Like, ‘I can’t miss a game. I can’t miss practice.’ But it’s like, ‘Dad, it’s football. It’s high school football. It’s not everything. It really isn’t. Your health is so much more important. You being well is so much more important than any sport.’”

Brinkley has cultivated a successful program at Newport Harbor, and he’s done it with assistants who’ve stayed by his side for long stretches of time. Brinkley has led the Sailors to 16 playoff appearances and four CIF division title games. Newport Harbor won CIF championships in 1994, 1999, and 2005, and Brinkley has a career record of 182-71-3.

Defensive coordinator Tony Ciarelli started coaching with Brinkley in 1989, and has been at Newport Harbor for all of that time, save for a five-year head coaching stint at Huntington Beach. When things didn’t work out for Ciarelli at Huntington, he came back to Newport Harbor, where his wife, Stephanie, is in her third year as the Sailors’ strength and conditioning coach.

“It’s largely because of him,” Ciarelli said. “He’s loyal to the guys who are loyal to him. It carries over to how people look at him. He’s always there for anyone who’s ever needed him, and I think that’s one reason why the coaches have stuck with him for so long.”

Freshman football coach Joe Urban and his wife have also been longtime friends with Brinkley and the Ciarellis, and the three coaches try to make time every year for a trip to Napa Valley with their wives, usually during the first week of August.

The trip coincides with Brinkley and Laura’s wedding anniversary, and it’s where the couple got married.

It’s one of the few reprieves the trio will allow themselves all year, because coaching is a year-round job, Ciarelli said.

“It’s much more than the 40-hour week that many people think it is,” Ciarelli said. “It’d be very easy to say that both of us put in at least eight hours on Sunday and Saturday developing game plans for the following week. That’s our whole thing — preparation.”

Football is something that consumes Brinkley, and he’s surrounded by a team of coaches who’ve been hit with his infectious devotion.

“It comes down to one word: work,” Ciarelli said. “The key is that people who expect that have to lead by example. He’s a hard worker. He’s always reading, always researching.”

Despite their differences, Kendall is still her father’s daughter. She speaks with the same deliberate quality as Brinkley, and her thoughts are well-articulated and deeply considered.

Moreover, just like Brinkley, she is her own person, and that’s where they converge. Kendall would rather work on her literary magazine or read, while her father would rather watch football.

But they both have a mutual respect for each other’s passion. The same sort of respect is evident between Brinkley and Laura, Ciarelli said.

Kendall doesn’t even attend football games at her own school, but she loyally supports her father. Tonight, she’ll be at the Long Beach Poly game with a close childhood friend who happens to go to Poly.

But she’ll be sitting on the home side.

“I have a lot of friends that go to Poly, so I might go over there to say hi,” Kendall said. “But other than that, I’ll be on Newport’s side.”