Whose Job Is It Anyway? : At Servite, Leo Hand Is the Coach, but Not Everyone’s Happy About It

If, as Leo Hand says, he was meant to be the football coach at Servite High School, one has to wonder whether the job is his reward or penance.

In four years of coaching Orange County’s richest football program--in dollars and pomp--he has endured a legacy of abuse from the stands and of petitions for his removal being distributed in the school parking lot.

“Looking back, I’m glad I came here,� Hand said. “But, to be honest, if I had known what this job would be like, I would have never applied for it.�

Then, of course, Hand believes he had no say in the matter.

“I was all set to go to Texas,� he said. “I really wasn’t that interested in the job; I didn’t put a lot of effort into getting it. But I did. . . . Things like that, things that have gone on here, make me think I was supposed to come here and coach.�

How long he will coach at Servite, where the school colors are black and white, is another gray area.

“It may be for the next 20 years, and I may be gone in the next 20 hours,� Hand said.

Father Charles Motsko, Servite principal, when asked about the likelihood of firing Hand, said: “I’m not aware of it. If I was to do anything, I would wait until the dust settled. Perhaps February.�

The Friars (6-2-1 overall, 2-2 in league play), who are said by everyone but Hand to have the best talent in the Angelus League, must beat Mater Dei tonight (7:30, Santa Ana Stadium) to salvage a winning record in league.

Win or lose tonight, Servite probably will compete in the Southern Section’s Big Five playoffs, at the very least as a wild-card selection. And win or lose tonight, the grumbling that Leo Hand should be fired will continue at next week’s booster club meeting.

“There’s always turmoil concerning that issue,� said Jon Borowiec, Servite athletic director. “And I’m sure if we lose to Mater Dei, there will be even more people who want to get rid of Leo Hand.�

Put even more succinctly by a booster who asked not to be identified: “Why should next week be any different? They want him fired every week.�

They are some of the school’s boosters. And they circulated a petition to have Hand removed after the 1985 season, Hand’s second at Servite. His records those first two seasons were 10-2 and 9-3.

“It’s not about winning and losing,� Hand said. “There are just people here who don’t like me.�

However, winning and losing have a lot to do with his troubles, as does the fact that Leo Hand’s personality has been described, by the people who support him, as varying from cold to arrogant.

He has coached 44 games at Servite, won 33, lost 10 and tied 1. Servite won the Angelus League championship in 1984, Hand’s first season.

However, the program that Hand took over in 1984 had won back-to-back Big Five championships in 1982 and 1983 under Ron Smeltzer. Hand’s teams have qualified for the playoffs every year but never have made it past the second round of the playoffs. Which, to hard-liners, is reason enough for his removal.

“(They’ve) built up a lot of expectations, some of which are not reasonable,� said Allen Wallace, editor of Super Prep magazine. “You look back 20 years or so, Anaheim was a great team. Then it fell, and Edison and Fountain Valley became great teams. They’ve fallen this year, and the great teams are in the south county, like Capistrano Valley and El Toro. They’ll eventually fall also. But the one constant has been Servite. They’ve always been very good. People expect nothing less.�

And it always has been considered the responsibility of the coach to fulfill those expectations.

Servite is reputed to attract the best and the brightest of student athletes. Coaches in Southern California say the booster club brings in as much money as any in the area. The stands are always near capacity.

“If you’re going to get that type of money and support, people are going to expect you to win,� said Duke Dulgarian, St. Bernard coach.

And if you don’t win, or win big, or win the Big One, people are going to talk about getting rid of you. The three coaches who preceded Hand--Chuck Gallo (1972-73), Ken Visser (1974-78) and Smeltzer (1979-84)--all were under the same harsh scrutiny.

“I heard the same things about Gallo and Visser and Smeltzer that I’m hearing about Leo Hand,� said Motsko. “We’ve always tried to create the feeling that Servite is one big family. Unfortunately, some people get the impression that means they can say anything they want.�

Even the since-sainted Smeltzer, with two Big Five championships in tow, was the object of criticism.

“I had people tell me not to buy a house because I wasn’t going to be here long,� Smeltzer said. “It’s kind of funny when you look back. But, at the time, it was quite disturbing.�

Motsko said: “I had a very prominent Servite football alumnus tell me the best thing I could do for Servite was get rid of Ron Smeltzer.�

That was 1981. Smeltzer’s team won it all in 1982.

In fact, Gallo, Visser and Smeltzer all left of their own accord. Gallo went to Cal State Fullerton as an assistant and is now the coach at Mater Dei. Small world.

Visser, who left Servite to become an assistant at Cal State Long Beach, became the head coach there this season. Smeltzer left to become the offensive coordinator for the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League and is now in the same position with the Calgary Stampeders.

Hand concedes that, unlike his predecessors, he lacks the charisma to defuse criticism or win people to his side.

“I’m a football coach. That’s what I want to do,� Hand said. “I don’t like the rest of the stuff.�

That might be OK somewhere else, but at Servite, where, as Borowiec describes it, “50% of the job is off the field,� Hand’s attitude is unacceptable to many.

“What we hear on the coaching grapevine,� Gallo said, “is the complaints about Leo really don’t have a lot to do with coaching philosophy.�

Borowiec said: “Leo isn’t the most personable guy. He’s actually a very nice man. But he doesn’t come off that way. He’s very private, a just-the-facts kind of guy. He probably isn’t the type of public relations coach our boosters would like.�

And the boosters have let him know about it en masse . During Servite’s 31-21 loss to St. Paul, Hand was under continual verbal attack as he called plays from the press box.

One Servite fan shouted: “Leo, why don’t you get your . . . on the field and do something? That’s what we pay you for.�

Hand never flinched; he never does. He says he tries to block out all the shouting, and there’s a lot to block out.

“They are brutal up there,� Dulgarian said. “Servite fans remind me of Ram fans. The second things go wrong, they start to boo and blame the coach.�

Perhaps that would be all right, if all they did was boo.

“It’s to the point where I’ve seen the wives and girlfriends of some of the coaches leave games in tears,� said Borowiec, a former assistant under Hand. “They’re vicious up there. My wife refuses to sit with some of those people.�

“Those people� also attend the booster club meetings, which can turn ugly very quickly. Tom Blottiaux, father of Servite kicker Pat Blottiaux, recalls that in the meeting after Servite’s 35-0 loss to Bishop Amat, a booster asked Hand why he was running the ball in the fourth quarter.

“The game was already lost. Leo told the guy he was just trying to get out of there without getting anyone hurt,� Blottiaux said. “They guy said he thought it was sick that a team from Servite was not trying to score.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up and told that guy that I thought people like him were sick.�

Hand attends booster club meetings only after his team loses. If the team wins, he sends an assistant to speak.

“I get paid to take the criticism,� Hand said. “If we win, I want to share the praise.�

The praise that comes for the football team rarely seems to include Hand. Besides some boosters, members of the media, fans and other coaches have questioned his coaching abilities this season.

Servite has appeared at some times unorganized and at others chaotic. Twice this season, the Friars have had to waste three timeouts in the first half on relatively simple matters. Hand got into a shouting match with an assistant coach during a game against Fountain Valley. He alternates between coaching in the press box and on the field.

“You look at this guy, running up and down the stairs--looking totally lost--and you wonder, how did this guy ever get to be a high school head coach, let alone the head coach at Servite ?� said one booster who asked not to be identified.

Many also have questioned his tactics. Hand seems to alternate almost weekly from a passing offense to a running game. In Servite’s first two league games--against St. Paul and Bishop Amat--Servite quarterback Jason Frank threw 76 times, and the Friars’ exceptional running back, Derek Brown, ran only 15 times. The Friars lost both games.

Brown has rushed 63 times for 419 yards and 9 touchdowns in the past two games, against St. Bernard and Bishop Montgomery, both of which Servite has won.

Hand has conceded that keeping the ball away from Brown, who rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season, was a mistake.

“There are times when you really have to question some of the things he does,� said an Angelus League coach who asked not to be identified. “I think that team has as much talent as any in the state. If they don’t win, you’ve got to blame the coach.�

Which is no news to Leo Hand and his not-so-merry band.