THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE : Condoning Team’s Verbal Jabs Diminishes Mike Scyphers’ Considerable Accomplishments in the Minds of Opposing Coaches

Mike Scyphers stared at the water pistol he had just bought for his 3-year-old son, and a devilish grin creased his face. The gun--a $9.95, battery-operated beauty--gave the Simi Valley High baseball coach mischievous notions.

Within minutes, he had stalked his unsuspecting players as they rested in their motel rooms last month between games of the Serra tournament in San Mateo, Calif.

Knock. Knock. In your face, Kenny Hood, the Pioneer pitcher whose afternoon nap was interrupted by a steady stream from Scyphers’ gun. The same fate awaited teammate Bob Stevens in an adjacent room.

Scyphers had nearly half of his players reaching for towels before they mounted a counterattack. After a spirited chase around the motel grounds, the players struck with force, dousing their coach with a large bucket of ice water. Simi Valley dried off in time to wrap up the tournament title, continuing the fun by outscoring the opposition, 48-5, in four games. The week in San Mateo was indicative of Scyphers’ hands-on approach. He demands unrelenting aggressiveness and intensity on the field, yet the boyish coach, who at 5-foot-8, 140 pounds is still mistaken for a player by first-time opponents, easily reverts to adolescent ways to connect with his players.

“I think it’s important for them to see me do other things and see other aspects of me,” he said. “That water-pistol fight is a camaraderie thing and team-morale-type stuff. And all of that is very important.”

The method seems to work. In 11 years, Scyphers, 36, has built one of Southern California’s top programs, compiling a record of 214-69. Endorsements from former players come raining in, and many remember their playing days as a high point in their young lives.

“I think he’s the best coach I’ll ever have,” said Scott Sharts, the Southern Section’s all-time leading home run hitter and a freshman at the University of Miami. “He has a knack for bringing out the best in a ballplayer. I don’t know if he knows how much he’s done for me.”

But although Scyphers’ place is secure in the hearts of Pioneer rooters, his reign has been rocky. He seems to find controversy as readily as he builds winning streaks.

His critics question his methods and sportsmanship, and they, too, characterize his behavior as adolescent but attach little charm to the phrase. His Marmonte League colleagues praise him for winning but do so grudgingly.

“You never put success down,” said Thousand Oaks Coach Jim Hansen, who spent 15 minutes talking about the abundance of talent that Scyphers gets from Simi Valley youth baseball organizations.

Under Scyphers, Simi Valley has gained a reputation for brash, arrogant behavior typified by the verbal blasts emanating from the Pioneer dugout. What Scyphers calls a noisy, involved dugout, others perceive as an out-of-control outrage that provokes volatile situations.

Simi Valley engaged in a memorable brawl with Thousand Oaks in 1984, a fight that sent five players to the hospital. And the program’s image suffered a black eye during a tournament in Orlando, Fla., last year when Scyphers spent much of the week embroiled in a controversy with tournament director George Kirchgassner over the number of games his team was allowed to play.

Simi Valley did not play in the consolation championship game and left Florida after the local teams served notice that the Pioneers’ brand of “ragging” during games was no longer welcome.

Scyphers and Simi Valley supporters claim that they received a bad rap in Florida and attribute the attacks to jealousy, pointing out that the number and intensity of complaints against the Pioneers have increased with the team’s success.

“I’m aware of the reputation and it concerns me,” Scyphers said. “Maybe it goes with the territory of winning three titles in a row.”

During Scyphers’ tenure, Simi Valley has won five league titles, including the past three, and is 49-10 in league play since 1985. Simi Valley earned the No. 1 ranking in the country during the 1986 season and has a 16-2 record this year. The Pioneers have advanced to the playoffs in all but two of the past 10 seasons and have a 16-8 mark in postseason play.

The program also has produced some of the area’s top players of this decade. Currently playing in the minor leagues are catcher Tim Laker (Expos), infielder Dave Milstien (Red Sox), outfielder Duane Mulville (Cincinnati) and pitchers Scott Radinsky (White Sox) and Steve Sharts (Phillies).

Former Pioneers playing for major college programs include outfielder Corey Aurand (USC), infielder Mike Hankins (UCLA), outfielder Shaun Murphy (Nevada Las Vegas) and infielder-pitcher Scott Sharts (Miami). In addition, outfielders Darren Aurand (Corey’s brother), Darin Furlong and catcher Marcus Lockwood are playing at Moorpark College.

No one disputes Simi Valley’s talent or Scyphers’ ability to win. But critics take exception with the team’s intimidating style of play. That style reflects its coach, a man whose athletic career was based on unbridled intensity, overachievement and a mammoth competitive spirit that burst through the seams of an undersized body.

Scyphers was 4-foot-4 when he entered junior high and stood just 5-foot tall as a sophomore at Canoga Park High. Two years later, he started on the baseball team and was a 5-foot-8 all-league guard on the basketball team.

He concentrated on basketball in college, earning a starting job at Cal State Northridge despite joining the program as a walk-on. His fiery leadership and competitive drive prompted Matador Coach Pete Cassidy to call him, inch for inch, the best player he has coached in 17 years.

When Scyphers was a freshman at CSUN, the Matadors played the UCLA freshman team that included Bill Walton, who led the Bruins to two national titles. Walton swatted away Scyphers’ first shot of the game, but undaunted, Scyphers continued to drive to the basket--albeit with limited success.

Doug MacKenzie, his high school baseball coach, marveled at Scyphers’ determination. “I always felt that he was a winner. He had no fear. Those other CSUN guys may have been fearful playing against Walton, but Mike still had the guts to challenge him. He had tremendous confidence in himself and I think that shows now.”

Before MacKenzie retired two years ago, he coached against his protege, an experience that hardened the older man toward his former player. In 1985, Simi Valley fielded a powerful team that pinned a 30-0 defeat on Royal and started the season with a 32-4 win over MacKenzie’s Canoga Park team.

MacKenzie insists he took no offense, pointing out that under City Section rules governing preseason games what Simi Valley counted as a game, Canoga Park viewed as a scrimmage.

“He wants to beat teams as badly as possible to get high marks and it doesn’t matter that he’s playing against his old coach,” MacKenzie said. “It never made me mad or bothered me, but it bothered my boys.

“I’m proud of Mike and I still think he’s a winner, but I’m not particularly proud of all his methods.”

Dennis Judd coached at Westlake for three years before resigning last spring. He, too, admires Scyphers for his ability to win but leveled a broadside at Scyphers’ character.

“I have little respect for his attitude and the way his teams treat opponents,” he said. “They try to intimidate by bad-mouthing and belittling everybody. It was just bad sportsmanship.”

Judd acknowledges that dugout banter and verbal jousting are traditional aspects of baseball, saying that every coach encourages a noisy dugout.

“But Simi was the worst,” he said. “They never used curse words but they were caustic, made rude statements to coaches and players. They’d mimic you and mock what you’d say. It made me mad and I’d talk to Scyphers afterward about it and he’d just say, ‘Hey, that’s all part of the game. If you don’t take it that way, that’s your problem.’ He always had a cavalier attitude, like he didn’t think he could do anything wrong.”

Judd’s impression of Scyphers was solidified at the start of the 1988 season, a year after Westlake had blown the league title, losing to last-place Camarillo on the final day of the regular season to give Simi Valley the championship.

As Westlake warmed up, Judd said, the Pioneers flaunted the league-championship patches on their warm-up jackets and taunted the Warriors for losing the year before.

“They were a bunch of jerks, and there was Scyphers right there in the dugout, not saying anything to tone them down,” he said.

Even Bob Lofrano, Scyphers’ longtime friend and coach at City Section power Chatsworth, has clashed with the Simi Valley coach. Lofrano grew up with Scyphers in the same Canoga Park neighborhood and the two maintain a close friendship.

The coaches have met four times, all in the Monroe Easter tournament. In 11 years at Chatsworth, the only time Lofrano waived his rule prohibiting his players from directing comments at the opposition came against Simi Valley. According to Lofrano, during Chatsworth’s pregame infield drill for a 1985 tournament game, the team was ambushed by the Pioneer bench jockeys.

“I couldn’t believe the things coming out of their dugout,” Lofrano said. “I told my players, ‘My ears are closed.’ Mike and I barked at each other about it, but it was over as quickly as it started.

“Mike is a fiery individual and has always been very competitive. That’s why he could play college basketball at his size. I don’t have to play Mike three times a year so I don’t know what would happen if we played all the time. I know the coaches in Ventura County aren’t going to vote him Mr. Congeniality. He keeps beating those teams every year, and winning breeds jealousy.”

Exactly, according to Scyphers. He sees no need to apologize for Simi Valley’s success and neither do his supporters.

Dagne Sharts has sent two sons through the Simi Valley program and praises Scyphers for his ability to motivate her sons, better them as players and develop them as people.

“I think Mike gets a bad rap about the ragging,” she said. “I don’t think Simi’s done anything out of line. I’m glad my boys have played for Mike. His program has enriched and matured both my sons.”

Steve and Scott earned college scholarships, making it easy for Dagne to carry fond feelings for the Simi Valley program. But Scyphers’ influence also has been felt among the rank-and-file players.

Keith Jajko was an average-sized high school player who hung up his spikes after his senior year. The former second baseman, Simi Valley’s team captain in 1984, is a senior at Cal State Northridge who claims the lessons he learned from Scyphers have stayed with him.

“Playing for Simi Valley is one of the biggest things I hold with me,” he said. “I was kind of timid when I first played for him and he instilled confidence in me. Once you do well, he is the first to give you praise. I’ll always carry that with me, a little bit of Simi subliminal cockiness.”

Scyphers is gratified by those comments but concedes that the attacks from his peers sting. After Simi Valley’s 30-0 win over Royal four years ago, he was asked whether he felt any sympathy for the Highlanders. His response at the time? “Heck, no.”

When reminded of the comment, he winced slightly. “I said that? Maybe I have changed. I felt some sympathy for their pitcher. I felt for their team.”

Scyphers claims that he is misunderstood. What others see as arrogance, he says is merely the pleasure he takes in winning, a joy he sees no need to conceal. But he admits he is quicker to quiet his team this year.

“I am concerned about how my peers perceive our program,” he said. “If I’ve offended anybody on the field, I apologize. But, geez, we’ve got great athletes and guys hitting the ball over the fence. And we’re congratulating each other and celebrating. We’re winning 10-1, 11-2.

“We’re winning, we win and win again. Yeah, I guess, that would rub me the wrong way, too. But embarrassed about winning? Not this coach.”

FO