HART STRINGS : Mike Herrington’s Unwavering Allegiance to Indian Football in the ‘80s Finally Results in the Job of His Dreams: Head Coach

Hart High Principal Laurence Strauss couldn’t have devised a more strenuous loyalty test than the one set up for the school’s new football coach, Mike Herrington.

Herrington was born and raised in Newhall and has known since he was 20 years old that he and his Hart belonged together. He had slugged it out on the offensive line for the Indians in the 1970s and decided before he was named captain of the Cal State Northridge football team in 1979 that the man who held the greatest job in the world was the Hart football coach.

He joined the Indians’ staff right out of college and served an eight-year apprenticeship, first under Carl Sweet and then Rick Scott, pitching in on two Southern Section championships. But when Scott left to coach at Buena High last year, Herrington was jilted for the coaching job in favor of Dave Carson.

Wounded and feeling forced to move on, Herrington left for Bellflower where he took over a floundering program and led the Buccaneers to an 8-3 record and their first playoff berth in six years. Still, when the season ended, Hart kept tugging at Herrington, who appeared at numerous Indian sporting events throughout the school year.

When Strauss abruptly forced Carson to resign last month, Herrington was ready to stay in town for good. But the loyalty test continued. First he had to stand in line behind Bill Redell, the former Crespi coach who interviewed with Strauss. The Hart principal considered the pair as co-coaches, but Redell withdrew as a candidate the same day interim Coach Tim Azevedo said he was content to remain an assistant.

So when Strauss called to say the job was his, even though there was no teaching job to go with it and the season was less than a month away, Herrington never wavered.

Of course, he’d take the job.

With two-a-day drills scheduled to start Monday, Herrington, 31, is still being tested. His brothers Rick, 29, and Dean, 25, also coached at Hart and joined Mike at Bellflower. The day after Strauss hired Mike, his brothers announced they would join the varsity staff, but that move has yet to gain official sanction.

Mike Herrington declined to discuss his brothers or their roles on this year’s team. Strauss indicated the furor has waned and that they likely will join the varsity staff, which is as much a testament to Mike’s popularity as anything else.

Animosity had developed in some quarters of Newhall over Rick’s performance as the Hart sophomore coach. He ended his reign with 40 consecutive victories, but his willingness to keep the first string on the field late in the game of one-sided victories embarrassed and angered even Hart supporters.

“I heard parents whose sons were playing a lot say that it was embarrassing when their kids were out there when the score was pretty high,” Strauss said. “Part of a coach’s job is to find a way to get kids in at opportune times. That may not be every game, but when the situation does present itself kids ought to be in there playing. We had kids feeling neglected and even the kids who played a lot felt that the other guys could have played more.”

Yet nearly everyone in town recognizes that if ever a guy deserved a shot, Mike Herrington is that guy.

“Something about Hart High got into his blood and created an ambition to be there,” Scott said of his former assistant. “I think Strauss recognized that here was a guy that came through the system and was a good guy and a hard worker. And Mike might be there forever. I expect him to die there.”

Herrington would like to get a few wins under his belt before people talk of putting him away. And despite his bumpy road to the top, he harbors no bitterness. But he also claims he has had little time to enjoy his new job.

“I might have been bitter if I didn’t enjoy my year at Bellflower so much,” he said. “I haven’t had time for excitement. I haven’t had time with the players and I’ve been trying to make the transition here. And I’ve been sort of the lame-duck coach at Bellflower, trying to help with that transition.”

The transition at Hart surprised him because he felt uncomfortable the first time he stepped into the coaches’ office this summer. Herrington’s old desk was gone, and the room seemed changed by the mark left by Carson’s staff.

He has had little contact with the players and eagerly awaits Monday’s first practice. That’s the day he expects to feel the excitement.

“By Monday, Bellflower will be past and I can put my concentration up here,” he said. “I think the excitement will really peak during the Canyon week.”

After Hart’s opener Sept. 8 against archrival Canyon, the Indians will play Crespi and Palmdale. Herrington already has considered the possibility of an 0-3 start.

“I guess some people will say they should have hired Bill Redell when they had the chance,” he said with a laugh.

But those who have coached and played with him expect Herrington to succeed, perhaps not with flamboyance or panache, but the victories will come. He fits the mold of the classic overachiever. Always the first to arrive and last to leave, he outlasts his task, making up in determination what he lacks in inspiration.

“It may take him a little longer to go through a game film or put a lesson plan together, but Mike always completes his tasks,” Scott said. “In every program, there’s a beast of burden. Every time there’s a new task, you dump it on him and he plods along until it’s done. That was Mike.”

Sweet, the former Hart coach who left for El Dorado where he now serves as athletic director, often worked on game plans at his house with Herrington at his side. But he warns that Herrington’s hunger for work may undermine his effort.

“I think it will be critical for him and his staff not to move too fast,” he said. “They’ve got to show patience and play for the whole season, not just the first few games. But Mike knows what he has to do. He’s the type of person that if it takes 25 hours to do a job, he’ll put the time in.

“He was there all the time at Hart. Sundays, the summer, he was always there.”

Despite that workload, Herrington always has time for his players. During the season, the Herrington household is a meeting place for players, some of whom frequently attended sporting events with Mike in the off-season. Bonds formed quickly and lasted after players moved on. One of those bonds is named Jim, UCLA’s sophomore quarterback who led Hart to a Southern Section championship in 1986. His friendship with the Herringtons started when he was a water boy for the Hart team as a seventh-grader.

“They’re great guys and taught me a lot about football,” Jim Bonds said. “Dean taught me my quick release and the fundamentals of being a quarterback. I think Mike will do a great job.”

Agreement with that assessment comes from another Bruin, Brian Jacobs, an All-Southern Section tackle at Hart in 1986 and ’87.

“I just respected him for the world,” Jacobs said. “I thought he knew everything when I was at Hart. When I went to college, it turned out he was right.”

Jacobs has maintained his friendship with Herrington and he spent time observing him last fall in Bellflower in Herrington’s first role as head coach. The coaching was no different from the days at Hart but the players were.

Hart draws from a relatively affluent community where the good life is taken for granted. When Herrington ran Hart’s summer passing-league games, the Hart players would meet on campus and caravan in their own cars to away games. When he called for a similar setup at Bellflower, the caravan consisted of just two cars.

“The kids just didn’t have the cars like they did at Hart,” Herrington said.

He adjusted his approach to discipline based on his players’ needs. Many came from broken families and two of his players lived on their own and sandwiched practice and school around jobs.

“If you want to see something incredible you should see what he did with that team,” Jacobs said. “He took guys who were just off the streets and cleaned them up and taught them discipline. I’m not sure how he did it, but just what he could do there makes you know he’s a good coach.”

Herrington would have preferred to skip that audition, claiming he was prepared for the job a year ago. But he refuses to dwell on the hurdles he’s cleared to get the job he’s sought for nearly 10 years. Instead, he points to the role he’s played in helping Hart become one of the Valley-area’s top programs.

“I feel like I was a main cog in Hart’s transformation from an average team,” he said. “But those teams were all under somebody else’s name. Fortunately, now it’s my turn.”