SPORTS NOTEBOOK : Driving Coach Allen: Chauffeur Learns About Life From the Legend

Though he wore no chauffeur’s cap, Ben Randolph sat behind the wheel of a black Mercury sedan last Friday morning and headed toward Palos Verdes Estates to pick up the Cal State Long Beach football coach.

Driving George Allen is one of Randolph’s duties as a graduate assistant.

Randolph, 36, who wore a gray 49er T-shirt, talked about Allen as he crossed a bridge near Terminal Island. “He’s a celebrity, but he’s still down to earth. He talks about football, life, everything. It’s like driving your father around.”

An amiable, thick-necked man who played defensive back for Cal State Long Beach in the mid-1970s, Randolph is Allen’s right-hand man. He makes the 30- to 45-minute drive to Palos Verdes Estates twice a day, runs errands, takes telephone calls, helps with letters and makes sure the coach has his cap and whistle when he goes out to the practice field.

“It’s a lot of hours, and a lot of times I’m tired, but it’s all worth it,” said Randolph, who lives near the campus. “How many people get to work with a legend?”

For most of the 1980s, Randolph was an assistant coach at Rubidoux High School in Riverside. He returned to Long Beach a year ago, intent on acquiring a master’s degree and becoming a college coach. This season, Allen persuaded Randolph to be an administrative assistant.

“I like the job and I’ve learned a lot from him,” said Randolph, who gets his schooling free (he takes 12 units) and is paid about $100 a month. “As long as it’s dealing with football, I’m happy.”

As he drove on, Randolph said that Allen, when he gets into the car at night, will holler about what went wrong during a long day of rebuilding the football program. But, he said, the coach’s ire is rarely directed at him.

“When I do something wrong, he lectures me, but I don’t take it personally because I know he’s trying to make me a better person,” Randolph said. “The times you’d think he’d yell at you, he doesn’t.”

One of those times occurred last week when Randolph ran out of gasoline on the 405 Freeway in Carson about 9:30 p.m. “Ben, this never happened to me in my life,” Allen told his driver as they coasted down an off-ramp. Allen got out and flagged down a teen-ager who took Randolph to a gas station.

When Randolph returned with a dollar’s worth he had bought with money the coach had given him, Allen asked, “Cripe’s sake, are we going to be able to get started on that?”

“Well, coach,” Randolph replied, “he charged me $4 for the can and I only had $5.”

At 8 a.m. last Friday, when Randolph pulled up to Allen’s house--in a neighborhood of spectacular coastline views--Allen was out jogging. Fifteen minutes later, the coach returned with flowers for his wife, Etty. “I’ll be right out,” he said.

As pool men came and went, Randolph sat in the car and waited. He would have preferred to take a nap, but instead worked on what might eventually be part of his master’s thesis--the pros and cons of being a graduate assistant.

“I don’t (always) have time to go to class,” he said. “You’re constantly doing something for him all day. He can think of 10,000 things to do. But it’s my job.”

A little past 8:30, Allen came out. Etty, in her robe, followed and kissed him goodby. He got in the front seat and, as Randolph headed toward the 405, began leafing through his scouting report for the next day’s game against Boise State.

“I don’t like to drive, I like to work,” Allen said. “I’m not very good at directions, I get lost when I’m driving.”

Allen has long been accustomed to the smoothness of luxury sedans--he has had a driver since 1966, his first season as coach of the Rams. A car and driver were part of his contract when he coached the Washington Redskins, and at Cal State Long Beach, money for his commuting expenses are provided by the university foundation.

“It isn’t being luxurious, it’s not a status thing,” Allen said, dialing his office number on the car phone. “It’s a way to help us win.”

Allen looked over at Randolph and said, “I’ve helped so many guys like this. I call ‘em interns. If he works hard and is dedicated, he has a future in administration.”

And, Allen added as Randolph pulled into the campus, with plenty of gasoline to spare, “He’s a safe driver.”

Poly High Game Comes Home

Wally Johnson, 53, an exuberant backer of Poly High School who naturally was dressed in gold, ushered a visitor last Friday afternoon to the campus stadium, where Poly would play a football game for the first time since the late 1940s.

“This is great for the school, the community and the kids,” Johnson said as the Jackrabbits and Verbum Dei warmed up. “We really need this.”

Johnson, who lives near the school, which is at 1600 Atlantic Ave., is part of Poly’s large fan following. Most home games are played in Veterans Stadium, next to the McDonnell Douglas plant near Long Beach Municipal Airport, about five miles from the school. But Athletic Director Kirk Kennedy and co-coaches Jerry Jaso and Thomas Whiting have tried for some time to persuade school administrators to hold a game on campus.

“I like high school football in the afternoon,” Jaso said.

Why had it been so long since a game was played on the campus field?

“For a lot of years it was thought it was safer to play at Vets Stadium than to bring a game to the inner city,” Kennedy said. “And we don’t have the parking.”

It was an opportunity for the school to make money by selling its own concessions. At Veterans Stadium, Poly receives no concession money and has to pay a rental fee.

“And a lot of students don’t get a chance to go to evening games,” Kennedy added.

The game was selected for last Friday because Verbum Dei was not likely to bring many supporters and because the field does not have lights, which would prevent a game in late October.

Kennedy also used the occasion to hold an open house for boosters, who had each donated $150 for the refurbishment of a varsity locker room that now has fresh paint, new lockers and a sign proclaiming 61 CIF championships in all sports.

Beyond the field named for David (Daddy) Burcham, who had been a Poly principal for 34 years, Signal Hill shimmered in the distance. The gorgeous day was made even more colorful by the array of green-and-gold-clad cheerleaders, pepsters and band members.

Three xylophonists, thankful they did not have to lug the instruments to Veterans Stadium, got ready for the national anthem. One taped her hands, as a player might--”because my mallet handle is splintering.”

The cheerleaders held a big colorful banner that read: “Poly Will Beat Verbum Any Dei,” and through that the players burst.

The lone grandstand, about 20 yards long, 23 rows high and with a capacity of about 1,500, was pretty well filled by the time the game was six minutes old.

“This is nice,” said Johnson, who walked among the players, one of whom is his nephew, in front of the bench. “That’s a good crowd. A lot of students. Participation . . . that’s beautiful.”

He was also enthusiastic because Poly was ahead, 14-0.

The field itself appeared to have gone a while without water. The middle was mostly dirt. When Milton Frett ran 85 yards for another touchdown in the second quarter, he literally left defenders in the dust.

“Welcome to the Dust Bowl,” said Ron Palmer, the school’s basketball coach.

A man on the sidelines said that in the early 1940s there were seats all around the field, and that for games with archrival Wilson they were always filled.

But on the Verbum Dei side there were only a couple of small bleachers that had been moved over from the baseball diamond.

It was 28-0 at halftime, which pleased Johnson because Poly had scored only 14 points in its first three games.

“I’m just a guy who cares about the kids,” he said. “I like to see them do something positive instead of being out on the streets.”

Out on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, which was behind the Verbum Dei bench, spectators, some with bottles in paper bags, watched the game through a chain-link fence.

“We’re out here because they’re asking $4.50 to get in,” said one young man. “Everybody would be in there if it was only $2.” (The Moore League sets ticket prices at $4.50, $2 for students.)

The view from the fence--made hazy in the pale sun by clouds of dust and yard-line chalk that blew up after each play--was of the steep, shaded grandstand, whose top row held a line of silhouetted heads. The scoreboard was out of sight.

“What’s the score?” someone shouted through the fence.

It was 31-6.

It ended with Poly a 31-12 winner, and as drums pounded loudly for the last time, the players shook hands.

“It felt good to play here,” tight end Chris Love said. “It brought you back to Pop Warner times. All of us played on that field when we were little.”

The experimental afternoon had been a success, said Kennedy, who already is planning for another campus game next season.

Runner Wows ‘Em

Kathleen Looney, the 46-year-old runner who came to Whittier from Ireland, is having a successful season on the Rio Hondo College cross-country team.

Last Saturday, Looney finished third among 107 runners with a time of 18 minutes and 28 seconds in the Bakersfield College Invitational. “You should have seen the looks of amazement on the faces of all the young runners when she passed them,” Rio Hondo Coach Fred Mascorro said.

A week before, Looney finished second, despite the flu, in a Foothill Conference meet at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster. The winner was Gene Harvey of Antelope Valley, the defending women’s state champion.

Looney won the Fresno City College Invitational on Sept. 21.

Rio Hondo will compete at 2 p.m. Friday in a meet at Irvine Park in Orange.