PREP WEDNESDAY : Coaches’ Lament: Day’s Work for an Hour’s Pay : Yet Despite Frustrations, Many of Them Remain in This All-Consuming Profession

Five months of the year, Gary Bowden, a reasonable 41-year-old with Popeye forearms and a master’s degree in classical Greek, is unreasonably consumed by high school wrestling.

Bowden, a coach at Canyon High School for the past 15 seasons, puts in about 40 hours a week coaching, counseling, raising funds, checking eligibility, picking up dirty sweats and riding buses. When he isn’t coaching, he’s thinking about coaching. As he goes about household duties, he’s piecing together next season’s team. His devotion has helped make Canyon one of the state’s top programs, with eight Southern Section championships and one state championship.

It wasn’t too long ago that Bowden, who was home for a rare weekend during the season, was approached by his 3-year-old son, Johnny, who asked, “Daddy, are you here?”

“He couldn’t believe I was around,” Bowden said. “It’s times like that that make me think I’m crazy to be coaching.”

It’s a widespread feeling among coaches. Cutting across lines of sex, age and sport, high school coaches put in long hours for little money and for rewards that many times are so subtle that only they know how or why they continue.

Of 188 Orange County varsity coaches responding to a Times questionnaire, many paint a picture of an individual overworked, second-guessed and underpaid. Many also believe that the demands in Orange County are even greater than those in other regions because of the county’s affluence and achievement-oriented population.

Coaches say they stay in it for the kids. They enjoy the opportunity to get closer and have a greater influence on a child’s life than most teachers. As Bowden says, “After putting your head in someone’s armpit, you can’t help but be close.”

Experts who have studied coaching say that those who stay with it do so because of certain personality traits that demand it.

“I know it’s what I was meant to do,” Bowden said. “But the question is, is it the best thing for me?”

Bowden says the amount of time coaching takes away from his family “will probably be the factor that ends my career,” and he estimates that time is coming soon.

How soon?

“Well, I’ll definitely do it for another three seasons,” he said. “I have these really great kids coming up . . . “

Bowden, like most coaches, believes his strength as a coach is derived from his ability as a teacher. One of the most commonly used phrases in the profession is, “A good coach is a good teacher.”

But unlike other teachers, a coach’s classroom is a public place. He wins, loses, acts brilliantly or fails miserably with an audience around him.

No one keeps score in world history.

“You’re graded every game,” said John Hattrup, a former girls’ basketball coach at Mission Viejo and now an assistant with the Brea-Olinda girls’ team. “A history teacher is evaluated maybe twice a year. (A coach is) evaluated every time your team comes out to run through warmup drills.”

One of the most demanding critics is usually the coach. Dr. Bruce Oglivie, a San Jose-based clinical psychologist who has worked in the sports field for 30 years, said he has determined 68 personality traits of high school coaches, one of which is an intense “need to compete.”

Oglivie said: “These people were brought up competing; it’s one of their greatest pleasures in life. It’s something that gives them focus.”

Hattrup, an exceptional high school point guard at Mission Viejo who went on to play at Saddleback College, says the same competitive spirit that drove him then is driving him now. He spends about 50 hours a week scouting, putting together game plans, looking for an edge, thinking about basketball every waking hour and beyond.

“I’ve awakened in the middle of the night and thought, ‘I bet that offense would work,’ ” Hattrup said. “It’s in your blood. It’s the competition. You live for that; it’s something I like to do. But it may not be the best thing for me.”

In fact, Hattrup says the only time he can relax is when he’s watching someone else coach on television.

“Then it’s someone else’s problem,” he said.

Aside from the internal pressures, Orange County athletics present a brutal pace to keep up with. Year-round programs are commonplace in many sports and are necessary, coaches say, to succeed.

Resources available here--money, support, money--make possible team trips to other states and sometimes other countries. The Mater Dei basketball team is planning a trip to Australia.

Money also means increasingly sophisticated facilities and equipment. Hack Mitchell, the first-year Western baseball coach, took his team to play at Valencia High early this season. When he returned, all he heard from players and parents was talk about Valencia’s fine field and batting tunnels. They questioned why Western didn’t have as nice a setup.

“There’s a lot of pressure to keep up with what other schools are doing,” Mitchell said. “It’s the socioeconomic reality of the county. . . . Parents here aren’t going to accept someone having something better or an advantage over their kid. When they ask you, ‘Why can’t my kid have that?’, you better have an answer or go out and get it.”

And there are times when parents’ wants are much more basic, having to do with wins and losses and the amount of playing time their children are receiving.

“You have successful parents, and there’s a transference in what they have done to how they relate to their kids,” said Chris Conlin, wrestling and girls’ track and field coach at University High in Irvine. “I think there’s a belief that if their kids aren’t successful, it means they did a bad job in raising them.”

Conlin was the baseball coach at University two seasons ago, but he says he was forced out by parents who didn’t like his style.

“I was fine with the kids. It was the parents I couldn’t manage,” he said.

A deep love for what they are doing pushes coaches, especially young ones, to do things others might consider unreasonable. Oglivie likens young coaches to young police officers--idealistic and energetic--but notes that as years go by and the job wears on a person, the sheen fades.

“The longer you coach, the wins aren’t quite as exciting and the losses seem to hurt more,” said Bill Cunerty, a Saddleback College football assistant who was a head coach at Dana Hills and Capistrano Valley.

Yet coaches keep at it. Because a high school coach’s success depends on the decisions made by young people 14 to 18 years old--people going through a period of rapid change in their lives--most coaches believe that the only way to ensure success is to be prepared, and the only way to be prepared is to put in long hours.

Of those responding to The Times’ questionnaire, 55% said they spent 16-29 hours coaching per week. Another 20% said they spent 30-39 hours. Considering that coaching stipends in Orange County usually range from $1,500 to $2,500 for a season, it’s not surprising that 86% of coaches responding to the survey said their salary was not commensurate with what was expected of them. Bowden figured he made 27 cents an hour.

But then, no one expects to get rich by coaching and teaching in high school.

Jack Kennedy, Edison High principal, said that when he interviews a candidate for a coaching position, the subject of money never comes up.

“It’s a given that the money will be insignificant,” he said.

Ed Graham, basketball coach at Troy, says he’s trying to decide on a “stopping point,” having thought about all the time and effort he has put into coaching and wondering what that kind of commitment would mean in another job.

“Probably a whole lot of money.”

But Graham remains at Troy, pointing out that in May, six months before the start of the high school basketball season, he is organizing fund-raising and setting up summer leagues and tournaments for four levels, from freshman to varsity.

“You work 11 months a year,” Graham said. “You take August off, unless you’re running a camp. I think a lot of us must be crazy. It’s ridiculous, but I love the game.”

Martin Luczaj was one of the county’s hottest young football coaches, leading Fullerton to a Central Conference championship at age 31. But he was lured away from coaching by a job selling homes in Mission Viejo. He said the money was good, but he missed coaching.

“The temptation to get back was too great,” he said.

Luczaj is back at Fullerton, now coaching the varsity baseball team.

“I guess coaches are different,” he said. “That’s the only way I can describe it.”

Which is just about how Dr. Dennis Selder, who has taught sports psychology for the past 20 years at San Diego State University, explains the amount of time and effort coaches are willing to put into their jobs.

“Time means nothing to a high school coach,” he said. “He has a love relationship with his job. It has a fulfillment that goes beyond time and money. The competition, the close relationships with kids, the control and power, these people find an expression of their personality in this work. When you find something like that, hours, money, they don’t mean anything.”

Though long hours and little money are givens, many complain that they are taken away from whatever game they love, from actually coaching, for other, less desirable, duties.

“A coach is no longer (just) a coach,” said Paul Bottiaux, a Cypress College basketball assistant who coached at Sonora for 10 years. “He’s a custodian, a fund-raiser, a trainer, an equipment man and, in his spare time, he gets to coach.”

Bottiaux cited those responsibilities as part of the reason he left Sonora for Cypress.

“It’s fun to walk on the floor and start coaching immediately and not worry about being a custodian.”

Even some of those who enthusiastically embrace their broader roles have been burned.

Paul Perez began the Los Amigos wrestling program 13 years ago and was ready to set the world on fire. “Gung ho,” he calls it.

He stayed late after practices with kids who wanted additional help, he worked with kids on their homework, wrote letters to colleges for them and even made sure they got their daily dose of vitamin C. Then, one day, Perez went to what he thought was a bottomless well of energy and found it dry.

“I needed to back off,” he said. “You keep giving and giving because you love the kids, but one day you find out you have nothing left to give.”

So Perez, who says he hopes to leave coaching soon to become an athletic director, has learned to pace himself through a season.

“What good is a basket-case coach?”

And what good is a part-time spouse or parent?

If devoting more time to your student-athletes is the action, then the reaction is that you spend less time at home with your family.

Every coach knows of at least one relationship, or marriage, that has broken up because of coaching. Many times, those getting into a relationship with a coach don’t realize the incredible time demands.

“They think, well, it’s just a game; how could you possibly place so much emphasis on a game?” said Dan DeLeon, El Toro baseball coach. DeLeon said his seven-year marriage ended in divorce partially because of his coaching.

Steve Glassey, Mater Dei wrestling coach, said he and his wife have no problems when it comes to his job.

“She knows wrestling comes first; she doesn’t try to compete with it,” he said. “She puts up with it. She knows it’s the love of my life, my sanity.”

DeLeon recognizes that the arrangement requires “two very understanding people.”

But, he concedes, when the ultimate question of why is asked, a person can only plead his personality.

“You have to pretty much say, ‘Hey, this is the way I am.’ ”