Public, Private Pride at Stake in Big Game

Along one sideline, dressed in red and white, the Mater Dei Monarchs, champions of the Serra League.

Along the other sideline, dressed in green and gold, the Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits, champions of the Moore League and defenders of public schools, democracy and the free world.

That’s the billing for the Southern Section Division I football championship tonight, even if the Edison Field marquee doesn’t read exactly like that. It’s Poly (13-0), a good school with a good football team, against Mater Dei (11-2), a good school with a good football team that many people love to hate.

“We take that with great pride, that we are seen as No. 1,” Mater Dei Principal Patrick Murphy said. “When you’re No. 1, everyone wants to knock you off your pillar.

“We are kind of the Notre Dame of high schools. Half the people cheer for us and half hope we lose.”

Poly beat Mater Dei for the 1997 Division I title; Mater Dei beat Poly for the title last year. And, if you believe there’s nothing more than a championship banner at stake tonight, listen to Poly Principal Mel Collins.

“After the ’97 championship, we got calls and letters and e-mails from all over the country saying, ‘Way to go! Public schools!’ That 1997 team did so much for public institutions,” Collins said.

“Even the guys in Orange County said we did a great job.”

The public schools in Orange County got so tired of competing with Mater Dei that their principals, as members of the league realignment committee, voted the Monarchs out of the public school leagues and into the Serra League, comprised entirely of Catholic schools. The Orange County schools increasingly refused to schedule Mater Dei for nonleague games too, forcing the Monarchs to travel to Fresno and Stockton this season and lose to state powers Clovis West and Concord De La Salle.

“I play club volleyball with a lot of kids that go to other schools,” Mater Dei senior Brandt Wicke said. “When we lost to De La Salle, they were just totally going off on me, all practice long.

“Everybody that goes to other schools loves it when we lose. You never hear the end of it.”

Why? The Mater Dei campus, crammed into a corner of Santa Ana, is spartan compared to the newer, greener, roomier public schools in, say, South Orange County. But that doesn’t stop rivals from branding Mater Dei as the rich private school. During the week preceding last year’s Mater Dei-Poly game, a helicopter buzzed the Poly campus.

“It was red and white,” said Poly student body president Bruce Tran. “Some people just assumed it was from Mater Dei.”

No one has ever proved that Mater Dei recruits football players, but that doesn’t stop rivals from making that charge about, oh, once a minute. The claims amuse and annoy Murphy, especially in this new era of open enrollment. Poly’s enrollment is 4,600, more than twice that of Mater Dei’s, and Poly draws from all over Long Beach, the fifth-largest city in California.

“With open enrollment, the argument about Mater Dei recruiting is even more bogus,” Murphy said. “Kids can go to any school they want. We’re at a disadvantage because we charge tuition.”

Back to you, Principal Collins.

“I’m not able to pay a lot to my assistant coaches. They have large booster programs to offset some of those expenses,” Collins said. “We just try to keep pace. I think we do a good job.”

Actually, Poly does such a good job that you wonder why the other Long Beach schools don’t despise the Jackrabbits the same way Orange County rivals root against Mater Dei. The Jackrabbits haven’t lost a league game in five years.

“Well, nobody will play us on their homecoming,” Poly activities director Terry Speir said. “We never get to see what anybody else does for their homecoming.”

If the other Long Beach schools resent Poly’s success, Poly students say they don’t hear about it. On the contrary, they say, Long Beach unites behind the city’s best team. Last weekend in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade, Poly senior Silvia Trigoso said, the Poly band and drill team marched as spectators yelled, “Beat Mater Dei!”

“And that’s the Wilson [High] area,” Trigoso said. “That’s not even our area.”

Each school celebrates its tradition, with a loyal support base that extends beyond the student body to alumni and community members. The Monarchs depend upon that support, Murphy said, since the football program generates enough revenue to pay for the rest of the school’s athletic program.

At Mater Dei, football players return to campus after each game and join fellow students in a group prayer. At Poly, a school that opened its doors in 1895, alumni from decades past flock to campus to buy tickets for the championship game. The other day, Trigoso was stunned to meet an alumnus from the World War II era.

“Wow,” she said. “That makes him, like, 60 years old.”

All jabs aside, the principals and coaching staffs say they respect their rivals immensely. Before the game, student council members from both schools plan to join hands on the field in a gesture of sportsmanship.

Of course, sportsmanship is a wonderful thing, but recall the banner Poly students unveiled after the victory over Mater Dei two years ago. It read: “Who Says Public Schools Can’t Play?”