SPORTS
By Mitch Lehman

BILL MALONEY swears that this is his last season coaching football at San Marino High School, and even though he has proven me wrong on no less than three previous accounts, I believe him. But then again, I believed him on each of the three previous occasions.
His fellow Rio Hondo League football coaches are seemingly quite eager to see Maloney in their rear view mirrors, according to at least one account of Tuesday night’s all-league meeting at Blair High School, where South Pasadena’s Ed Smith, La Cañada’s Rich Wheeler, Temple City’s Mike Mooney, Monrovia’s Steve Garrison and Blair’s Kevin Mills made Maloney swear he would not come back for another run next fall or they would not even consider a Titan for all-league selection.
“That’s it, boys,” Maloney muttered under his breath with the characteristic wry grin and wave of his hand.
Who can blame them for trying to get a sworn deposition out of the legendary Titan coach. Even with an undermanned, undersized – and that’s undermanned and undersized even by San Marino’s standards – group of players with relatively little football experience, Maloney came three yards from winning another league championship when the Titans were stopped at the goal line by eventual top dog Temple City two Fridays past.
Still, Maloney was able to get the two dozen whose names occasionally appear in the program to the CIF Playoffs one last time when San Marino shut out Monrovia 12-0 last Friday night at Titan Stadium to run the Titans’ league mark to 3-2.
Some could argue that, despite an overall record 108-53-4, 8 Rio Hondo League Championships, a CIF Championship and three more trips to the title game, this season just might be his finest as a coach. After a throw-away league opening loss at South Pasadena, Maloney was able to guide his boys to the precipice of yet another championship towards the end of a season where he was afforded little chance. Afforded little chance by those other than himself, that is.

When all is said and done, remember that Bill Maloney was doing San Marino a favor. Most thought they’d seen the last of the Prairie Dog a year ago when the Titans finished 2002 with a competitive first round playoff loss at El Segundo. Then-head Coach Rich Enright was calling it quits and the San Marino High School administration appeared to be on track to hire a long-term replacement. Enter Frank Jimenez, a former college quarterback who outdistanced three other candidates and seemed sincere about taking the reins of a program where the mere numbers fly in the face of long-range success.
But in July, Jimenez bolted for what he felt was a better deal at the University of Arizona – in retrospect, a sick prank given the Wildcats’ fortunes this fall – and just like that, a return to Maloney, Kleinrock, McNamee and Mills et al provided San Marino’s best opportunity for a quick fix, given the players’ familiarity with the system. Maloney agreed to leave the plains of Montana for one last season, but knew he would soon address one of the most inexperienced football teams fielded by San Marino High since the school opened its doors in 1952.
Add to that the scattered clouds of last year’s “scandal,” when Maloney “participated” in a game from which he had been suspended for conduct unbecoming. Maloney steadfastly denies doing anything other than playing the peacemaker last September at the end of a controversial 17-13 loss against Burbank. Film and eyewitness reports seem to favor Maloney’s recollection on the matter, but the San Gabriel Valley officiating powers-that-be demanded Maloney take a week off for unspecified offenses.
To add further fuel to the fire, the final decision regarding Maloney’s suspension wasn’t given to San Marino officials until the night before Maloney was ordered to stay off the sidelines – the night before a game for which Maloney had spent the previous week preparing his charges.
While Maloney regrets his decision to scout the game from a nearby location, the specious suspension still sticks in his craw. If nothing else, the 2003 campaign has given Maloney – as well as everyone associated with Titan football – an opportunity to put the unfortunate escapade in the past.
“I think this year has been very good for Bill,” said longtime Athletic Director and assistant Coach Mickey McNamee. “He had pretty much decided that he wasn’t coming back but when the situation arose, he was willing to bail us out. I think this has been good for both Bill and the players. It seems as though both Bill and the players see this as a final chance to prove something and they are both responding well to the challenge.”

He has bounced around from place to place since returning to Southern California in mid-August. His first accommodations, an un-air conditioned guest house nestled up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in Monrovia, was so oppressive in the unseasonable heat that he had to pack his bags and retreat to a motel across the street from Santa Anita Race Track. Maloney was unceremoniously kicked out of his room for three days in October when management was able to garner top dollar during the track’s Breeder’s Cup weekend.
In fact, a pillow and blanket are conspicuously stashed in a corner near the couch in San Marino High School’s football office, but I don’t have the heart to ask him if he has reached the point where he has to spend the night there.
One imagines Maloney camped out on the couch, rising in the middle of the night and heading outdoors to stretch his legs and get a breath of fresh air, bumping into the poor unsuspecting fool who has wandered onto the campus for a little vandalism, only to come face-to-face with the former AAU boxing champion with the right cross and right-crossing nose to prove it.
One imagines...

This is not your older brother’s Bill Maloney. Dare we even use the word “mellowed.” The lion still roars, but as the seasons have passed, he also takes better care of his young. No doubt a different Maloney has emerged from the rough and tumble character from which his sufficient legend has been formed.
Every single San Marino High School football player who ever took the field under his command has at least a half-dozen Maloney stories ready to recite at a moment’s notice, and none of them have to do with their coach treating the team to Girl Scout cookies and milk. But the tales are always recounted with respect, even reverence. When Maloney retired the first time, a steady stream of former players took a turn at the microphone, each trying to outwit the other with pearls of Maloney lore.
The day before San Marino’s showdown with Temple City, I spent an hour and a half in the aforementioned coaches office with Maloney as he reflected on the season up to that point. An easy smile washed over his face as he preached the good news.
“The kids have really come around,” he said with a chuckle. “They have reached the point where all they want to do is go out and play football. I really have to hand it to them. They have worked hard and they have come about as far as any team I have ever coached.”
I asked Maloney for a comment on each and every player who appeared on a shiny new team picture he had just tacked up over his desk. A steady stream of compliments emanated from the mouth of a man more famous for his expletives.
Especially when the subject turned to senior Adam Monte, a special teams specialist who sat out the first half of the year because of injury, and who at that very moment, in Maloney’s own words, seemed to epitomize every good thing about high school football. His response might have justified the coach’s entire career.
“That kid has the greatest attitude,” Maloney said of Monte. “He will do anything to be a part of this team. While he has been hurt he has served as equipment manager, assistant coach, scout...everything. He will do anything to make this team better. He studies the films like he is going to start at quarterback. He is one helluva kid,” Maloney said, shaking his head in amazement.

Mike Mooney has possibly seen Bill Maloney from more sides than anyone else in the local football community. Mooney has;
a) Played against Maloney-coached teams;
b) Coached on Maloney’s staff;
c) Had Maloney on his own coaching staff; and,
d) Coached against Maloney.
The one think Mooney won’t miss is coaching against his former mentor. But as Maloney fades into the Big Sky sunset, a part of his legacy will live on through the coaching style of his former pupil.
“There is no finer man than Bill Maloney and his impact will always be stamped upon me as I work with other young men,” Mooney declared. “I have so much respect and admiration for Bill and it was a big compliment when he brought me into the fold. Not only does it have to do with him tactically,with all of the x’s and the o’s, but what Bill is able to instill in his kids competitively is unbelievable. Case in point, look at the final two games of the season. He was able to stand with the biggest, quickest teams in the league and he darn near beat us both. It is a compliment not only to Bill but to the kids. Bill gets to the core of what it is like to compete and to maximize ones’ potential, and I don’t think there is anybody better at maximizing potential from a coaching standpoint than Bill Maloney.”
Mooney has also seen a different side to the often coarse Maloney.
“The thing that I’ll miss the most about him and it is the thing that most people don’t see, it’s that just below that gruff exterior he has an absolute heart of gold,” Mooney said. “There is nothing he wouldn’t do for any player or coach or anyone who works for him. He will give the shirt off his back to help somebody out.”
Mooney pointed to an incident that happened after the last game of Maloney’s first stint as head coach, in November, 1996, when Titan senior Court Chillingworth was taken to the hospital with a lacerated spleen hours after the final game of the season at La Cañada.
“Bill was the first person to Arcadia Methodist Hospital and he spent two hours with Court after he heard he had been taken in,” Mooney recounted. “Court wrote an essay about the experience which helped him get into Stanford, so it’s very obvious how much it meant to the young man. Bill Maloney had a positive effect on Court’s life and he has had a positive effect on the lives of hundreds of other young men as well.”

Few, if any, know more about defensive football than Bill Maloney. To steal a phrase once attributed to basketball Coach Bobby Knight, Maloney has “forgotten more about the game than everyone else combined is ever going to know.”
Several years ago, a few weeks after a painful loss to Monrovia – led that night by current UCLA tailback Akil Harris – I asked Maloney if Monrovia’s complex offensive formations has posed a problem for the Titans.
“Problem?” Maloney shot back. “Problem?”
It was like I had asked to see his badge.
He don’t need no stinking badges and Monrovia’s offense pose no stinking problems, at least in the wizard-like mind of Bill Maloney.
“It’s simple,” Maloney growled as he licked his finger and began to draw a play on the fire door of Dingus Fieldhouse while a Titan basketball game took place just a few feet away. Maloney proceeded to explain how “simple” it is to cage the Cats offensively, a theorem he was able to prove once again last friday night, some seven years after he gave me that first lesson.

Few, if any, have shared the sideline with Maloney more than Loren Kleinrock, who has served as offensive coordinator while Maloney concentrated on his treasured defenders. The two occasionally bicker over the details of the game; Maloney wants Kleinrock to call riskier plays more likely to result in first downs, first downs which keep the Titan defense off the field. Kleinrock might be more likely to punt and play it safe if confronted by less-than-ideal field position. Whatever the case, mutual respect governs their relationship.
“Over the years, Bill has accomplished an ability to take kids who aren’t the biggest or the fastest and make them competitive,” Kleinrock said. “This year is a great example of that. We have been smaller than every team and yet we have been competitive. The Monrovia game serves as a microcosm of his defensive coaching skills over his career. To hold a team that is bigger and faster and had good field position all night and then to shut them out speaks volumes of what Bill is able to accomplish.”
“But Bill simply puts in more time and effort to get our kids prepared for what they will face on Friday night,” Kleinrock continued. “His is the model of what a strong work ethic is all about. The kids know there is nobody that will outwork him and that there is a correlation in the bigger picture of life between preparation, hard work and success.”