Estancia’s Fab Five smart too

Just the other day, Estancia High Coach C.K. Green couldn’t grasp what one of his players told him during a baseball game.

It was one of those players Green depends on being an extra set of coach’s eyes. Not because he’s a young coach at 25, but one look inside the Eagles’ dugout explains why he turns to his players often.

“We don’t have enough coaches,” said Green, looking around to find his lone assistant in Dave Daniels.

He spotted Daniels throwing batting practice, but with high school baseball teams normally having three coaches at their disposal, Green has had to rely on five players for help.

These five are what he has dubbed as “player-coaches.”

But Green said the right eye of one of his player-coaches was in bad shape after taking a one-hop throw in the eye recently. When Taylor McClanahan explained his situation, Green tried to listen.

“I guess his one eye, the actual level of his eye was pushed up a little bit, so it’s off a little bit,” Green said. “He keeps telling me more. I’m like, ‘Sure, whatever.’ That’s not my [expertise] at all. I think he’s going to be a doctor.”

Green is correct, and in his second full year as coach, he not only carries an aspiring doctor in McClanahan, but a hopeful Navy officer in Ryan Maxwell, a hopeful pediatrician in Tim Morley, a hopeful sports psychologist in Blake Pinto, and a hopeful professional baseball player in Trevor McDonald.

Meet Estancia’s Fab Five. Now it makes sense why Green consults with these five seniors on game strategy.

Accepting these five students have been such colleges as UC Berkeley, UCLA, Ohio State, UC San Diego, Pepperdine, UC Irvine, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Wesleyan in Middletown, Conn., UC Santa Barbara, Arizona, Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego, Arizona State, Nebraska and San Francisco State.

The players’ grades served as tickets into these schools. Baseball wasn’t a factor.

“Some of them are probably smarter than I am,” Green said.

The intelligence has sparked the Eagles, who with two wins this year in the Orange Coast League have surpassed last year’s league win total.

Do the math. Doesn’t takes a genius to figure out two league victories is better than one.

With the progress in league, where Estancia is 2-4 and tied for third place with Laguna Beach, Green has already seen Estancia (7-11) equal the overall win total from last season.

The reason for the turnaround and the team thinking playoffs for the first time in a long time can also attest to players finally viewing Green, a 2000 Estancia alumnus, as its coach and not a peer.

“I can understand them and I can relate to them, but it presented a challenge to control them, to get them what I want them to do,” Green said. “They’ve matured and they’re leaders now.”

By the team’s account, the smartest of the quintet is McClanahan.

Green said McClanahan is on Harvard’s waiting list. UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and Pepperdine have accepted him, and Point Loma Nazarene has offered a scholarship.

The only thing higher than McClanahan’s 4.0 grade-point average is his 7.85 earned-run average.

Still, no one will argue against the pitcher and first baseman.

The only knock is McClanahan’s not playing right now. Green said McClanahan will most likely miss the remainder of the season due to his eye injury and he might have surgery to repair the eye.

A tough break for the four-year varsity player, but Green said he has the perfect spot for him on the team — bench coach. McClanahan can digest pitching tendencies, examine defenses, and watch for holes in hitters’ swings.

“When he’s in the dugout, he commands respect from everybody,” Green said. “He knows when to speak, and he knows when to be a leader, and he knows when it’s time to not say anything and go about his business.

“He’s one of those guys that any coach would want on his team.”

Green holds the other four in high regard.

The most vocal of the five is Morley, the left fielder who played middle linebacker for the football team. Green calls Morley the ideal leader. Morley downplays the coach’s label, saying the reason Green calls him a leader is because, “I have a really loud voice.”

Teammates hear him loud and clear, but it’s because the teenager with the 3.83 GPA and 2000 Scholastic Aptitude Test score has something to offer.

Just as Morley said he wants to work with children as a pediatrician and “bridge the gap between, ‘I’m afraid of the doctor’ to ‘it’s all good’” with the doctor, Morley is always looking to lend a hand.

“I feel like I can help people realize how could they can be,” said Morley, adding that he learned to guide at an early age watching others not wanting to assume the role. “If no one is going to do it, someone’s got to do it. Just kind of suck it up and take care of business.”

Morley doesn’t mess around. He stands by his decisions, and he’ll be making a tough one on May 1. On that day, Morley said he has to decide whether to attend UCLA, or Wesleyan, which the second school is offering him some money and the opportunity to continue to play football.

Green said Morley, whose .346 batting average and nine RBIs ranks second on the team, would be fine with whatever choice he makes.

“He might not be the best at the actual sport,” Green said, “but he’s the best leader.”

Two other players who’ve led the Eagles are McDonald and Pinto, easily to Green the purest athletes on the team.

The multi-sport athletes say they will mostly likely attend Point Loma Nazarene next year. McDonald, who said he has a 3.5 GPA, will go out for baseball and Pinto, who said he has a 3.0 GPA, basketball.

Leading up to the baseball season, Green said he knew what to expect from McDonald. Pinto, on the other hand, was a mystery.

McDonald, the hard-throwing catcher, played for Green last year and has been a four-year varsity player. As for Pinto, he decided to forgo baseball his junior year to concentrate on basketball.

Before their senior year, though, Pinto agreed with McDonald that he’d come out for baseball, which he played his first two years, only if McDonald joined the basketball team in the winter.

The timing posed a problem for McDonald. During the winter, he played on Estancia’s water polo team, earning second-team all-league honors as a junior.

But McDonald, who dreams of playing in the major leagues like his uncle and former Estancia standout Rich Amaral did for 10 years, took Pinto’s offer.

“I said, ‘All right,’” said McDonald, unsure of what he was getting into.

The basketball season turned ugly for the Eagles after starting 2-4. McDonald had no choice but try to stay up during a 20-game losing streak that closed out Estancia’s season at 2-24. There was no pool for McDonald to duck his head under and hide.

The player who asked McDonald to exchange Speedos for shorts almost found himself off the team for talking back to coaches.

“I heard plenty,” Green said. “I didn’t have to see anything.”

Green said Pinto hasn’t disrupted the team chemistry with the outbursts he displayed on the court. Can it have something to do with baseball’s slower pace?

“Baseball is less intense, and for somebody like Blake, that’s a good thing,” Green said. “We laid down some expectations for him, and he said, ‘OK.’”

Pinto’s shown his value, playing a variety of positions, from third base to shortstop, as well as starting and relieving on the mound.

The laid-back approach has worked. He leads the team with a .433 batting average and 26 hits.

If you would’ve asked him he’d be off to a hot start, Pinto would’ve been shocked.

“It usually takes me like a month to get back into it. I just came right back in. It’s pretty fun [to play baseball]. I forgot how fun it is,” Pinto said. “Usually I come on a baseball team and you know after the first couple of games, you’re like, ‘Ugh.’ You’re looking at the other team, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a team I’d want to be on, [the players] all look solid.’

“This year is the first year I’ve been on a team where it’s like, ‘Wow! You don’t want to switch teams.’”

McDonald agrees with Pinto. The results are improving the atmosphere with Estancia’s baseball program.

This might be the year Estancia ends cross-town rival Costa Mesa’s five-year run in claiming the Paul Troxel Trophy, given to the series’ winner.

The Eagles are 2-0 against the Mustangs, beating them, 3-2, in extra innings at home, and 10-4 on the road. Two more league games between the two remain. They’ll close out the regular season against each other.

“Everybody is really coming together,” said McDonald, whose .345 batting average ranks third on the team and 14 runs tie him with Pinto for second. “It’s never happened before in my four years at Estancia.”

Another thing that hasn’t happened at Estancia during Green’s time as an Eagles’ player and coach is seeing a player turn down five full-ride academic college scholarships.

Maxwell stunned Green when the first baseman rejected offers from Ohio State, University of South Florida, Arizona, Arizona State and Nebraska.

The place Maxwell wants to attend is the prestigious U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He said he’d learn if he gets in by Sunday.

These next couple of days will be stressful for Maxwell, who longs to be a part of the Navy because he said his late grandfather, John Speaker, served in the Navy during World War II.

The application process for the academy was more rigorous than the rest of the four player-coaches applying to their respective schools in November.

“I had to get a nomination from a congressman. I got it from … [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher [R-Huntington Beach],” said Maxwell, adding that Rohrabacher has a slate of 10 people he chooses from the 46th District to send out to the academy. “I had an interview [with] … a Navy captain and a guy from the Air Force.

“I had the letter of recommendation from two teachers [at Estancia]. I have to have two teachers’ [letter of recommendations] for the academy, and also have to have two teachers’ [letter of recommendation] for the congressman himself. There’s a fitness assessment, and I actually did that at the academy.”

A lot of work. To Maxwell it’s all worth it.

Maxwell said learning how his grandpa was submarined off Australia during World War II influenced his decision to want to become an officer.

If he doesn’t get in, Maxwell, who scored a 2000 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT, plans to reapply.

“I’m going to apply all the way up until 23,” said Maxwell, adding that he has GPA around 3.7. “I had my mind set on the academy exclusively. I’ve lived near the ocean all my life and I aspire to lead my country through its conflicts and times of trouble.”

Green admires Maxwell’s determination. At the same time, his decision surprised him.

“Who gives up a full ride to any of those five schools for the Naval Academy?” said Green, adding that he never encountered such opportunities after high school as he attended Orange Coast College before graduating from Long Beach State. “I told him the other day, ‘[You’re] a genius or a fool.’ He just kind of laughed.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he couldn’t understand one of his five player-coaches.