Caffrey Returns, Whittier Christian Reloads : Small schools: Veteran coach in charge of Heralds again. With only 14 seniors, he’ll try to maintain momentum of a perfect season.

LA HABRA —  Resting comfortably in the high-back chair behind the wooden desk in his office, the ever-present cowboy hat on his head, Tom Caffrey looked like a page out of the Bum Phillips scrapbook.

Which is not altogether a bad thing. Phillips, the former Houston Oiler and New Orleans Saint coach who had a penchant for Western attire, put together a few good teams in his time. And he probably wouldn’t have minded being compared to Caffrey when it comes to building successful football programs.

Caffrey, who returns as the Whittier Christian head coach after five seasons as an assistant to Phil Bravo, took the Heralds to Southern Section championships in 1979, ’83 and ’84 and to four Olympic League titles. He brings a 109-41 record and a regenerated enthusiasm that might spell trouble for opposing teams.

“I’m fit and raring to go,” said Caffrey, who has been the boys’ athletic director at the school for 19 years.

The Heralds can’t improve much on last year, when they went 13-0 and won the Olympic League and the Division IX championship under Bravo, who now coaches in Lafayette, Colo. Along with Division III champion Esperanza, they were the only undefeated team in Orange County.

But Whittier Christian can try to equal that effort, and the school’s administration knew exactly who to put in charge of the task when Bravo decided to leave.

“He (Bravo) always wanted to move to another area. We had always talked about me taking it (the program) back if he moved,” Caffrey said. “They offered me the position and I accepted.”

Caffrey, a former standout offensive tackle at Occidental College, coached the Whittier Christian offensive linemen after resigning the head coaching position in 1985. He said not being the head coach the past five years wasn’t a problem, but the old juices began percolating again after Bravo left.

“It wasn’t too difficult because he (Bravo) was one of my former players and philosophically we agreed on almost everything, at least in the area of X’s and O’s,” said Caffrey, who is also the school’s baseball coach. “We continued the winning tradition at the school and things went real well.”

How things shape up this season depends partly on whether the junior-dominated squad (there are only 14 seniors and five sophomores among the 43 players) can handle the challenge of maintaining the momentum that has produced 24 victories in the past 25 games. That’s one of Caffrey’s main concerns.

“I hope we’re not rebuilding. I hope we’re reloading,” he said. “I hope we’ll be competitive.”

Caffrey said he’ll rely heavily on the team’s traditionally potent power-I running game but will mix in an occasional run-and-shoot setup because “we have a real great throwing quarterback (junior Chad Callahan, last year’s backup to all-leaguer Nick Sanchez) and great wide receivers.”

This team, however, will be hard-pressed to match the scoring prowess of Herald teams the past few seasons. Last year, Whittier Christian averaged 42.2 points, an increase of four points per game over the previous season. The Heralds scored fewer than 33 points only once (in a 14-0 victory over Mammoth) and had a season-high 55 points against Orange Lutheran.

But the Herald defense was much more charitable last season than Caffrey would like, allowing nearly 19 points per game and twice put the team on the brink of defeat, even though Whittier Christian had scored more than 40 points (a 41-40 victory over Dos Pueblos and 44-43 victory over California).

“We’re going to have to improve our defensive game considerably,” Caffrey said.

If that happens, the Heralds have a good chance for another league title, perhaps even more.

That would make Caffrey one happy cowboy.