Lightning atop Newport Coast

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT COAST - One of these days, Sage Hill School football coach

Tom Monarch and his staff of two, Mike Marchetti and Al Korn, will look

back on this inaugural 2000 season and enjoy a good laugh.

Besides, from the students’ point of view, if it wasn’t meant to be

fun and part of the total Sage Hill experience -- encompassing student

balance in athletics, arts and academics -- it wouldn’t be part of the

curriculum.

So football is not a matter of winning here at Orange County’s newest

high school. Not yet, anyway.

The first private nondenominational school in the county, however, is

certainly on its way to special things with a gorgeous facility in the

Newport Coast hills, a high-end, high-tech, warm-and-fuzzy setting for

the meager tuition price of $14,000 a year.

But, aside from the glitz and glamour of Sage Hill’s stunning

surroundings and ocean views, and a courtyard that resembles an Ivy

League school with limestone archways and umbrellas on the patio, the

Sage Hill athletic department believes one day the football program will

compete with the best high schools in the area.

And, yes, that includes Newport Harbor.

For now, Monarch is not teaching his young Lightning players to bolt

downfield with reckless abandon on defense, because most of the players

are so green, they’re asking the coach the difference between offense and

defense.

“We aren’t working on any complicated screen plays and I’m not

teaching them how to cross block,” Monarch said. “Instead, I’m teaching

them how to get in a three-point stance, what the difference is between

offense and defense, and how to form tackle.”

It is a challenge for Monarch, but he’s more than willing to pay the

price and absorb some losses. It’s freshmen football and they’re

learning. Starting from rock bottom, quite literally.

“It’s sort of like talking to the ‘Bad News Bears’ sometimes, because

I’ve got kids asking me, during a game, what’s offense and defense, and

why the kids on the other team are yelling emotional outbursts,” Monarch

said.

Sage Hill wasn’t even expected to field a gridiron team this year,

despite the school’s top-of-the-line features, i.e. a sodded field, ocean

views and state-of-the-art field-goal nets behind the goal posts.

The Lightning opened their campaign with 19 players, but, because of

injuries to four key starters, only 15 suited up Friday in host Sage

Hill’s 26-0 loss to Saddleback Valley Christian.

Next year, Monarch hopes the numbers will double, while “four or five

good athletes” from the area have apparently made verbal commitments to

enroll as freshmen at Sage Hill for the 2001 season, when the Lightning

will play a junior varsity schedule.

Of the school’s enrollment of 120 students (90 freshmen and 30

sophomores), all are encouraged to participate in sports, and, 90% of

Sage Hill’s football players are first-year players.

In two years, Sage Hill will compete in the Academy League with other

small schools, but, eventually, the Lightning can see themselves among

the elite in the Orange County athletic landscape.

The football facility, already, has to be considered one of the

county’s best -- simply with its view.

“It’s a great spot to watch a football game,” Sage Hill Athletic

Director Brian Scherbart said. “It’s as good as you’ll get.”

One day, a press box will be built and perhaps more bleachers will be

installed. For now, the demand is low. About 75 people were on hand to

watch Friday’s game and the bleachers were closed off with yellow

construction tape, although some took a chance and sat there anyway.

On the visitors’ side of the field, a greenbelt sits atop a bluff

overlooking the Newport Coast hills and Pacific Ocean, an area so

inviting it could be used for a Sunday picnic.

The Sage Hill campus, adjacent to the San Joaquin Hills Toll Road and

above the Newport Coast Drive exit, isn’t fully constructed. But most of

what is complete could pass as the finest in educational opulence.

Case in point: Tucked away in a far corner of the library is a

fireplace. “We’re trying to create places on campus to encourage

studying,” Scherbart said. “Where else in America is there a better place

to study on a campus?”

Looking out a window near the library fireplace is a diamond of a

baseball facility, one helped in various ways by former Angel and current

Cleveland Indian pitcher Chuck Finley, a local resident.

There is also a fully sodded practice field that will be converted

into a softball field.

Sage Hill also has plans to build a math and science center, a

six-court tennis compound, a high-class beach volleyball pit and an

aquatics center.

Will the Lightning compete with would-be Corona del Mar athletes in

the future? It’s easy to see with the writing on the drawing board.

“From a sports standpoint ... we want to win, but we want students to

realize other things in life,” Scherbart said.

“We’re trying to get athletics, academics and the arts all on the same

page. We want that to be the emphasis in the Sage Hill community.”

As far as football’s concerned, even the bleachers at Sage Hill are

designed with handrails, a symbolic testament to the staff’s safeguarded

environment for the students.

“I told our other coaches that we’ll always remember this year,”

Monarch said. “If we win CIF in six years from now, we’ll remember this

year even more, because of the things that went on in practice.”

In six games, Sage Hill has yet to win a football game. But give it

time.

As one parent said, regarding Saddleback Valley Christian’s Warriors,

who played with seniors: “Yeah, they’ve got some big guys over there. But

wait until our boys grow up.”

Sage Hill is also fielding teams in all fall sports, and plans to fill

winter and spring team rosters.