Barnes rebuilds Tesoro into Pac-5 power

The place did not need an extreme makeover. But Brian Barnes did see the necessity for repairs when he became Tesoro's football coach in February 2007.

Barnes saw players who needed to learn how much work was required to be part of a successful top-division program. He saw players who had to rediscover that playing a game is supposed to be fun.

But he certainly didn't see Tesoro reaching the CIF-Southern Section's Pac-5 Division championship game - Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against Long Beach Poly at Angel Stadium - in only two short seasons.

Tesoro had won CIF-Southern Section championships in 2004 and '05, in Division IX. The Titans were Pacific Coast League champions in those years, too.

A move to what used to be called Division I, the Pac-5 Division, did not go so well. In '06, the first year in the Pac-5's South Coast League, Tesoro went 1-9 overall and 0-5 in league.

Barnes replaced Jim O'Connell, who had been Tesoro's only varsity football coach since the school opened in 2001, three months after the Titans' final '06 game.

One of Barnes' first duties was to meet Tesoro's football parents. It was a strange meeting.

"I figured," Barnes said, "they'd ask me a lot of football questions. But they asked me all kinds of weird questions about things outside of football. It was shocking to me."

His predecessor had a code of behavior, but Barnes thought another code of behavior would get the best results.

"I don't know if it was the right kind of discipline," Barnes said. "There are different ways to skin a cat, and our way is working for us."

Barnes, 29, brought to Tesoro some of the assistant coaches that worked with him at Estancia, where Barnes was the head coach in 2005 and '06 (Estancia was 2-9 in '05 and in '06 went 7-4, its first winning season since 2000). One of the few holdovers in the entire program was Matt Poston, who was Tesoro's freshman head coach.

Poston and Barnes were the finalists for the Tesoro head coaching position. Disappointed when Barnes got it, Poston told Barnes in a brief meeting that he decided to pursue opportunities elsewhere. But Barnes wanted to meet with Poston one more time.

"We went out to lunch one day," Poston said, "and we talked for two hours. I realized we shared a very similar way in how we work with kids, similar coaching philosophies, and he asked me to stay and move up to varsity to be defensive coordinator. He said, 'I'm the offensive guy and the defense is all yours.' I got a nice position with a lot of freedom."

Tesoro's defense has 52 sacks and 32 takeaways (27 interceptions and five fumbles).

The Titans' first spring practice under Barnes was a revelation, to him and the players.

"The kids told me that practice was the hardest thing they'd ever done," Barnes said. "I was like, 'Whoa, wait a minute. This is just a spring practice.' They said our spring practice was harder than what they'd been doing in two-a-days."

Barnes saw that he had to bring the kids up from Division IX expectations to Division I expectations. He installed, as he calls it, "the Los Alamitos work ethic" which he learned playing for his dad John Barnes at Los Alamitos and while coaching briefly under his dad, too.

"You hear about the Mater Dei mystique, the Servite mystique," Barnes said, "and we'd had that at Los Al, too. Kids grew up around there dreaming of playing football at Los Al. It's a first-class program, and that's what we want to have at Tesoro, too."

Barnes sought his father's counsel while coaching at Estancia, and continues to do so at Tesoro.

"He's my best friend," Brian said, "and I still rely on him a lot. As time has gone on, he is lessening his role but he's always there to help."

Barnes also sought, and got, advice from coaches Jim Kunau at Orange Lutheran, Bruce Rollinson at Mater Dei and Dave White at Edison.

"All those guys have been tremendous," Barnes said.

Tesoro then set some goals for that 2007 season. Modest goals.

"Our first goal," Barnes said, "was to get better every day. Our second goal was to beat our rivals.

"We asked the kids," he said, "who their rival was. They said, 'Maybe Capistrano Valley.' So we focused on beating Capistrano Valley."

Capistrano Valley was the second South Coast League game for the Titans in '07. They first had to play San Clemente, a perennial playoff team and an Orange County top 10 fixture, in league. Tesoro went into that league opener with a 2-3 nonleague record, but upset San Clemente, 16-13.

The Titans then beat Capistrano Valley, 52-14. They kept winning, and toppled Mission Viejo, 28-24, in the final game of the '07 regular season. It was Mission Viejo's first league loss since 2000.

"So then our third goal was to win a league title," Barnes said. "And we did that, twice. Next, is to win a CIF championship and this year we added another goal, winning a state championship."

Tesoro has a shot at that fourth goal Saturday, when the Titans play Long Beach Poly.

A victory likely would put Tesoro in a CIF State Championship Bowl Game and a chance at that fifth goal, either in the Division I game or the Open Division game.

The Division I game will feature large-enrollment CIF section champion schools, with the Open Division game bringing together what a committee of the CIF's 10 section commissioners judges to be the best Northern California team against the best Southern California team regardless of their enrollments.

Barnes knew that improvement would come at Tesoro, just not so fast.

"Did I think, realistically, that we would be in this position?" Barnes said. "No. I am amazed."

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com