No-win situation? Barnes' wife, mother can't lose

Everyone keeps asking Anita Barnes how she's going to get through Friday night.

Everyone wants to know if she'll sit with the Tesoro fans or the Los Alamitos fans, what colors she'll wear, how she'll balance the visceral seesaw between mother and wife.

The 100th person to mention this ordeal might finally convince Anita that she's going through one.

But for now, it's just another Friday night in the lights.

Except this time, her husband, John, is leading Los Alamitos into a first-round playoff game, and her son, Brian, is doing the same thing with Tesoro.

And they're playing each other.

It's a conflict. She just refuses to feel conflicted.

"There have been years when there hasn't been a Barnes that advanced into the second round," she said the other day. "So at least I know one of them is going to make it."

What helped, she said, was Sunday night.

The pairings had come out that afternoon. It worked out the way it should have, since Tesoro is 10-0 and Los Alamitos finished in a five-way tie in the Sunset League. It would have been folly for CIF to have jiggled the pairings to keep John and Brian separated. Besides, nothing's wrong with a little human interest.

Bobby Bowden at Florida State coached against his son, Tommy, for years, whenever the Seminoles played Clemson. Each autumn it got to be a little less of a story, and Ann Bowden got to wrestle with her emotions in relative peace.

"Do you have her number?" Anita Barnes asked, laughing.

Anyway, Brian came by the house on Sunday night and John gave him a plaque for Tesoro's No. 1 ranking. Then they drew the rules of engagement for the week.

"John said, well, I'm going to try to beat you and Brian said the same thing," Anita said. "It's not just another game, but I don't think there's any feeling that this shouldn't happen. They both feel they should both be in the playoffs."

She said if John could call all the shots, Brian would be by his side Friday on the Los Al sideline. John wasn't surprised Brian got into coaching when he came back from his playing career at Nevada, but he was hoping Brian would help coach the Griffins, on the same sideline where Brian grew up as a ballboy.

"But Brian is a little independent and he didn't want to be in John's shadow," Anita said. "He wanted to prove himself as a head coach on another level."

John helped Brian go over tape last fall when the Titans were in the playoffs and the Griffins weren't. Brian says repeatedly that Tesoro borrows much of its essence from his dad's program.

It's just that nobody expected Tesoro to be this good this quick, or to beat Mission Viejo in back-to-back seasons.

With each year, Anita finds herself watching more Tesoro games and fewer Los Alamitos games.

"The way I look at it is, I'm supporting our son," she reasoned. "And his dad is usually coaching on those nights, so he can't be there to support him. So I'm representing both of us. It's better, of course, when they're playing on different nights. At Tesoro they're always thanking me for Brian."

Anita hopped onto the entrance ramp to this life when she was in high school and attended a dance at St. Anthony's in Long Beach. John was the St. Anthony's quarterback.

He asked her to dance and they began talking, and Anita admitted she didn't really know what a quarterback was. John invited her to watch him play the next week.

"I was going to pick him up at the game because he hadn't gotten his driver's license yet," Anita said.

They have been married for 38 years and John is the alltime Orange County leader in victories. They raised a daughter and two sons, and Anita became a real estate agent.

Then, last summer, Anita found she had colon cancer.

"They got it all," she said, matter-of-factly. "None of it spread to the lymph nodes, so we were lucky there, but I had to miss a couple of games in September."

So a little family showdown sort of loses its traumatic effect.

"Besides," Anita said, "they compete with each other all the time anyway. Board games, golf, basketball, I'd get a little annoyed at John. I'd say, 'Why can't you let them win just once?' But then time took care of that."

It goes to another level Friday, but Anita figures time is on her side. With each tick of the clock, John and Brian are closer to the postgame handshake.

And, down the road?

"The good thing is when Brian's playing and John's not, I can go to a football game and sit with my husband," Anita said. "That's something I've always wanted to do."

John agrees wholeheartedly. Just not next week.

Contact the writer: mwhicker@ocregister.com