Laguna Hills Finally Gives Coach His Due : Soccer: After getting no respect at the outset, Kevin Macare has won over the girls, who in turn are again winning games.

LAGUNA HILLS — Talk about a warm welcome.

When the Laguna Hills girls’ soccer team underwent a coaching change three seasons ago, its players sent greeting cards and made phone calls during the transition.

Problem was, the well-wishing was reserved for Kerry Krause, the Hawks outgoing coach, the man who built a small soccer empire at Laguna Hills and was taking his trade to El Toro.

Meanwhile, the incoming coach, Kevin Macare, a 1988 Laguna Hills graduate and then a student at Christ College Irvine, received support in the form of raised eyebrows from a handful of skeptical veterans.

“Kevin wasn’t working out,” said senior captain Kelly Robson, a sophomore when Macare replaced Krause before the 1990-91 season. “We didn’t even want him. We took advantage of him. We’d write letters to Kerry saying we missed him and asking how could he leave us.”

Robson traced some of the players’ sentiments to the fact that Macare was only 20. They saw him more as the older brother they could tease rather than the coach they had to respect.

“We didn’t respect our coach,” Robson said. “Part of it, I think, was that he wasn’t that much older than us. It was like, why should we respect you? In a way, Kerry was a father figure. Kevin was more our age.”

Four-year veteran Marni Gregg said the feeling was widespread: “We didn’t really get along with him.”

The doubting Hawks weren’t alone. Macare was battling his own doubts.

“Every new coach has to feel his way through the first couple of years,” said Macare, who was juggling a full class load at CCI and two part-time jobs in addition to his soccer duties at his alma mater. “The biggest thing I had to learn was how girls think. I was coming from a guys’ playing perspective. If I raised my voice, they’d get defensive.”

The growing pains were two-fold. Team members discovered they weren’t giving Macare much to work with.

“We weren’t that serious until this year,” Gregg said. “We weren’t dedicated. We had a bad attitude.”

Said Robson: “In the past, we wouldn’t even go to practice sometimes if the guys had a game.”

This season, Laguna Hills has gamely made its presence felt in the Pacific Coast League. After posting a 13-15-7 record in Macare’s first two years, the Hawks finished second in league, missing its first league championship since 1988 by a point to Estancia.

In fact, the Hawks gave up only one goal--in a 1-0 loss to Estancia--throughout league play.

Going into the final two games of the regular season last week, Laguna Hills was tied for the league lead with Estancia. A 0-0 tie with Trabuco Hills dashed the Hawks’ hopes of a title, but has fired them up for the Southern Section playoffs, which start this week.

“We’re playing to win CIF,” Gregg said. “Missing a league championship by one point. . . . We have enough anger built up. I don’t think anyone can get in our way.”

Not since Laguna Hills (16-7-1, 8-1-1 in league) neutralized its worst enemy, which turned out to be itself. Ever since Macare arrived, the Hawks--league champions from 1985 to ‘88--have been tripping over themselves in an effort to rekindle their winning ways.

“I had some pretty big shoes to fill. All eyes were on me,” Macare said. “I felt like a substitute teacher, you know the way the students will see what you’ll let them get away with.”

It turned out to be a lot. Macare asked them to fill out goal sheets, which they never returned. Drills he’d ask them to practice were met with well-rehearsed complaints. He’d arrange team dinners, where attendance was low.

“The attitude (now) is so much different,” Macare said. “Before they’d cop an attitude when I wanted them to do something. This year, they really took responsibility upon themselves. From Day 1, everything was a lot more comfortable.”

No one planned this off-season about-face. It just happened.

“We just showed up for practice the first day and everything was different,” Gregg said.

Theories about the turnaround abound: They grew up, they woke up, they made up and they weeded out.

“We knew as seniors this would be our last chance to do anything,” Robson said. “We used to fight among ourselves, but we get along a lot better this year.”

Several players, whom team members referred to as troublemakers, left the program. And they no longer viewed hard work as punishment, but as the means to a successful end.

“We knew the work would make us better instead of just making us tired,” Robson said.

Although the players did much to turn themselves around, Macare played a big part in the transformation.

This is the first season Macare, who graduated with a business administration degree last year, has had the time to give extra attention to off-field activities.

“It’s helped to let them see and relate to me outside the field,” he said.

Macare has clipped newspaper articles and read to them from magazines. He has organized meals, scavenger hunts and fund raisers. The biggest motivational tool has been a videotape Macare compiled with snippets from movies such as “Backdraft,” “Top Gun,” “Wall Street,” “Robin Hood” and “The Untouchables.”

At the team dinner the night before its second game against Estancia, Macare played the tape and asked the team’s six seniors to address the group.

Then he told them he had heard whispers from coaches, parents and staff members that this team was better than the one from 1988. That fired them up something crazy.

The next day they traveled to Estancia and returned with a 2-0 victory.

“It took him to get us motivated,” Robson said. “He started it and now we’ve continued it.”

Welcome words, even if they are two years late in coming.