By John Klima
Staff Writer

There are two bookshelves in Coach Josh Waybright’s office. The first contains video cassettes of old football games. The second contains a row of history books, its subjects ranging from Lincoln to Roosevelt.

You’ll find nose guard Joe Anzack, No. 52, in the game tapes from 2003 and 2004. In time, when history decides the meaning of this war, you’ll find books about the conflict that claimed him in May. There’s no football coach who would like to feel the pain Waybright still feels, the knowledge that one of his players has moved from one shelf to the other.

Waybright, 32, is a happy-go-lucky guy with a goatee who once lugged a sledgehammer around for the 2006 season to remind his team to keep hammering away. He says he is a “karma guy.” How true. Everything he’s ever taught his football players have run a long lap around the track and have come to rest squarely upon him: Play through pain. Work hard for your teammates. Work hard for yourself. Overcome adversity.

Ever since the spring, Waybright has been practicing what he teaches his players. When news was uncertain, he forced himself to be positive. “I wasn’t going to let my mind go the other way,” he said.

Today will be a Fourth of July like none other for Waybright. It won’t seem like a celebration.

“When I see all the red, white and blue,” he said. “It will be difficult. I was getting in my jog one night when I saw an American flag posted on the lawn. It all flashed back right then and there.”

After a summer workout session on Wednesday, Waybright stood in the middle of his office. There’s a bandana, like one Anzack wore, pinned on the wall. There’s replica dog tags his family made. The team pictures are at Waybright’s back, and in the second row of the 2004 shot, there’s the nose guard looking over the coach’s shoulder.

“We’re not going to let his memory go away,” Waybright said. “We’ll remember him as long as I’m here.”

Waybright is returning a favor to a player who took care of him. Every coach has players he never forgets. Fewer have players go to war and die three years after the final snap. That complicates the issue, but in truth, the issue is not the issue.

“As a coach, he was one of those kids who made my life a lot easier,” Waybright said. “I spent so much time with him in the four years he was here. It was like losing a member of my family. I haven’t had a lot of death, knock on wood, in my family, and to have somebody that I’ve watched grow and be close to was tremendously hard on my heart and mind and still is.”

Wednesday was warmer than usual, but there was Waybright, bellowing and barking, showing this group what it means to be a success. There is a special bond that forms between certain coaches and players, especially when the kid takes the help. Anzack took a piece of his coach with him. Waybright is proud and sad. He did his job. So did the nose guard.

In the small Torrance community, Anzack was the front-page victim of a back-page war, here today and gone tomorrow. Like some 3,700 other stories across the country, he is remembered more for being a good, solid kid than for an outcome that will be left to future books on a shelf. Anzack was national news for a few days, but the national media cares more about blond divas than it does about bloody deaths. That bothers Waybright.

“It’s kind of sad that, it’s what, over 3,700 young men who have died over there and it’s not ever the first story talked about.” Waybright said.

Not at South. On defense, the players no longer break the huddle by shouting “HIT!” They break it by shouting “ANZACK.”

High school football coaches never believe they’ll see flag-draped caskets of former players at the 50-yard line any more than they believe they’ll be quoted on CNN or in People magazine. But for Waybright, this, too, is part of the karma. He’ll tell players about his former nose guard for the rest of his career, even after the years turn sorrow into fondness. A good high school football coach gives of himself freely to his kids. Anzack is gone, and Waybright is still giving to him.