ALBUQUERQUE - A trio of state high school football legends entertained more than 100 prep football coaches Wednesday afternoon at the Hilton in Albuquerque as part of the annual New Mexico High School Coaches Association gathering.

Think a young Jerry Seinfeld sitting enraptured as Bob Hope, George Burns and Milton Berle talked about comedy.

Or a youthful Steve Spielberg sitting at the feet of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hakes and Ingemar Bergman. Or even Matt Damon hearing Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney and John Wayne talk about acting.

That's probably similar to how the room full of coaches felt, as Bill Gentry, Jim Bradley and Eric Roanhaus - yeah, legendary - talked about the sport and profession they chose many years ago.

Combined, the trio has more than 100 years on the sidelines in a head coaching capacity.

Gentry coached at Highland High and then Eldorado; Bradley spent time at Roswell and Mayfield High, where he's still an assistant for his son, Michael Bradley; and Roanhaus has been in Clovis since 1972.

The threesome also has amassed 15 state championships: Gentry has three of them (Highland in 1963, '65 and '86), Bradley has seven (five at Mayfield and two at Roswell); Roanhaus owns nine (all at Clovis, including five straight from 1981-85). Bradley is New Mexico's all-time career leader in victories, with 310.

Bradley beat Roanhaus in two of three Mayfield-Clovis championship games; the two split Clovis-Roswell games. Roanhaus beat Gentry's Eldorado team in 1990 and again in '91. Gentry and Bradley faced off only once in a championship game: Gentry's Eagles beat Roswell in 1986.

"We've been going against each other for 30 years," Roanhaus said.

"I call him 'coach Run-house,'" Bradley said, "because he doesn't like to throw the ball."

They had something else in common: Each had a son that applied for the latest Rio Rancho High School football coach vacancy.

Gentry retired before RRHS was built.

Every coach sitting in that room was hoping to take away a tidbit or two of information that could give them an edge on the gridiron someday.

Heck, Roanhaus said, proud of his profession, "I guarantee you there aren't 150 English teachers in a room trying to get better."

Each of these men seemed more like the neighbor next door, sitting and chatting and cracking jokes. Their passion for the game showed through, and so did their love of life, their families and the countless relationships they had forged through the years with their players.

The three sat on a small stage, with former Sandia High coach Jim Ottman serving as master of ceremonies. Here are some of the topics covered, and the coaches' responses:

What leads to success?

"Longevity amounts to success," Bradley said.

What's important, he added, were "loving your job and having good people around you."

"I don't know about longevity. I try to change wives every 10 years," Roanhaus quipped. "I've been fortunate to have good coaching staffs ... and just like you guys (in the audience), I've been around a lot of idiot parents."

Now, he said, after 35 seasons, the parents "just kind of leave me alone."

Discuss your coaching philosophy.

"You've got to work the brain, you've got to work the mind," Bradley said, noting the distractions for a 21st century player: "The Internet and so much crap.

"You've got to get those kids close to you; you've got to know the parent, too."

Roanhaus wasn't crazy about the term philosophy.

"I used to tell them I'd treat them like my own son; then they saw how I treated John and Chad and they didn't like that," he said.

When he came to New Mexico from Canyon, Texas, in the early 1970s, the former West Texas A&M graduate said most of the players were from two-parent homes. Today, he estimated, "less than 50 percent" of his 'Cats have two parents at home.

"Now, in a way, you're a third parent - I'm big on discipline. We live in a very tolerant society. It has changed a lot in 38 years."

"A lot of people think we have strict rules," Gentry said, explaining how every player - from a varsity starter to a third-string player - was treated equally. He didn't want players to miss practice without a bona fide excuse, telling the crowd how one player who said he was going to a funeral turned out to be away on vacation - Gentry admitted calling the kid's father's place of work - and seemed believable when he said if a kid said he missed practice because his house had burned down, "I'd say bring me burned boards."

How do you motivate players?

"You'd like to think if they're out there in your program, they're motivated," Roanhaus said. "That's not so; it's important you find other ways.

"In the eighties, you just stayed on their ass all the time," he continued. Now, the parents get a lawyer if they feel their son has been mistreated.

"You've got to figure out what motivates every kid in your program."

"Typically, we tried to treat all kids the same - discipline remained the same for every kid," Gentry said, echoing his earlier comments to a different question. "On the field, they (were told to) do their best with each repetition."

"We're all looking for the winning edge," Bradley said. "We're working the mind all the time. ... A lot of it has got to come from within."

How do you handle assistants?

Bradley had a wrinkle to his answer, saying he preferred the adjective "associate" to "assistant" when discussing his staff. An associate, he felt, wanted to someday be a head coach; an assistant, to him, was more of a "go-fer." So imagine his surprise when his son became the head coach last year and named his dad an assistant.

"I had some great coaching staffs; the dedication and loyalty were there," Bradley said.

Roanhaus spouted the tried-and-true form of successful management: Surround yourself with great people.

"I think football's the only sport you, as a head coach, can't coach yourself; you need quality (assistants)."

Roanhaus told of one drill he noticed an assistant overseeing a defensive drill, using 13 players on one side of the ball.

That's not right, Roanhaus told him, hearing the reply that it took that many players to do it properly.

"You've got to give your assistants some limitations," Roanhaus said, grinning at the memory.

Gentry said he preferred the early days of coaching, when you had fewer assistants and they all taught at your school. When APS reorganized and started moving some principals around, he found some of his former assistants coaching against him.

Offensive philosophy?

Bradley lives by the option, he said, recalling how effective the Wishbone has been in his program.

Of course, he's usually been gifted with at least three speedy running backs and a QB that can throw the pigskin.

"The 'bone is a tremendous offense," he said, spouting off numbers his quarterbacks had accumulated, including Raymond Alderette, who in 1998 threw for only 800 yards and ran for 1,700 more.

"As far as defense," he added, "find yourself a great defensive coordinator and forget about it."

Roanhaus said there were three ways to run a successful offense, and you needed to be good in two of them: option attack, run-oriented attack, or a passing game.

"It's real hard to be competent in all three of them," he said. "We basically take what they (opponent's defense) gives us. I usually don't mess with my defensive coordinator during the game."

Gentry was a proponent of the misdirection out of a Wing-T formation, developed in Delaware and refined, he said, by famed college coach Forest Evashevski, who had great success at the University of Iowa.

Later, backing his linemen up a foot or so from the line of scrimmage ultimately gave his backfield a wider angle to read the defense and look for possible holes.

Greatest influences?

Gentry: "Lavon McDonald," then the head coach at Santa Fe High and later the athletics director at UNM.

Bradley: "Rudy Camunez," whom Bradley said had fought at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, then coached at Las Cruces High. Bradley said coaching legends Bear Bryant, Frank Kush and Vince Lombardi had also influenced him.

Roanhaus: Danny Goode, who preceded him at Clovis. Roanhaus, leading the trio in quips, also said his "grandfather," Bradley, was an influence on him.

What about coaching your own son?

(Each had the opportunity to do that at least once.)

"Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's challenging," Roanhaus said, remembering hearing criticism throughout Clovis when his son Chad was the Wildcats' QB.

"Be fair, be honest and be yourself," he urged.

Gentry said one of his sons played center: "Nobody watched him but his mother," although his youngest son was a QB.

What about moving up to the next level?

Gentry said that would be fine as long as the team was winning, knowing no college was going to take a high school guy to be its head coach. He needed the job security, which being an assistant in college wouldn't provide.

Roanhaus, who got the CHS job when Goode left to coach at Eastern New Mexico University, said he was happy to be doing the best job he could in Clovis.

"To me, going to the college level would be like starting all over again," he said, noting how much he enjoys teaching in the classroom.

Bradley, who left the high school ranks to be the head coach at NMSU (1973-77; 23-31-1), said he was asked if he was interested in the job by then-athletics director Lou Henson; he then met Henson at the Montgomery Ward to discuss the offer.

"My five years at New Mexico State were fantastic but we never could get over the hump," he said. "They still can't get over the hump. The next level was great." (Bradley is the fourth all-time winningest coach at NMSU.)

Highlights?

Bradley: "Anytime we beat Clovis. Plus, the Aggies' 16-7 win at UNM in 1976, plus four wins in five meetings with UTEP.

Gentry was slow to remember highlights; "I regret a couple of fourth-and-ones," he said, evoking laughter. He also recalled what had been a scoreless battle with Clovis and wasn't decided until the third overtime. "My guys were deciding what's for supper," instead of concentrating on the game, he figured.

Summing up the hour's worth of tidbits, Bradley proclaimed, "There is no better profession," urging those in attendance to go to a national coaches clinic, preferably one featuring long-time Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

"Never pass up an opportunity to learn," Roanhaus added. "You never know enough.

Gentry, who said a loss made him anticipate winning the next time, pointed out, "Number one, you've got to have fun."