CAPTAIN VIDEO USES GOLF TO COMBAT CHILD ABUSE.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

Who would have figured the boyhood hero of millions of early baby boomers - Captain Video - would someday be teaching zen golf in the San Fernando Valley?

Yep, the Guardian of the Safety of the World ended up trading in his old Atomic Rifle and Cosmic Ray Vibrator for a Big Bertha.

Forget about Dr. Pauli, Mook the Moon Man, Nargola, Kul of Eos, Heng Foo Seeng, and all those other dastardly villains Captain Video used to fight every week on the old Dupont TV Network in 1949 and the early '50s.

They're all gone.

Richard Coogan - Captain Video - is fighting slices and hooks now.

But the 84-year-old is not out of the hero business entirely. He's assembled another loyal army of kids who look up to him just like his loyal Video Rangers used to.

They're called ``Coogan's Kids,'' and from what I hear, they're doing some impressive work helping fight another evil that most of us aging Video Rangers didn't even know existed back in the late '40s and early '50s.

Child abuse.

Most days, you can find Richard Coogan over on the driving range or golf course at Hansen Dam teaching some guy how to get his mind out of the way of his swing.

He teaches feel, not thoughts, Coogan's business card says, but that's not the story. What happens every Saturday morning is the story.

That's when Coogan's Kids show up, and the man who played Captain Video on TV for two seasons - '49 and '50 - gets to be a hero again.

Gets to take underprivileged kids, and kids who might be having trouble in school or at home, and teach them some of life's more important lessons, using golf as a prime motivator.

``Those kids would walk over hot coals to play golf,'' Coogan says. ``All I had to say was shape up at home and school, or you don't play. That turned them around 180 degrees.''

He laughs because he knows it was more than that. A lot more. He's got a file full of letters from parents thanking him for helping their kids become better people, not just golfers.

It all dates back more than 15 years ago to the old junior golf program over at the Studio City Golf Course. It got to be, Coogan says, that he couldn't turn around without a group of kids with clubs as big as they were standing all around him.

When he moved over to Hansen Dam about five years ago, a whole new batch of kids needing some of Captain Video's life lessons began showing up. That's when Coogan decided to up the ante for everyone.

Why not meet one Sunday morning a month over at the Scholl Canyon Golf Course in Glendale for a round of golf with your kids? Coogan told the parents.

And, oh, bring an extra $5 for the McKinley home for abused boys in San Dimas, one of his favorite charities, he added.

There were some kids in that home who had a heck of a lot less than any of Coogan's Kids, and had seen a heck of a lot more of life - most of it bad.

And so it began about four years ago, Jane Van Stedem, executive director of McKinley's Children's Center says. A check for a hundred dollars or so began showing up every month from some outfit in the Valley called ``Coogan's Kids.''

``We didn't know who Mr. Coogan was, but we always sent along a thank you note with an invitation to stop by and see our center any time he wanted,'' Van Stedem said Wednesday.

A few weeks ago, Richard Coogan wanted. The outcome of his visit is that some kids living in this home for abused kids are going to be learning a little golf soon from the former Guardian of the Safety of the World.

When they're ready, Coogan's going to bring them over to his Sunday morning tournament so they can meet and play some golf with the rest of his kids.

It's hard to tell whether Richard Coogan's joking or not, but he says he's just finished writing a series of stories about an Irishman who made the mistake of listening to his own advice.

He was so independent, Coogan says, he tripped over himself all the time. He, of course, is that Irishman.

``I was so bigheaded back then, I passed up good opportunities in the business, and ignored all the advice on what I should have been diplomatically saying in interviews,'' he says.

``The bottom line is on one Friday, I was Captain Video. On Monday, there was another one.''

Coogan was replaced after the 1950 season, and an actor named Al Hodge, the voice of radio's ``Green Hornet,'' took over the role until the show, and the Dupont Network folded in 1955.

Oh, there are some regrets, he says, but he had a pretty good career in the theater before devoting himself to playing and teaching golf full time.

Hey, all in all, it's been a great life, he says.

He was a genuine hero to millions of us early baby boomers who lived for those plastic replicas of his weapons, decoder ring and space helmet.

Now, almost 50 years later, he's still a hero to a new generation of kids learning some of Captain Video's lessons of life out on a golf course.

Not a bad way to go for the Guardian of the Safety of the World.

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2 photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) Richard Coogan, 84, left, the former Captain Video on the old TV series, now teaches golf and lessons of life to underprivileged kids. Above, Coogan is shown in his TV role as the Guardian of the Safety of the World.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News