NOTEBOOK : Trevathan May Have Friend at Montana

Thousand Oaks High’s Dan Nagelmann, who has verbally committed to Moorpark College, was not recruited by four-year schools after the high school season.

But after last month’s exhibition in the Ventura County all star game when he threw seven touchdown passes, he was contacted by Montana. Nagelmann’s teammate at Thousand Oaks, Mike Trevathan, accepted a full scholarship to the Division I-AA school last February. Both are members of the West squad in Friday’s Daily News all-star football game. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. Friday at Pierce College.

“They called me after hearing about the Ventura game,” Nagelmann said. “The only thing that would make me head that way is that Mike is going there. The Moorpark coaches have made me feel like they want me.”

Said Trevathan: “Montana wants Dan. A coach told me, ‘You work on his head.’ I told them he’ll need some money.”

Just for kicks: A classic scenario in a hard-fought game unfolds when a placekicker trots from the sidelines to attempt a crucial field goal in the final seconds. The kick should seem a cinch in an all-star game because you’ve got an all-star kicker. Right?

Wrong, if you’re talking about the West. Sean Grady of Newbury Park will attempt the first kicks of his career if he’s called upon to kick Friday.

“No kickers were selected because not many were nominated,” said Dave Murphy, who is co-coach of the West along with Taft’s Tom Stevenson. “To be honest, Sean is an outstanding kicker. He’s been consistent in practice from 40 to 50 yards.”

Grady, who will attend Arizona State but not play football, said he isn’t nervous about debuting as a kicker.

“I have to visualize a successful kick in a pressure situation,” he said. “But I’m not really nervous about it.”

When the West team divided into groups the first day of practice, only two players--Granada Hills’ Barry Daniels and Simi Valley’s Bill Schneekloth--went with defensive line coach Roger McCamy.

“Everybody else wanted to play offense,” said McCamy, who is an assistant at Simi Valley. “Now we’ve got some guys fired up on defense as well.”

Kennedy’s Ara Dederian and Agoura’s Mike Bowman, selected primarily as offensive players, are now looking forward to making tackles.

“I’ve come to enjoy defense,” Dederian said.

The lack of experienced defensive linemen for the West will be offset by an aggressive and talented group of linebackers, Murphy said.

Thousand Oaks’ Chris Newman, Simi Valley’s Wade Pickett and Tony White, Cleveland’s Gary Yohn and Oak Park’s Wally Sweeterman will share linebacking duties.

Said Murphy: “It’s a good thing we have talented linebackers, because in the 5-2 defense we are required to play they have a lot of responsibility.”

Shrine it: Several top players from the Valley--Randy Austin and Joe Zacharia of Canyon, M.J. Nelson of Simi Valley, John Perak of Notre Dame and Gary Wellman of Westlake--were chosen for the Shrine All-Star game and will miss the Daily News game. The Shrine game will be played Aug. 2 at the Rose Bowl.

Intelligent linemen? When you’re talking about the West, that’s not an oxymoron. These guys aren’t any kind of morons if their selection of colleges is an indication.

Newbury Park’s Sean O’Brien will attend Occidental, Taft’s Joel Reynolds will attend Claremont-Mudd, Chaminade’s Matt Snyder will attend Chapman and Royal’s John Goslin will attend Cal Lutheran. All four earned at least a partial academic scholarship.

“It’s nice to have 4.0 students on the line,” Murphy said. “They show their intelligence every day in practice and have improved more than any other group.”

Goslin is attending Cal Lutheran not so much for football as for the university’s highly regarded criminal justice program. He’s dreamed of being an FBI agent since he was a child.

“When I was little I watched police shows and wanted to be in the FBI,” said Goslin, who has grown up to be 6-4, 235 pounds. “I still do. If I want to do something, I want to do it big.”

Montclair Prep’s Reggie Smith was one of seven alternates to make the East squad. The other six are: Alemany’s Troy Vigil, Dennis Mason and Hugo Correa, Canyon’s Dio Shipp, San Fernando’s Kenyatta Morris and St. Genevieve’s David Nickels.

Lopez said the plan was to keep five of the nearly 20 players invited as alternates. Some players didn’t show up, Lopez said, while others decided not to return after a few practices. “Fortunately,” Lopez said, “we didn’t have to cut anybody.”

Irony Dept.: Fred Cuccia, who is handling the offensive team for the East, will finally get a shot at Simi Valley’s Murphy. Hoover High, where Cuccia coached last year, was scheduled to meet Simi Valley in the opening round of the Coastal Conference playoffs. But the day before the playoffs, Hoover was forced to forfeit all its victories for using an ineligible player.

Simi Valley ended up playing Arcadia. After the season, Cuccia accepted the head football coaching position at South Pasadena High.

For Friday’s game, Cuccia will run the same offense he did at Hoover. The starting quarterback for the East is Hoover’s John Alaimo, The Times’ Back of the Year in the Glendale Area.

Murphy thinks that could be to the West’s advantage.

“We watched a lot of Hoover film,” Murphy said. “They run the dive option and use sprint-out passes. We’re expecting that offense and have been preparing for it in practice.”

Add Alaimo: The Nevada-Reno bound Alaimo is one of the East’s captains. The others are San Fernando’s Lance Harper, Hart’s John Libby and Quartz Hill’s Matt Hanna.