Not-So-Trivial Pursuit : San Fernando’s Speedy Defense Will Give Chase to White, Who Fled His Old Neighborhood to Find Stardom at Crespi

A scant 15 minutes after Crespi had defeated Palmdale last Friday night, Russell White was already looking ahead to tonight’s game against San Fernando. Without prompting, White, standing in the Crespi locker room wrapped in nothing but a brown towel, had his eye on the Tigers.

In a manner of speaking, he also was focusing on his rear-view mirror.

“I had to save a little for the Tigers,” he said. “That game means a lot. I want that one. It compares to a Loyola game.”

A major comparison, indeed. Loyola, a Del Rey League rival and nationally ranked team, twice has held White to less than 100 yards rushing, the only team to do so in games in which White has been uninjured. Tonight at 7:30 at Birmingham High, San Fernando and Crespi will meet for the first time in an intersectional showdown that White-watchers have waited months to see and White has waited years to play.

For White, playing against San Fernando is going home. He grew up there, attended its schools and played football in its streets and on its fields. He seemed a sure bet to become the next rage as its high school running back.

White started playing football at age 7, when players are so small their helmets dwarf their bodies, bobbing on their heads as they run downfield. Even at an early age, however, White was turning heads. As he progressed through the North Valley Pop Warner ranks, his reputation grew as fast as his body matured.

“We knew who he was,” said San Fernando High Coach Tom Hernandez, who played at San Fernando with Russell’s uncle, Heisman Trophy winner Charles White, in 1974. “With that name and that ability, we knew.”

White was aware that he was being watched, if not groomed, by a youth program that utilized the same offense the high school team used and that his glory years on the very field that his father Roosevelt and uncle Charles once graced lay squarely ahead. Or so it seemed.

“They spot who’s going to make something of themselves and who’s not pretty early,” White said. “They were probably waiting (for me).”

And, boy, do they see him coming this time. It will be a reunion for White and some of his boyhood pals, many of whom have something to prove, for White’s homecoming works both ways. They will be greeting him with open arms, though the love taps might leave bruises.

As a youngster, White was weaned on San Fernando High football. Although he was too young to remember his uncle leading the Tigers to City Section titles in 1974 and 1975, he served as a ball boy while in junior high.

“I practically grew up around there,” said White, who attended Vaughn Street Elementary in San Fernando but later transferred to a grade school in Chatsworth, where he also completed junior high. “I was one of those little kids, running around, waiting for the day I’d wear a Tiger uniform.”

Helen White had other ideas, however, insisting that her son enroll at a private school that placed a greater emphasis on academics. Crespi was selected in part because Russell’s cousin, Kermit Alexander, attended Mount Carmelite High in South-Central Los Angeles in the 1950s. A parochial high school run by the Carmelite order, Mount Carmelite relocated in Encino and was renamed Crespi.

White’s move turned out for the best, he says: “I have no regrets, none at all.”

Many of his former friends carry no grudges, although they wish to show that losing White to Crespi hardly sounded the death knell for San Fernando.

“There are no hard feelings,” senior free safety Howard McCrary said. “We know he’s good, but he’s only one guy. We still have some players left up here.”

Hernandez said he thinks that White will have plenty of trouble handling the quick San Fernando defense. Containment will be difficult but expected. In this battle of speed versus speed, Hernandez feels his team has the upper hand.

“They might have played some bigger teams but not one with quicker pursuit,” Hernandez said.

Many of the Tigers have become preoccupied with shutting down White.

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” said San Fernando senior cornerback Sean Williams, a two-year starter who played football with White as a 13-year-old. “We’re taking it like it’s a playoff game, that’s how serious this is. Our coaches are into it, we’re into it and everybody at school is talking about it.”

Williams said he expects White to show the same flash he used as a youngster, when both played for the North Valley Golden Bears, a Pop Warner team. Williams does expect a few differences, however.

“He was always good, and he’s much more experienced now,” Williams said. “I remember he used to cry a lot when he got hit in those days.”

Williams said White had better be ready to be hit tonight, and he will have his work cut out trying to turn the corner on a sweep.

“I think we get down the line faster than what he’s used to seeing,” Williams said. “And we got something waiting for that cutback, too.

“He’s played against all those little, slow schools. We play against tougher dudes than he does. We’ll be there, waiting.”

White, who said he prefers to let his performance speak for itself, laughed when informed of the San Fernando boasts and couldn’t resist a retaliatory jibe.

“If they think they have a great pursuit team, well, the cutback has been there both of my two years here, and I don’t see any reason for it to stop now,” White said.

Crespi Coach Bill Redell concedes that San Fernando is probably the quickest team Crespi has faced recently.

“That stuff about team speed is probably an accurate statement,” Redell said. We don’t see a lot of speed-type teams, but I thought Palmdale had good speed and we handled them pretty well.”

Crespi defeated Palmdale, 33-13, after leading, 33-0. White carried 16 times for 116 yards and scored 3 touchdowns while nursing a sore left ankle. He said he expects no problems from the ankle tonight, however, which should be “at around 90%” of full strength.

Redell’s only problem, it seems, could be White’s restlessness. For the first time, White took home a videotape to help prepare mentally for the game. All week, he has watched San Fernando’s season-opening 25-10 loss to Banning.

“I did it just for this game,” White said. “And looking at the way Banning was running all over them. . . . Well, talk is cheap and it takes money to buy land, so we’ll wait for the game and see what happens.”

Crespi administrators, anticipating a large turnout, moved the game back a day and over to Birmingham High’s Tom Bradley Stadium--the largest facility in the Valley with a seating capacity of 11,500. Although both teams are 1-1, Crespi and San Fernando are the area’s best Southern and City section teams and ranked 1-2, respectively, in the Valley by The Times.

“It’s not a big playoff game and we’re not big rivals or anything, but this is a showcase event,” Hernandez said. “I’m sure both schools want to show which section and which team is better.”

There are those who think that, had White attended San Fernando, he would have been better off. With its rich tradition of Division I tailbacks--people like Anthony Davis, Charles White and Chris Richards--the All-American tailback might have run up better numbers behind the Tigers’ run-oriented offense. Better numbers than the 4,823 yards White has gained at Crespi?

“He could have gained a lot of yards here,” said Hernandez, who overhauled the offense last year and switched from the wishbone to a balanced attack because of the absence of a dominant running back. “But we stopped worrying about that when he went over there in the ninth grade.

“I think he had his heart set on coming here, but it was a decision his mom made and stuck by. Every once in a while, you lose a kid. But we’ve gotten some we didn’t expect to have, too.”

Redell said White would have made a big impact no matter where he attended school. “It’s not the fact that he’s here that he’s been a great player,” Redell said. “He could have gone . . . anywhere and been the best I’ve ever seen.”