No Stature of Limitations : Bolsa Grande’s Nguyen Overcomes Lack of Size

Sonny Nguyen was looking forward to his senior year of football at Bolsa Grande High School.

Nguyen, a part-time varsity starter at wide receiver last season, was returning for only his second year of football.

“I asked (Coach Bill Holst) who was going to be quarterback because I was saying, ‘All right! I’m going to be a starting receiver this year. I’ll get the job done.’ I asked Holst and he said, ‘I want you out there at quarterback.’ ”

Nguyen thought Holst was kidding.

Holst wasn’t. Sonny Nguyen, all 5-foot-6-inches and 120 pounds of him, has started at quarterback for Bolsa Grande this season. Nguyen will start again at 7:30 tonight, when Bolsa Grande (1-2) plays host to Los Amigos.

“He is a midget out there,” Holst said. “He was captain last week and the other team just laughed when he went out there. But he is tougher than nails. He just doesn’t give up on anything.”

For such a diminutive athlete, Nguyen has made great strides. In three games he has completed 13 of 28 passes for 213 yards and a touchdown, and has been intercepted twice. He also has rushed for 110 yards in 30 carries. But what carries more weight is his scoring. He has had a hand, or a foot, in every one of Bolsa Grande’s points this season.

After Villa Park shut out the Matadors in the season opener, Nguyen kicked a 30-yard field goal in a 30-3 loss to La Habra.

Last week, Bolsa Grande won its first game, 16-14, over Pioneer. Nguyen completed six of 10 passes for 122 yards, with two interceptions and one touchdown--a 29-yard completion to Trent Wood. He also ran for a 12-yard touchdown, kicked the point after and a 32-yard field goal.

All this from an athlete who thought he was too small to play football, let alone quarterback, until last season.

Nguyen’s stature may not be well-suited to football, but his quickness offsets his lack of size. He is a four-year varsity starter at fullback on the Matador soccer team and he lettered last season as a center fielder on the varsity baseball team.

With his athleticism and intelligence (he’s a member of student government and an honor student), Nguyen was the logical choice to fill Bolsa Grande’s vacant quarterback position this season, Holst said. But the coach still cringes every time Nguyen takes a hit.

“We’re scared stiff,” Holst said. “We got him all the pads we could get him.”

But Holst doesn’t let Nguyen’s size dictate the offense. “I still call the offense the same way as if a bigger, heavier guy were back there,” Holst said. “I call the plays I feel will work. I have all the confidence in the world in Sonny.”

Nguyen tried out for football last season after encouragement from his friends and after seeing a couple of guys smaller than himself on the team.

That’s when he took the hardest hit in his two seasons of football.

“I think it was hell week,” Nguyen said. “We were doing a hitting drill and I ended up getting Eric Shimomura in front of me.” Shimomura, then a senior, is 6-2, 220, and was an all-Garden Grove League selection at linebacker.

“He just like popped me right in my chest with his shoulder and knocked the wind out of me,” Nguyen said. “I ended up on my back and just popped up and shook it off. I didn’t want to look too bad in front of all the guys.”

Defensive backs used to try to intimidate him with such shouts of endearment as “You’re dead meat,” Nguyen said of his days as a receiver.

“They talk a lot. They knocked me around,” he said. “Then, after a while, I started to hit them back, be tough, exchange a few words.”

Now when contact can’t be avoided, Nguyen makes sure he holds his ground and gets in his shot.

But he isn’t cocky. “He does his job,” Holst said. “He doesn’t get mad or frustrated. He just plays his hardest. He is a good team leader.”

Holst also praised Nguyen for his determination to learn the position--determination that brought Nguyen to practice early and kept him late. “He is an inspiration to all of the players because he is always there,” Holst said. “If they see somebody that small, and he takes all these hits and keeps getting up and telling them, ‘Come on! Let’s go,’ they know he has got to be hurting more than they are.”

Nguyen’s given name is Hieu (pronounced Hyou). He is the first Vietnamese athlete to start on the varsity football team in Holst’s five seasons at Bolsa Grande, Holst said.

Many Vietnamese athletes believe they are too small to play football or they play at the freshman and sophomore levels and then lose interest, Holst said. But Holst has seen an increase in participation at the lower levels this season.

Nguyen emigrated with his family from Vietnam in 1975 when he was 3.

A Bob Marley poster on his bedroom wall hints at his fondness for reggae music. “It relaxes me,” Nguyen said. And he wouldn’t think of surfing anywhere else but in the Huntington Beach waters near Brookhurst. “I feel at home there, you could say,” he said.

Nguyen’s teammates have a nickname for him. “Sometimes they tease me and call me and line coach Milton Tenno the ornamentals ,” Nguyen said.

Turns out he is the perfect accent for the Bolsa Grande backfield.