A Day in Sun for Late Bloomer : College Football: Former Beverly Hills gridder will have a chance to be part of a national championship team when Colorado meets Notre Dame.

Former Beverly Hills High gridder David Ellis is four days and one victory from playing for the national champion college football team.

Ellis is a second-team offensive tackle for top-ranked Colorado, which plays No. 4 Notre Dame in Monday’s Orange Bowl. A Buffalo victory would cap a 12-0 season and one of the biggest on- and off-field turnarounds in college football history.

Like his team, Ellis has had much to overcome.

“David was a late bloomer,” Beverly Hills Co-Coach Bill Stansbury said. “David really never intended to play or perceived he had the ability to play college football until three-quarters of the way through his junior season (1984.)”

College recruiters were drawn by Ellis’ then 6-6 1/2, 260-pound frame, but a slow 40-yard dash time proved a detriment toward a scholarship.

“Colorado was interested in him walking on,” Stansbury said. “I told their recruiting coordinator (Ron Vanderlinden) that David has the one thing you can’t coach: size. I knew that if David was willing to do the work, there wasn’t any doubt that he could do the work at Colorado.”

Several factors made Colorado attractive to Ellis.

“Coming out of high school, I didn’t want to stay in California and wanted to play Division I,” Ellis said. “California didn’t appeal to my interests. I wanted somewhere where you could go outdoors, ski and hike.

“What sold me on Colorado was the beautiful campus and that the football program was not that great at that time. (Colorado was 1-10 in 1984 and 7-5 in 1985.) I felt I could walk on and make the team.”

Ellis had to wait three seasons to reach that goal, redshirting in 1986 and playing just one game in 1987 and 1988. But his perseverance paid off after this year’s spring practice

“I met with my coach (Gerry DiNardo) and he said, ‘You’ve shown to the coaching staff that you’re worthy of competing on second team and should ask Mac (Coach Bill McCartney) for a scholarship.’

“I went into Coach McCartney’s office with the intent of asking him that, but he told me, ‘I have three scholarships to give out and you’re one of five people I’m considering. I have to think about it a lot. I’ll get back to you by Friday.’

“That was on a Monday. I had to chew nails all week. But that Friday he told me that when I came back in the fall, I’d be on full scholarship. Getting that scholarship was the biggest accomplishment I ever had.”

When Colorado completed its 8-4 1988 season by losing to Brigham Young in the Freedom Bowl, there was no indication that the team would undergo an on- and off-field metamorphosis.

“After we lost to BYU our program was at a very low point,” Ellis said. “(Quarterback Darian) Hagan wanted to switch positions and the off-field incidents were on the increase.”

What may hurt most of all was that Colorado was one of two schools singled out by Sports Illustrated in a February report on violent lawlessness among college athletes. From January 1986 to January 1989 there were 24 arrests (18 in 1987) involving current or former players.

“When the article came out Coach McCartney implemented some new rules about off the field incidents. If you broke them, no matter who you were, you would be kicked off the team.

“About 15 players were kicked off the team, and some of those players would have been projected starters. But that allowed us to get much closer because we don’t have people with bad attitudes.”

McCartney’s rules include an automatic, season-long suspension for a player with two offenses.

The second rallying point was the discovery in March that starting quarterback Sal Aunese had inoperable stomach cancer. Aunese died Sept. 23 at age 21.

“As a team, Sal’s death made us completely unselfish and united us,” Ellis said. “It made me put things into perspective and changed my outlook on life. Every time I’m faced with a hard situation, I look at it and say it’s not that hard. I was stressed out going through finals, but I realized things were not that bad.”

Ellis said he initially had the feeling in spring practice that Colorado could be an outstanding team.

“Hagan was developing his potential and athletic ability,” Ellis said. “We’ve always had good talent, but now we were adding maturity to that. When I was home this summer, I was telling friends if the team comes together, we’ll be one of the best in the nation.

“They laughed at that and gave me flack for not going to a school locally. But right now, as a team we feel confident that if we play the way we’re capable of playing, we can beat any team we play.”