Three Years Later, Bolsa’s Prolific Trio Has Ground to Halt : Football: They rushed for 3,959 yards in 1987. Now one’s injured, one’s a third-stringer and the other’s plans are on hold.

Damon Fisher thumps around a 10-room house in Hays, Kan., waiting for his next appointment with a physical therapist and wondering when he can chuck those confounded crutches.

Travin Lui stands on the sidelines, yelling his lungs out for one of worst Division I football programs in America, hoping he doesn’t play this season.

Ricky Lepule sits in classrooms at Long Beach City College from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday, pondering another fall without football.

Old dreams die hard, even if you’re waiting for winter’s onslaught in western Kansas. Or trying to get George Allen to remember your name. Or trying to remember what it’s like to play the game.

Few high school players have run the veer option the way Fisher, Lui and Lepule did for Bolsa Grande High School from 1985-87.

As juniors in 1986, they led the Matadors to the school’s first Southern Section championship in their 27-year history. As seniors in 1987, they each gained more than 1,000 yards as Bolsa Grande rushed for the third-highest team total in Southern Section history.

In many ways, they were as close as brothers. At various times, while they were in high school, Lui and Lepule lived with the Fisher family.

Now they’ve gone their separate ways to meet new goals on their own terms. Distance and time constraints have made it difficult to stay as close as they once were.

Where are they now?

Fisher is a quarterback at Fort Hays State in Kansas, one of the nation’s top teams in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics. He tore his anterior cruciate ligament Sept. 8 in a game against Arkansas Tech and will miss the rest of the season. He underwent surgery Sept. 18 and now hobbles around the campus on crutches, hoping he’ll be healthy for spring drills.

Lui is a third-string fullback at Cal State Long Beach. He hasn’t played a down in six games this season. If that sounds bad, consider that he started out at sixth string. And if all goes right, if no one ahead of him gets hurt, the 49ers will redshirt him and he’ll have two full seasons and maybe even a scholarship waiting for him next year.

Lepule attends Long Beach City College, but does not play for the Vikings. The one everybody figured was a cinch to play at a Division I school, Lepule hasn’t played since the 1988 season at Orange Coast College.

Greg Shadid’s face glowed. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table. He talked excitedly about Bolsa Grande football circa 1987.

“Why throw if you can run?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question. He knew the answer. And in 1986 and ’87 so did everyone else who played against Bolsa Grande.

In four seasons leading to 1986, Shadid’s teams ran the option. Mostly it was a losing proposition.

But an angelic-looking, blond-haired quarterback, who for all any of his opponents knew was the devil in shoulder pads, changed all that.

Fisher, standing 5 feet 8 and weighing perhaps 150 pounds, perhaps less, started as a sophomore and the Matadors won more games than they lost in 1985.

The following season, Fisher was joined in the backfield by his childhood friends Lui and Lepule. Bolsa Grande went 9-1 in the regular season, won the Garden Grove League championship, then blitzed four playoff opponents for the Central Conference championship.

Bolsa Grande averaged 27 points a game in 1986. In 1987, the Matadors averaged 40.1. In 1986, Fisher, Lui and Lepule combined for 2,996 yards. In ‘87, they gained 3,959. As seniors, Lepule gained 1,504 yards, Lui 1,271 and Fisher 1,184.

On the eve of a second-round playoff game against Saddleback, the Matadors had won 20 games in a row, including all 11 they played in 1987. They didn’t know it then, but an inglorious end was near.

On Nov. 25, the school announced it had forfeited five games for using an ineligible player. The news was crushing. Two days later, Bolsa Grande blew a 20-point lead and lost to Saddleback, 36-33.

Fisher, Lui and Lepule played together for the final time, but their legacy lives on.

“They were just so talented,” Rancho Alamitos Coach Mark Miller said. “What strikes me is those kids were so well suited for that offense. They were scary.”

It was cold in Hays the other day, perhaps 40 degrees, so Damon Fisher went to buy a portable heater for the house he shares with three other Fort Hays State students.

“Sunday it was 80, Monday it was 40,” said Fisher, who ran the option for two seasons at Long Beach City College. “It’s cold, but I like it out here. The campus gets into football. There’s a night life.”

In the second game of the season, Fisher dropped to pass and was chased to the sideline. He planted his feet, preparing to change directions, when his knee went.

The doctor told Fisher the best hope for a full recovery was to replace the damaged ligament with a new one. After 10 days waiting for a donor ligament to arrive from Los Angeles, Fisher underwent a surgical procedure similar to the one performed on Danny Manning of the Clippers.

Fisher goes to therapy three, sometimes four times a day for extensive rehabilitation. He’s looking forward to the day he can stow his crutches and the ugly brace he wears on his knee.

“I want to start walking again,” Fisher said.

If nothing else, it was the dawning of a new era. And Travin Lui was there.

A crowd of 80,000 watched as 72-year-old George Allen made his debut as coach at Cal State Long Beach. They cheered and jeered wildly as Clemson routed the 49ers, 59-0, in Death Valley.

Lui has suited up for all but one of the 49ers’ games this season. He goes to practice, but does not play. Such is the life of a walk-on. He’s pointing to next season and the one after. He does not regret going to Long Beach.

“One of the reasons I came here was to be coached by George Allen,” Lui said. “I really didn’t know who he was before, but my dad did.”

Most figured Lui left Long Beach City College for parts unknown.

“Yeah, my friends were skeptical,” he said. “ ‘Why do you want to go to a school that’s losing?’ they said. I think I deserve to play at a Division I school, to play with the big boys.”

Under Allen, Long Beach is 3-3 heading into Saturday’s game at San Jose State.

For now, Lui is content.

“You gotta sit and wait your turn,” he said. “(If you redshirt) you will sit. Everybody sits. I don’t have a problem with that. I’m hoping that in the spring I’ll have showed my coach I can play and I deserve a scholarship.”

Fisher and Lui have lost touch with Lepule. Damon’s sister, Denise, said she speaks on the phone with Lepule occasionally. She said he attends class but does not know what his football plans are at the moment.

Lepule lives with his mother’s cousin, but callers get a recorded message saying the number is no longer in service.

Shadid said Fort Hays State had accepted Lepule, but he decided not to go there. Jack Fisher, Damon’s father, was disappointed that Lepule didn’t go, but said he hasn’t spoken to him recently.

“He was the one who was supposed to do everything big,” Damon Fisher said. “Ricky had everything. I guess he doesn’t like football that much. Maybe he doesn’t have his mind made up. I’m going to try to get him out here next year.”

BOLSA GRANDE RUSHING STATISTICS 1987

Player Att. Yds. Avg. TDs Ricky Lepule 122 1,504 12.3 16 Travin Lui 155 1,271 8.2 18 Damon Fisher 96 1,184 12.3 17

1986

Player Att. Yds. Avg. TDs Travin Lui 187 1,135 6.1 5 Ricky Lepule 152 947 6.2 15 Damon Fisher 121 914 7.6 10