Turner Moves to Head of the Class : High schools: Redondo standout excels on and off the football field.

At 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds, Redondo High lineman Ryan Turner towers above most football players on the field and in the classroom.

The senior, who anchors the offensive and defensive lines for the Sea Hawks, has maintained a 3.8 grade-point average and will have completed advanced placement courses in calculus and biology when he graduates this spring.

Turner, who is being recruited by most schools in the Pacific 10 Conference as well as Colorado, said he is interested in attending Stanford and becoming a doctor.

Although obviously a gifted athlete, Turner says it is his abilities in the classroom that have attracted attention from colleges.

“The biggest reason that I am recruited is because of my grades,” he said.

Defensive coordinator Tim Ammentorp, who has coached Turner during his three years on the varsity, said Turner’s “ability to understand what we are doing” was important this spring when Turner was moved from tight end to offensive tackle.

“We told him he was going to be moved for the good of the team, and he took it like a man,” Ammentorp said. “He was obviously disappointed, but you couldn’t tell it from the way he worked his tail off to become a good lineman.”

Redondo Coach Chris Hyduke felt that his team needed a tight end capable of getting down the field, so Turner was moved to offensive tackle.

Turner, who “misses catching the ball a lot,” said he didn’t fight the position change.

“I’ll do whatever the team needs,” Turner said, although he would prefer to play tight end or on the defensive line in college.

Because Turner plays offense and defense, he rarely gets a breather during a game. Hyduke said that Turner, who was a second-team all-league selection on defense in 1990, doesn’t receive much notoriety because he is a 48-minute player.

“It’s too bad we can’t spell him (on offense or defense),” Hyduke said. “If we could play him just one way people would know a lot more about him.”

Apparently the collegiate recruiters know enough about Turner to covet him. He has scheduled recruiting trips to Stanford in December and to UC Berkeley in January. Ammentorp thinks Turner has Division I talent.

“He’s a good drive blocker and he’s got the size and technique,” Ammentorp said. “If he had been playing offensive tackle for more than half a season, he would maybe be an awesome tackle. Right now he’s a good tackle.”

Hyduke and Ammentorp agree that to succeed in college football, Turner needs to improve his quickness and develop his upper-body strength. To this end, Turner has been working out five times a week with weights and running sprints and hills.

During the football season, Turner, who is also the starting center for the Redondo basketball team, begins his day with a calculus class at 6:45 a.m. After his classes end in the afternoon, he has football practice from 2 to 5 p.m. He does homework for a couple of hours and then heads to the gym to lift weights or runs the stairs in the stadium. On some evenings he works part-time at a local restaurant.

With three games remaining in the regular season, the Sea Hawks are 4-3 overall and 1-1 in Ocean League play. They play host to Morningside (6-0, 2-0) in a pivotal league game Friday night.

Redondo is unbeaten (3-0) at home with victories over highly ranked Hawthorne and Beverly Hills. Turner said the Sea Hawks are ready for Morningside.

“We seem to psych the opposition out when we’re at home,” Turner said. “I honestly don’t think we can lose here. If we can make the playoffs and get the home-field advantage, no one can stop us.”

Road games haven’t been as kind to the Sea Hawks this season. After trouncing West Torrance, 41-17, Redondo dropped games at Peninsula and North Torrance and lost last week at Culver City.

Ammentorp said that the loss to North actually may have helped to turn the season around for the Sea Hawks and Turner.

“I think we became a little bit sure of ourselves,” Turner said. “After we lost to Peninsula, the feeling (among the players) may have been, ‘Well, they’ve got all these players, we’ll beat North.’ Unfortunately, North had something to say about that. They handled us. We found out we have to work and not just show up.”

After the North loss, Turner was “as frustrated as any player I’d ever seen,” Ammentorp said. “I think he put too much pressure on himself early in the season, trying to carry the team. I told him to just go out and have fun.”

Turner, who credits Hyduke with keeping the team intense and motivated, said he is inspired by Ammentorp.

“Coach Ammentorp keeps me on the ball,” Turner said. “We have 20-minute talks all the time. He always reminds me that people will be watching me because I am an athlete.”

Ammentorp, who says Turner “does as good a job of playing both ways as any lineman I’ve ever been around,” said he wishes that the Sea Hawks could put Turner at tight end for a few plays and “let him have some fun. After all, he gave up the glory position to become an anonymous lineman.”