Gonzalez’s Quiet Demeanor Disappears in Competition : Basketball: Huntington Beach sophomore likes a fight, even from fish on the end of his line.

Tony Gonzalez seems like a nice enough kid. Easygoing, polite, a tad quiet.

But hand him a fishing pole, a pair of boxing gloves, a football or a basketball, and you had best get out of his way. Or he’ll make you.

Gonzalez loves to play hard, whether he’s reeling in a yellowtail in the Pacific, slugging it out with his older brother at the local gym, playing tight end or pushing around for position on the basketball court.

Regardless of the sport, physical play is part of the game for Gonzalez, a sophomore forward at Huntington Beach High School.

“I remember our first (varsity) practice last spring,” he said. “It was like, ‘Whoa, you have to push around here.’ ”

Although only a part-time starter, Gonzalez is averaging 10 points, shooting 54% from the field and is the Oilers’ second-leading rebounder, averaging 8.6 per game. He enters tonight’s Sunset League game against Edison with nearly as many offensive rebounds (75) as defensive (80).

“He has a knack for getting good position,” Huntington Beach Coach Roy Miller said. “He’s so strong, you can’t push him out of there with anything short of a foul.”

Gonzalez stands 6 feet 4 and can bench-press 50 pounds more than his weight of 195. He loves rough play--setting a good pick, muscling somebody out of the paint for an offensive rebound.

His favorite player is NBA bad-boy Charles Barkley. Gonzalez regularly mixes it up with Matt Ambrose, the Oilers’ 6-6, 210-pound center, during practice.

“Everyone tells me I’m a physical player,” Ambrose said, “and I like that. But Matt’s the one who makes me good. He knows all the moves.”

Although he’s not afraid to play rough with teammates during practice, he’s one of the first to stick up for them during a game.

During a recent league game, an opponent kicked Huntington Beach’s Jeff Vanderwal, who was on the ground diving for a loose ball. Gonzalez was one of the first to arrive on the scene. “You want to try and do that to me?” Gonzalez asked, standing in the opposing player’s face.

That demeanor sometimes shows up during other activities. What does he like most about his deep-sea fishing trips to Mexico in the summer with his father?

“When the fish put up a good fight,” he said.

Like most fishermen, Gonzalez loves to tell stories. He spins a yarn of the one that got away: His brother caught a 115-pound marlin last summer on a trip Tony missed because of summer school.

“That could have been my fish,” he said. “Chris rarely goes fishing. He just went because I was in school.”

The brothers also have dabbled in boxing, with Chris, a freshman linebacker at Orange Coast College, stinging Tony during most matchups.

“Chris is really good,” Tony said. “And I’m pretty oafy.”

The younger Gonzalez hung up the gloves four months ago after his brother tagged him with a jab to the jaw, knocking it out of place.

Gonzalez was fortunate--a broken jaw would have meant wire braces and a milkshake diet for a few months--and he didn’t want to risk further injury.

“When he got me in the jaw,” Gonzalez said. “That was it.”

But he stuck with basketball, a sport he began playing as an eighth-grader. He played football almost exclusively while growing up, but joined the Edison Recreation Center basketball team two years ago.

“I didn’t like basketball very much when I was young,” he said. “When I started playing, I wasn’t good enough to dribble or anything, but I got the ball a lot because I was taller than everyone.”

Gonzalez scored 18 points in his first game, and figured basketball wasn’t such a bad sport after all. When he enrolled at Huntington Beach last season, he tried out for the freshman team.

But bad grades and a bad attitude nearly cut short Gonzalez’s basketball career.

Just before the start of the league season, he was kicked off the freshman team because he couldn’t get along with the coach. He returned after a week, and finished the season with the sophomore team.

“It just wasn’t working out for him at that (freshman) level,” Miller said. “We didn’t want to lose him, so he played with the sophomores.”

Said Gonzalez: “I just didn’t care. I even got benched for a couple sophomore games because of my attitude. That kind of woke me up.”

His attitude and grades changed in the spring. He was promoted to the varsity, and began practicing with older, more experienced players.

He has worked hard in the classroom during the spring semester and summer school, and is quick to point out that his grade-point average is now up to 2.9.

“Tony matured,” Miller said. “He grew up. I think playing with the older guys helped him a lot. Everyone at the varsity level is mature, and it’s much different than playing with freshmen.”

Gonzalez said he needs to improve--and has a lot to prove--in the next two seasons. He’s one of Orange County’s most promising sophomore players, yet he’s the first to admit his game has its share of defects.

He has a tendency to be too aggressive. He needs more moves inside, to learn to go around someone rather than over them. He needs to improve his free-throw shooting--he makes only 53% now, up from 42% earlier in the season.

“The coaches have done a lot for me here,” Gonzalez said. “C.J. (assistant coach Clarence Jones) has helped me with my free throws and Coach Miller has worked with me on my moves. I can only get better.”