Extra Seasoning Brings About Confidence : Football: Time spent on sophomore squad helped to develop Villa Park’s Ellis Williams into an all-star outside linebacker.

It’s hard to believe Ellis Williams went virtually unnoticed for two weeks when he transferred to Villa Park High School as a sophomore.

Williams arrived in Villa Park only 10 days before the start of school. He planned on playing sports and asked sophomore Coach Russ Murphy, “Where do I sign up to play football?”

Murphy took one look at Williams, a strapping 6-foot-2, 180-pound 16-year-old, and said, “Son, I’ll take care of everything for you.”

Murphy omitted only one minor detail. He never told varsity Coach Pat Mahoney that Williams had checked in.

“Russ hid him from us (varsity staff) for two weeks,” Mahoney said. “We never saw him until the sophomore team played its first game. I saw this big kid who was really fast and told the staff, ‘This kid has got to play on the varsity.’ ”

Williams’ mother moved from Tennessee to Perris with a family of six children after the death of Williams’ father two years ago. When the task of raising the children became too much, she sent Ellis to live with his grandparents in Villa Park.

Williams had played organized football only one year in Perris, but as a sophomore at Villa Park he ran a 10.1 in the 100-yard dash in the Century League track championships that season.

“He was pretty raw but he had all this natural talent, so we brought him up to the varsity,” Mahoney said. “He was playing tight end on the sophomore team and we kept kidding Russ, saying, ‘That’s like putting O.J. Simpson at tight end.’ ”

But the move to a new school and the quick advancement to the varsity team was too much for Williams. He had problems adjusting to the social environment and the fast-paced, complicated system at Villa Park.

“I didn’t know a soul when I moved to Villa Park, and I didn’t make a lot of friends the first week in school,” Williams said. “I really didn’t know the game of football. What I knew, I saw on television. I was in way over my head.”

Williams met with Mahoney and asked to play on the sophomore team, where he felt he could gain some confidence at running back and linebacker. The demotion worked and seven weeks later, he was promoted to the varsity again.

“We had a linebacker get hurt, so he started our eighth game at inside linebacker and played a little at running back,” Mahoney said. “He was a completely different kid. He was ready to play varsity football.”

Williams gained 20 pounds during the off-season, combining power with speed as a runner. He developed into one of the top running backs in Orange County as junior, rushing for more than 900 yards.

But Villa Park’s defense allowed an average of 20.2 points per game, so Mahoney moved Williams to outside linebacker as a senior. He teamed with inside linebacker Jason Braun to help Villa Park become one of the top defensive teams in the county.

Villa Park tied with El Modena and Orange for the Century League championship and then upset Crespi in the first round of the Southern Section Division III playoffs before being eliminated by Esperanza.

Williams will start at outside linebacker for an underdog North team Friday night in the 33rd Orange County all-star game at Orange Coast College. He’s well aware of his task of trying to contain the South’s potent passing attack led by quarterback Billy Blanton of Mater Dei.

“I think we’re going to surprise some people,” Williams said. “Everybody is going by size and picking the South, but I think we have a much quicker team. Our defense is going to be fired up for Billy Blanton.”

This fall, Williams will continue his career as an outside linebacker at Rancho Santiago College, but said he doesn’t have a preference for a particular position.

“Actually, I enjoy playing on either side of the line,” Williams said. “It doesn’t matter if I run with the football or make tackles, I just love the game.”

Williams, now 6-2, 220 pounds, has made remarkable gains on the football field and continues to make inroads in the classroom.

He was a special-education student at Villa Park. He started on a fifth-grade reading level, but he worked with instructor JoAnn Johnson to improve his reading skills and says he now reads on an 11th-grade level.

Williams is a big man on the playing field, but he carries an unlikely nickname, “Pee Wee.” His father was also known as Pee Wee.

“When my father died two years ago, I decided to dedicate my career in his name,” Williams said. “It’s been tough on my mom, and someday I’d like to help her.”