FREEWAY LEAGUE FOOTBALL PREVIEW : Brian Willmer Finds There’s No Rest for the Hopeful

The opening day of conditioning week at Sunny Hills High School had just concluded and senior linebacker/tight end Brian Willmer was surprisingly upbeat.

“It was great,” Willmer said. “I enjoy practicing. If you’re going both ways, you gotta be in shape. I don’t be want to be sucking gas in the fourth quarter.”

Willmer doesn’t figure to miss a beat this season. He’s been on a vigorous training schedule since Sunny Hills was eliminated by Savanna in the first round of the Southern Section Division VI playoffs last year.

He was a starting forward on the school’s basketball team, where he usually guarded the opposing team’s best player, helping to improve his agility.

“There’s no better conditioning than playing basketball,” Willmer said. “It takes a while to get your legs in ‘basketball shape,’ but once you’re in condition, you feel great.”

When the basketball season ended, Willmer went to the weight room, where he lifted five times a week. The results are noticeable. Willmer bench presses 325 pounds, squats 450 and has a best of 265 pounds in the clean and jerk.

In June, Willmer enrolled in a linebacking camp at Penn State, where he spent five days with 150 of the top linebackers across the nation.

“I got a good feel for the college and life at an Eastern school,” he said. “Hopefully, Penn State will be one of my college visits. They liked me at both positions, and the coaches said they were going to keep an eye on me.”

Willmer also participated in Dick Lascola’s Scouting Evaluation Combine at Downey Warren High School. The combine tested the top senior players in Southern California. Willmer had the best time in the pro agility drill among 40 linebackers and tested among the top five in the vertical jump and the 40-yard dash.

“We test the best players by invitation only and Brian Willmer tested very well,” Lascola said. “I’ve had a lot of requests for film on him from Division I schools across the country.”

Willmer’s goal is to gain a college scholarship and help Sunny Hills regain respectability in the Freeway League this year.

The Lancers, who have won seven league titles in the past 11 seasons, lost it to Buena Park last year and then were upset by Savanna in the playoffs.

“Last season left a bad taste in my mouth,” Willmer said. “We played a very tough nonleague schedule and then never progressed in league. We only had four returning starters last year and two of them were juniors.

“This year is completely different. We have five all-league players returning and a lot more senior leadership. The attitude among the players is the best in the three years I’ve been on the team.”

Willmer and starting quarterback Bobby Sunderland are the only holdovers from Sunny Hills’ 1990 Southern Section Division VI championship team. He said he sees some similarities between this year’s team and the 1990 club.

“Everybody gets along great with everyone on this team,” Willmer said. “We do a lot of things together. Last year, it seemed like everyone was going in opposite directions. We tried to turn it up a notch and turn it on in league, but it never happened.”

Willmer said he has taken off only two weeks from his training schedule since last season ended. He went on a vacation with his family and one of the focal points was an unofficial visit to the University of Washington.

Willmer plans to major in business management in college and has a 3.3 grade-point average in college preparatory classes. He hopes to someday open a sporting goods store with a long-time friend from Chicago.

“I feel lucky going to this school,” Willmer said. “It’s a great athletic and academic school with a great coaching staff.”

Willmer didn’t always feel that way. He moved from Chicago to Fullerton four years ago when his father was named vice president of Biola University. It was a tough adjustment for a Midwestern kid.

“I was fired up when my parents said we were moving to California,” he said. “Then I got here and didn’t know anybody. At first, I didn’t have a lot of friends and stayed home a lot on Friday nights.”

Willmer was a defensive lineman on Sunny Hills’ freshman team and became a starting defensive lineman for the varsity team as a sophomore. He also played two games at fullback when starter Kenny Overby was injured.