Hurricane’s Ill Winds Blow West : College football: Antelope Valley athletes who played on the same Florida high school team anguish over terror their families suffered through.

Courtney Miller is the television watcher among a group of former Florida high school teammates who room together and play football for Antelope Valley College.

On Aug. 23, in an apartment 3,000 miles from home, he was watching newscasts that tracked Hurricane Andrew as it advanced ominously toward Florida.

Just the National Weather Service crying wolf, Miller surmised.

Before moving to Antelope Valley last summer, Miller was a lifelong resident of Perrine, Fla., a city of 16,000 a 20-minute drive south of Miami. There had been hurricane warnings before.

“I didn’t think anything about it,” Miller said. “The ones before always turned back or went by us.”

Miller wondered if his family might go so far as to tape the windows. Then he turned off the set and drifted into sleep.

The following morning, the first day of classes at Antelope Valley, Miller rushed to school, skipping television. He was met by inquiries of friends and classmates.

Had he heard? Andrew had blitzed southern Florida, leaving homes and lives scattered, tattered and broken in its wake. Was his family OK?

Chris Goring, Erik Blake, Charley Wright, Lamart Cooper and Brian McCalister, all former teammates of Miller’s at Palmetto High, faced similar questions.

And none had answers. There were classes to attend, then football practice.

Miller, Goring, Blake, Wright and Cooper are roommates, and it wasn’t until they returned to their apartment that evening that they finally huddled around the television.

What they saw was a horror story. The news showed Homestead, Fla., about 15 miles to the south of Perrine, in ruins.

“We were looking to recognize a place, our homes or whatever,” Miller said. “At first, it really didn’t show our neighborhood, but then, when we tried to get a call in to our parents we couldn’t get through.”

It was then that reality--and panic--set in. The eye of the hurricane, packing winds in excess of 180 m.p.h., had passed almost directly over Palmetto High.

McCalister, from Richmond Heights, northwest of Perrine, was expecting a phone call from his mother, Jacqueline, for a report on the damage. They had talked the night before and McCalister had made his mother promise to call after the storm had passed.

The call finally came--five days later.

“I tried to get through to her every day, but I couldn’t,” said McCalister, a sophomore linebacker who his redshirting this season. “Nobody could. Everybody was just walking around looking sad and wondering what happened to their family.”

It has been 10 days since the hurricane hit Florida, lobbing tornadoes and cutting a destructive swath. Goring, a defensive back, still has not been able to contact his parents, although his sister called from South Carolina to report family members had not been injured.

Cooper reached his mother, Linda, Saturday and asked her to help locate find the families of his teammates. The Cooper family had taken shelter in Liberty City, slightly removed from the storm’s path.

Looking first for her own residence after driving back to Perrine, Linda Cooper’s search ended three blocks past the site where her home once stood. The neighborhood was so strewn with debris she got lost. Her two-story house was now one story.

McCalister’s mother told of similar damage. Winds had punched a hole in the roof of her home, knocked down a portion of a brick wall and sucked her clothes, pillow and bedsheets out of one of the windows. Some of her possessions were found four blocks away.

But along with details of damage, each player’s family relayed a message: We’re OK. Stay in school. The advice did not surprise. Blake is the only Antelope Valley player from Palmetto High who has a relative who attended college.

“They make such sacrifices coming out here anyway,” said Antelope Valley Coach Brent Carder, citing out-of-state tuition costs and travel expenses. “Obviously, getting an education and playing football is very important to their families.”

Goring said the players were ready to return home but were talked out of it by their families.

The players have, at least temporarily, been left to fend for themselves. Money is extra tight. Part-time jobs “keep food in the house,” Miller said. But the players have a budget that stretches only so far. Their parents have been sending money for rent and schoolbooks.

Still, the players are more committed than ever. “I’ve never been homeless,” said Wright, a standout linebacker. “I don’t have to go through it, but my family does. All we can do is what we came out here to do: play ball and get an education. That hasn’t changed.”