Thousand Oaks’ Nichols Turns Back on Football

As powerful as the team’s offense should be this season, the Thousand Oaks High attack could have been even more potent had senior Jamal Nichols not decided to give up football in favor of baseball.

Nichols, an outfielder for the Newbury Oaks baseball team that won the American Legion World Series title last month, informed football Coach Bob Richards that he would not suit up this fall.

“It was a . . . big-time surprise,” Richards said.

Last season, Nichols (5-foot-7, 165 pounds) played slotback, rushing for 259 yards in 29 carries and catching 5 passes for 88 yards. He also returned kicks. Last spring, Nichols batted .311 with three home runs and 21 runs batted in for the school’s baseball team.

“I would rather concentrate on only one, and my dream is to play professional baseball,” Nichols said. “When I look at how I was treated in baseball and how I was treated in football . . . I don’t know, my eyes really opened up.”

Nichols was the starting tailback for two seasons on the Lancer freshman and sophomore teams. However, on the varsity, Nichols found himiself playing behind All-Ventura County tailback Cory Bowen, who rushed for 1,704 yards and scored 22 touchdowns last season.

Nichols stopped short of saying he deserved to play ahead of Bowen but said he believed the coaching staff did not give him a fair chance to win the position and that it already had decided against him as Bowen’s replacement this season. Quincy Jacobs, who rushed for 1,189 yards and 15 touchdowns as the Lancer fullback last season, will play tailback.

“I just didn’t play what I wanted to play and I knew I could play it,” Nichols said. “It just kind of burned me up when I thought about it.”

Richards had said he was counting on Nichols to return and that a starting tailback would not be selected until fall practice. He is a very good athlete,” Richards said. “He could have tried out for that position. He was given a shot, he just didn’t take it.

ALOHA AGAIN

Montclair Prep has had discussions with the organizers of the Shawn Akina Memorial Classic about the Mounties returning to the annual event in Hawaii next season, assistant John Hazelton said.

The Mounties traveled to Honolulu for six-team high school football event in 1990.

Hazelton also said Montclair Prep is looking as far as Northern California and Las Vegas, among other places, to find opponents to fill the 1993 schedule. Hazelton said he exxpected that none of the Alpha League teams would want to play the Mounties after this year.

L.A. Baptist dropped Montclair Prep from its 1992 schedule after the Mounties were ousted from the Alpha League last spring. The other four Alpha teams will play Montclair Prep this season.

HELMETS? WHAT HELMETS?

When Richard Fong took over the football program at St. Genevieve last season, he inherited a team not only short on talent--the Valiants were 0-9 in 1991--but short on organization.

A few years ago, the school was forced to buy 80 new helmets because the ones the team was using had not been reconditioned. When they finally were reconditioned, the helmets were determined to be unsafe. When Fong arrived, he could find only 55 helmets.

The rest just disappeared.

“Kids will keep anything,” he said.

There was also an incident involving whirlpools. Fong had obtained a few used whirlpools relatively inexpensively and he planned to install them in the team’s locker room.

“We put them all in place and we turned them on and we didn’t have any hot water,” Fong said. “Turned out we needed a new boiler.”

HOMECOMING GAME

Bill this game “The prodigal coach returns.”

Crespi will play Canyon in the second week of the season, marking the first time that Canyon Coach Harry Welch has squard off against his old school since 1985.

Welch, an assistant at Crespi in the 1970s, has not exactly treated his former school with kid gloves. In 1984, Canyon spanked Crespi, 35-0. The following year, even though Bill Redell had returned to coach at Crespi, Canyon routed the Celts, 40-0.

“Hopefully it won’t happen again,” Crespi Coach Tim Lins said. “We should score this time.”

CALL ME

Every year when Sylmar football Coach Jeff Engliman bids farewell to his graduating seniors, he encourages his players to keep in touch--no matter where they happen to be. It’s a suggestion that many players over the years have taken to heart--at Engliman’s expense.

Most recently, Engliman heard from former star running back Tobaise Brookins, who called from Seattle.

“He called collect and, of course, he had to talk for about an hour,” Engliman said, smiling. “But that’s O.K. I don’t mind. If they need to talk, they know where to find me.”

Brookins, who rushd for 1,605 yards and scored 25 touchdowns last year, is expected to redshirt this season at Washington.

STICK TO KICKING

That’s what Burbank Coach Randy Stage is going to insist of Alfonso Velasco, his All-Foothill League kicker who suffered a broken collarbone during the fist day of contact drills. Velasco was playing cornerback at the time of his injury.

As a result, Velasco--brother of former UCLA kicker Alfredo and cousin of former Cal State Northridge kicker Abo--will not play in the Bulldogs’ opener against Hoover.

“His career as a corner lasted nine plays,” Stage said of the 5-foot-10, 175-pound Velasco, who isalso the punter.

“He’s just too valuable as a kicker.”

Stage said that Velasco was injured when offensive tackle Dan Cotti (6-4, 240) fell on him while Velasco was attempting to make a tackle.

Stage said Steve Hall, a starting reciever, will take over the kicking duties until Velasco returns.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, Paige A. Leech and Jason H. Reid contributed to this notebook.