By Any Yardstick, Farrars Measure Up : High school football: Coach’s scrappy sons have propelled Nordhoff’s drive to championship game.

Don’t get the wrong idea when Nordhoff High Coach Cliff Farrar calls his youngest son Russell “a tough little booger.”

Of course, he still loves him. And what football coach wouldn’t? Russell Farrar, a 5-foot-7, 160-pound sophomore, has made 159 tackles for his father’s team.

And don’t be confused when Cliff’s wife, Roxanne, calls their oldest boy, Brian, “a little demon.”

Brian is really a pleasant teen-ager who attends church regularly, according to his parents.

“But he just plays like a little demon,” Roxanne said. “He’s a scrapper.”

Brian hasn’t made as many tackles or big plays as his younger brother, who is also a linebacker. But for the sake of family and school, Brian has been devilish on defense.

The diminutive 5-9, 146-pound senior has 103 tackles and nine sacks. He has also booted 44 extra points and leads the team with two blocked kicks.

The sons have helped Nordhoff to a 10-3 record and a berth in the Southern Section Division IX championship game. The Rangers play Atascadero tonight at 7:30 at Nordhoff High.

The worst football program in Ventura County during the 1980s, Nordhoff is now one of the most successful. The Rangers were 23-101 from 1980-89. Since 1990, they are 41-18, and champions of the Frontier League three of the past four seasons.

That’s due in no small portion to this feisty and enthusiastic family that arrived in 1987.

“What a dream for a coach, going to the (Southern Section) championship game and your two sons are on the team,” Roxanne Farrar said. “For me, it’s ecstatic. I have tons of film of my boys making great hits.”

Roxanne met Cliff 22 years ago when he was an assistant at Simi Valley. Within two months, on Dec. 2, 1972, they were married. Cliff celebrated the couple’s anniversary last week by playing bingo with his team.

“I didn’t mind,” Roxanne said. “I’m a football person. I help break down the game film. I keep telling him I want to coach.”

Farrar was groomed for coaching at Oxnard High, quarterbacking his team to the Channel League championship in 1966. Later, he played at U.S. International University in San Diego.

After a series of jobs as an assistant at area schools, he returned to San Diego in 1978, working until 1986 as an assistant at Fallbrook High, which won the San Diego Section Division I championship in ’86. Farrar then searched for a head-coaching job that would bring him back to Ventura County, where his parents and two brothers still live.

Next to Cliff, who stands 6-0, 175 pounds, the Farrar boys appear younger than 17 and 15. But Cliff wasn’t much bigger in high school: 5-10, 145.

Brian and Russell, however, are fearless and reckless on the field, but smart and fundamentally sound, not surprising for children of a football coach.

They relish running through big linemen and toppling quarterbacks, fullbacks, tight ends . . . you name it.

Said Russell: “I think it’s rad, all three of us together having fun, going for No. 1. My mom, grandma, grandpa, uncles up in the stands.”

Brian and Russell, elementary-school kids when the Farrars arrived in Ojai, were waterboys who dreamed of wearing the royal-blue-and-gold Ranger jersey. Roxanne was Nordhoff’s cheerleading adviser. Daughter Danielle, now in college, was a stat girl.

By the time Brian joined the varsity in 1993, Cliff’s teams already had won back-to-back league championships. On this year’s team, Brian became a leader during a seven-game winning streak after the Rangers started 3-3.

During the winning streak, Brian reinstituted an old practice drill. After each tackle, the entire defensive unit sprints to the downed ballcarrier. Since then, the Ranger defense been a relentless, swarming, gang-tackling bunch.

“We knew before the season that there would be a leadership void on defense,” Cliff said. “We just kept waiting for someone to step forward. And finally he did. Brian’s brought enthusiasm and spirit back to the defense.”

Russell was ranked second in the Southern Section in tackles last week. He has become the team’s most-exciting player, behind running backs Dallan Rigby (840 yards rushing, 12 touchdowns) and Josh Hawkins, a Division I college prospect who has 33 touchdowns and an area-best 2,320 rushing yards.

Big plays? Russell has scored five touchdowns, one on a 45-yard interception in the Frontier League championship game against Moorpark, another after a 94-yard return of an interception in which he was dragged down on the two-yard line.

Cliff let him run it in for a score on the next play.

Russell has five interceptions, two fumble recoveries, two fumbles caused and a blocked kick. He does everything but play quarterback--and he’s the team’s backup. But he practically refuses to play the position because there’s no contact.

“As a kid, nothing was more fun to him than to be thrown around by the football players,” Cliff said. “They would wrestle him and throw him into a trash can. He thought that was the greatest.”

Both Farrar boys made big plays in the biggest victory of their father’s coaching career, a 30-19 victory over Santa Ynez in the sectional semifinal last week.

Brian returned a fumble 35 yards for a touchdown that gave the Rangers an early 10-0 lead. In the fourth quarter, with Nordhoff clinging to a 19-13 lead, Russell broke through a 225-pound tackle and a 240-pound fullback to sack Pirate quarterback Josh Fiske on fourth down.

“That was really the game-clinching play, and what he did was not in the scheme of the defense,” Cliff said.

“I asked him the other night, ‘Son, where did you come from?’ He said, ‘Dad, I just sensed it.’

“A sophomore making that kind of play is just great.”

Team members apparently harbor no jealousy toward the coach’s sons.

“That doesn’t make them any different,” said Hawkins, who also plays defensive back.

“Some of the guys on defense look up to them. Look at Russell, he’s a little guy making big hits.

“Brian, since his freshman year, he’s been called ‘fearless.’ That’s a good nickname. He’s 150 pounds laying hits on guys 180, 200.”

For his part, Cliff concedes to paternal pride when discussing his football-playing sons.

“As a head coach (and) father you don’t want to make it sound like your sons are the heart and soul of what’s going on,” he said.

“But the two boys have played real well. As a father, I’m very proud of them.”