RECREATION / STEVE HENSON : Burbank Actor Gets His Chance to Play Real-Life Football Hero

With Kenny (The Snake) Stabler cackling in a corner, The Kid edged out Smooth to earn the right for Billy (White Shoes) Johnson to juke him on a Florida beach the day before the Super Bowl.

If that sounds like the hallucination of somebody who has pounded too many shots of tequila, well, you’re close.

A tequila company is staging a promotional flag football game in Ft. Lauderdale between a team of “NFL Legends” and a team of 10 regular dudes from around the nation, one of the dudes being The Kid, a.k.a. Davee Youngblood, a 25-year-old bartender/actor from Burbank.

He qualified by beating out 30 or so other dudes in four stages of competition at a Burbank bar in November. Stabler judged the competition, which included throwing a football into a net, crab-crawling around bar stools, running through tires and ad-libbing a touchdown celebration dance.

Youngblood clinched the victory by employing his acting skills during a frenzied touchdown dance that included high-stepping, a Heisman pose, spinning the football like a top and crab-crawling around the ball.

“I just went crazy, acted like a total idiot,” he said. “Stabler laughed at me but I told him to sit down and take some Geritol.”

Youngblood, nicknamed The Kid by friends who tell him he looks 18, won two round-trip tickets, hotel accommodations and, presumably, all the tequila he can drink.

“I’m sure I’ll get a bar tab,” Youngblood said. “If not, I’ll start one in their name.”

Smooth, a.k.a. Scott The Kid’s Former Roommate, was rankled at finishing second in the competition.

“He’s a big football fan,” Youngblood said. “He really wanted to win. He probably would have appreciated it more than me.”

Players on the Legends team, including Floyd Little, Jim Kiick, Russ Francis and Conrad Dobler in addition to Stabler and Johnson, are vaguely familiar to Youngblood.

“I know enough about football to know these cats were pretty good. Dobler was a mean guy, wasn’t he?” he said.

He is pleased mostly because this qualifies as a trip home. Youngblood (6 feet 2, 180 pounds) grew up in Orlando, playing baseball, basketball and golf in high school, and will visit his mother for several days after the game.

The exposure he might gain when the game is broadcast on ESPN2 won’t hurt, either. Youngblood has appeared in a couple of commercials but is still seeking his big break in Hollywood.

“I want to be MVP so I get air time after the game,” he said. “I’m definitely gonna ham it up. It’d be cool if we won, but I’m just there to have fun and be silly.”

To that end, Youngblood wants to play quarterback. No matter that any number of his nine teammates--whom he won’t meet until the day before the game--probably want the same position.

“I’m telling them I already got dibs on (quarterback),” he said. “If not quarterback, I guess I can play wide receiver.”

Anything to avoid going nose to nose with Conrad Dobler.

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Policing the park: Speeding mountain bikers have long been the bane of hikers, and the Santa Monica Mountains are no exception.

Folks tromping along trails will soon breath easier, however. Rangers are being trained to use hand-held radar guns in six state parks ranging from Point Mugu to Malibu Creek.

In addition, radar trailers that display the speed of an oncoming vehicle will be utilized.

“They will also be used for traffic control in campgrounds,” said Russ Guiney, superintendent of six state parks from Malibu Creek to Point Mugu. “We are sending a message out to cyclists: slow down.”

Guiney said that most accidents associated with mountain bikes in the Santa Monica Mountains occur in Point Mugu state park, about 20-25 a year. Mountain bikers ticketed for speeding face a $75 fine. The speed limit in a state park is 15 m.p.h.

“Rangers write citations, they are peace officers with the same law-enforcement powers as a police officer,” he said.

A potential speed trap will be a three-mile asphalt-covered trail that includes a steep downhill grade leading from the Potrero Road entrance in Newbury Park to Sycamore Canyon.

“That’s where we’ve had the most complaints,” Guiney said.

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Surfing the Summit: Competitors in the American Pro Snowboard Series are competing for $20,000 in halfpipe and boarder-cross events this weekend at Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake.

The event is one of eight APSS is staging nationally. The season championships will be held at Bear Creek and Vail, Colo., Feb. 24-26.

The Snow Summit competition begins at 10 a.m. and is free to the public.