As High School Season Starts, More Girls Are on the Gridiron : Football: Female players have earned spots on formerly all-boy teams--and are treated no differently.

Elena Andrade, 16, hates wearing a hair net. Valeria Abarca, 15, says the long sprints can be a killer. And Chrissy Sanford, 17, gets teased about whether she wears a protective cup.

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But otherwise, these Ventura County girls and a few others have busted into an all-male dominion without much of a stir and with little flak from their peers.

Elena, Valeria and Chrissy play high school football on what were once all-boy teams.

When the season kicks off tonight, five of the county’s 18 high schools with football teams will count at least one girl kicker, wide receiver or line- person , if you please, in their lineup.

Local coaches claim that this is the first year so many high school girls in the county--about eight--will don helmets and shoulder pads and play America’s favorite contact sport.

“There are more girls interested in football than ever before,” said Dick Billingsley, head football coach at Oak Park High School. “I think it’s partly the novelty, just the idea that you’re going to play on an all-male team. But girl athletes are also getting stronger and stronger.”

Many of these girl athletes at Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Channel Islands, Hueneme and Oak Park high schools do not view themselves as pioneers or trendsetters.

Instead, like Elena--now a junior varsity kicker for the Oak Park Eagles who will very likely join the varsity squad--many say that trying out for football was in the natural order of things.

“I just thought it would be a neat thing to do,” said Elena, who like many other girl kickers got her start in soccer. “Everyone treats me like another player. I’m just a guy with long hair.”

Valeria, a wide receiver for Channel Islands High’s junior varsity team, merely wanted a change of pace from softball and soccer.

“Football is just a new sport to play,” said the sophomore, who at 5 feet, 2 1/2 inches is neither the tallest nor the shortest on the team. “The tackling part is no big deal. Anybody can get hit.”

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John Gonzales, Valeria’s coach, assures that her trainers and teammates give the sophomore no special treatment.

“When other players hit her, they hit her like any other,” Gonzales said. “Some girls just want to prove a point, but Valeria is different. She wants to play the game.”

Michael Messner, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, said the fact that girls are leaving the sidelines for the playing field signals a shift in society’s views of gender differences.

“Football has been one of the last bastions of some men’s belief in the natural superiority of men over women,” said Messner, who researches links between gender and sports. “We are starting to reap some of the benefits of a generation of girls who believe they can be strong and powerful and compete with men anywhere.”

But what do the boys think?

“High school football is one of the biggest sports there is, and girls want to be part of it,” said Josh Nicassio, Oak Park’s 17-year-old varsity quarterback and kicker. “If they beat you out, then they’re better than you.”

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Chrissy Sanford, who has six younger brothers, was hardly intimidated by the thought of becoming the first female member of Newbury Park’s football team.

The tall high school senior--who plays soccer, runs track and swam competitively--said she never lacked the athletic prowess to compete in a rough sport. But when she joined the team in her sophomore year, the kicker said she missed a lot of points.

“At first, [teammates] did not take me very seriously,” Chrissy said.

Now Chrissy is the Panthers’ starting varsity kicker for points after touchdowns. She holds a school record for scoring the most points after touchdown in a single game--seven against Hueneme High last year.

Her teammates, some of whom during a recent practice were enjoying a few minutes in the shade near the boys locker room, now take Chrissy very seriously.

“Last year she won two games for us,” said 16-year-old lineman Brian Nelson, referring to field goals Chrissy kicked with only seconds remaining. “She practically put us into the playoffs.”

Another lineman, 16-year-old Noah Russell, simply admires Chrissy’s moxie.

“A lot of girls don’t have enough guts to come out on the team, and she does,” Noah said.

Girls kicking and catching pigskins for their high school teams is not a new phenomenon in Ventura County. Fillmore and Santa Paula high schools, for instance, both had a female defensive lineperson on their varsity squads before the girls graduated two years ago.

But coaches say 1995 marks a new high point for girls on the gridiron. Hueneme High School has three girl players this year and Thousand Oaks has two.

Yet football is not the only traditionally all-male sport that girls have defied convention to join. Girls now play water polo at Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Oxnard high schools, among others.

Because of young women’s booming interest in water polo, officials are petitioning the California Interscholastic Federation to make it a girls’ sport too.

Messner believes that football is still the all-male sport that holds the most allure.

“In high school culture, one of the things that is most valued is sports in general and football in particular,” he said. “It is the highest-status activity. Girls take it very seriously.”

Chrissy admits that her stock on campus has gone up since she joined the team.

“Everybody at school knows me as the girl varsity kicker. People come up to me the next day and say, ‘Hey, I saw that kick you made.’ I had something to offer the team. Some girls are just going out for the glory and the fame, but they have to prove they belong on the team.”

With intense concentration, Chrissy stepped up to the football, and with a swift phounk of a kick, powered it through the yellow goal post.

Like other trainers, Chrissy’s coach, George Hurley, said that having a girl on the team has required few adjustments. Many coaches said they simply have to remember to unlock the girls’ locker room.

But there is one more thing.

“Chrissy has helped us watch our language a little bit better,” Hurley said. “We have a rule against profanity, but sometimes the coaches and the other players get a little excited about the game.”