High School Players’ Goal: Cut a Dashing College Figure

Jeramie Jackson and Jess Ortiz don’t have much in common, other than the fact they both want to become faster.

The juniors acknowledged their need for improvement Wednesday during the Ventura County football combine at Rio Mesa High. The event drew college coaches from 32 schools.

Jackson, a running back from Ventura High, turned in two of the day’s best times in the 40-yard dash (4.5 seconds) and the shuttle agility run (4.3), but was left dissatisfied.

“It shows me what I have to improve on if I want to go to college,” said Jackson, who also plays defensive back. “I have to increase my speed. I want to get my 40 time down to 4.3 or 4.2, and run the 100 [meters] in 10.8.”

Ortiz’s goals are not as ambitious as Jackson’s, but no less important. The 6-foot-6, 350-pound offensive lineman from Rio Mesa knows exactly what he needs to do after running the 40 in a tortoise-like 6.3 seconds.

“I need to lose a lot of weight over the summer,” he said.

Add combine: Dale McAlpine, a lineman for Buena High, was encouraged by his 40-yard time of 5.1 seconds. But the 6-2, 240-pound junior seemed a little confused about the pecking order of college football programs.

“I don’t expect any [scholarship] offers from big schools like USC,” he said. “Maybe I can get something from BYU.”

With that, a teammate turned to McAlpine and said, “BYU is a big school.”

Reminded that coaches from Cal Lutheran were at the combine, McAlpine changed his tune.

“Cal Lutheran would be good,” he said.

Sign of the times: Athletic trainers at Cal State Northridge are thrilled to finally get out of the ancient building where they have been treating athletes for years. By June, the department will move to a new, state-of-the-art facility

across the courtyard from the old one.

“This is very modernized and up-to-date,” said Steve Lohr, director of facilities planning at Northridge. “The building they’re in now was built in the 1960s.”

The new kinesiology building is 86,000 square feet and will feature instruction labs, a gym and a dance studio with a high-tech flooring system.

The area where athletes will be taped and treated for injuries is about three times as large as in the old building.

“We’ll have more equipment and up-to-date computerized machines,” Northridge head trainer Rhonda Lowry said. “We’re excited.”

Quotebook

“To think when I got into this field my relatives thought I just taped ankles and gave rubdowns.”

--Alice Mclaine, director of the athletic training program at Northridge, who has a doctorate in education and an undergraduate degree in biology.

Things to Do

The Southern Section Masters Meet will be at Cerritos College in Norwalk tonight. Field events start at 5:30 p.m., running events at 7.

Contributing: Rob Fernas, Irene Garcia, John Ortega.