Nelson’s Leap of Faith : Former Long-Jump Champion Serves as Lay Minister and Teen Counselor in Simi Valley Church

Lawrence Nelson won the state long jump championship as a senior at Simi Valley High in 1985, but that effort isn’t what he considers his personal best.

He says an even greater leap took him off the athletic field and onto a career path.

For the past two years Nelson, 29, has served as a youth leader for his church, the Living Praise Christian Center in Simi Valley.

It is a Big Brother-like role in which he acts as a lay minister and counselor to as many as 30 teenagers.

For them, his door is always open and he’s always ready to listen.

“We’re always getting calls,” Nelson said, shaking his head. “We get calls at 11 o’clock at night sometimes, from kids wanting to talk. But I want them to call. I’d rather they call. That’s why I’m here.”

Fred Hodge, the pastor of the church, is glad he is.

“The kids love him and they talk to him,” Hodge said. “I think it’s a good attribute when teens will tell you things in private and open up to you when they might not do that with anybody else. And that does go on.”

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Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Nelson looks as much like a group member as any of the 20 teens who sat in a large circle of chairs around him as he preached the power of prayer during a recent youth meeting.

“I pray for you guys all the time, but that’s not enough,” Nelson told the teenagers. “You need to do it yourselves, for yourselves, and for each other, and you’ve got to believe it too.”

Once Nelson got his message across, discussions at the 2 1/2-hour meeting were wide-ranging, and touched on a variety of teen-related issues such as drinking, peer pressure, teen sex and pregnancy, and family relationships.

“I love what I’m doing,” Nelson said. “The teens we deal with are dealing with everyday life. Sometimes they just need someone to listen. I just spend time with them.”

A 14-year-old girl recently approached Nelson with conflicting emotions about whether she was ready to engage in intimate relations with her boyfriend. After a talk with Nelson, she decided to wait.

“I made the right choice,” she said. “It was definitely the right thing to do for now, and Lawrence helped me a lot, just by listening and talking to me. He knows what we’re going through, and we can relate to him, too.”

The girl’s mother also appreciated the guidance Nelson provided to her daughter, saying, “I’m glad she has him to go to. I think he’s a very positive influence and the kids look up to him. He’s closer to their age, but he’s also old enough that he’s been through some things, too.”

Nelson shares his life experiences freely, drawing on various sports-, school- and family-related incidents and anecdotes to use as examples during youth-group meetings.

“Lawrence is a great role model for us,” said Zach Murray, 17. “He’s there for us. I didn’t have a dad around, so Lawrence has been like a mentor to me. I could have been involved in a lot of things, but Lawrence has been a big help to me, encouraging me, and keeping me on the right path.”

Nelson also is involved in his church’s Prison Ministries program as a minister to inmates at the California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo.

In that role, Nelson works Sunday services at the facility once or twice a month and provides one-to-one, nondenominational Bible-study sessions.

Besides his church-related duties, Nelson for the past three years has held a full-time job as one of a team of behavior specialists who teach living and vocational skills, and often basic skills such as speech, reading and writing, to mentally challenged adults for the Assn. for Retarded Citizens (ARC) of Ventura County.

Nelson also spent a year working with the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Simi Valley in 1991.

“I guess he’s just a public-service kind of guy,” said Nelson’s wife Trenny, his former high school sweetheart whom he married in 1992. “It’s just him.”

Nelson’s brother, M.J., also a former star athlete at Simi Valley, added: “With young kids, he’s real good--always has been. What he does now, that’s him. It’s not something where we’re like, ‘What? He’s doing that?’ We figured he’d do something like that.”

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Nelson had an exhilarating senior track and field season at Simi Valley, which included setting existing school records of a wind-aided 24 feet 4 3/4 inches in the long jump and 37.59 seconds in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles.

He also ran, along with M.J., on the relay teams which set then-school records of 42.5 in the 400 meters and 3:19.74 for 1,600 meters.

Nelson’s season culminated with a title-winning long jump of 24-3 1/4 at the 1985 State championships in Sacramento. Because Nelson’s season-best leap of 24-4 3/4 at the Mt. Carmel Invitational was wind-aided, his high-school best of 24-3 1/2 stood as the Ventura County record until the past season, when Hueneme’s Ronney Jenkins leaped 24-9. His high school best ranks sixth on the all-time region list and he is the only Simi Valley track athlete to win a state title.

“I knew in the air that I had it,” he said. “I knew I was flying over everybody else’s marks,” he said.

Nelson’s jump topped a leap of 24-2 1/4 by Cleo Bates of Pasadena.

“Standing on the victory stand, you’re No. 1 in the state,” Nelson said. “You’re talking tears and screaming. Even in the stands, everybody stood up and they were cheering. It was a good feeling.”

The accomplishment came as little surprise to Doni Green, Nelson’s coach at Simi Valley and now an assistant at Moorpark College.

“He’s probably one of the best athletes ever to come through Simi Valley,” Green said.

M.J., a year younger, was another. They were also football teammates.

Lawrence was the star in track, M.J. the football star.

“Football was something that he loved but track was definitely his thing,” said M.J., who earned a scholarship to Colorado and played wide receiver for the Buffaloes.

Lawrence Nelson’s prowess earned him an athletic scholarship to Fresno State, where his success continued--for a time.

In 1986, Nelson set a school freshman record with a long jump mark of 24-5 1/2. He helped set a then-school record of 40.18 seconds in the 400-meter relay.

Continuing to improve the next year, Nelson recorded a career-best long jump of 24-11 1/4, good for second place in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. championships.

As a junior, however, Nelson began to struggle--athletically and academically--and he never recovered. He failed to improve in the long jump, and worse, he became academically ineligible and did not compete as a senior.

“He did very well his first couple of years here,” Fresno State Coach Red Estes said. “You have optimism that people will continue to improve, and I like to think we’re always going to have 100% success. It doesn’t always happen.”

Ineligible to compete and lacking motivation and direction, Nelson dropped out of Fresno State without graduating and came home to Simi Valley in 1989.

“I was hurt and embarrassed,” Nelson said. “I felt like I let a lot of people in Simi Valley down.

“I didn’t want people to see me as a dumb jock, someone who went up there for four years and didn’t finish. But I’m at a point now where I’ve got nothing to hide.

“Church gave me a lot of structure and goals. I’m very happy with the way my life is going along right now.”