Two-Part Harmony

He is first-string tailback for Harvard-Westlake High, first-chair violinist in the school’s concert orchestra.

He spent his formative years living in France and Spain, speaks French and Spanish fluently, and prefers Mozart to Motley Crue.

He is the son of a prominent opera singer and a journalist for Time magazine, and a great great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt.

But for all his status and savoir faire, Sam Hornblower just wants to be one of the guys. A bit bashful, he sounds a lot like a typical adolescent more concerned with acne and attracting the opposite sex than with selecting a lifetime vocation.

“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” Hornblower said half-jokingly.

“Right now, I’m just enjoying the American high school experience. High school sports is a whole new environment to me. It was something I’d always heard about and wanted to get into, but it was nonexistent in Paris.”

Hornblower, 18, who was born in Washington, D.C., and has lived in New York, may have been bestowed a heavy dose of culture, but he always has maintained an appreciation for the not-so-finer things--like lowering a shoulder pad and planting a helmet in a linebacker’s midsection.

Finally, he is doing just that.

Hornblower (6 feet 2, 185 pounds), a senior in his first season as a starter, has rushed for 360 yards and eight touchdowns and ranks second among regional scoring leaders as Harvard-Westlake (3-0) travels to Calabasas tonight for a 7:30 nonleague game.

Last week, Hornblower rushed for 191 yards and two touchdowns in a 21-14 victory over San Marino.

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His running technique isn’t as refined as, say, his stroke with the bow of a violin, which he began studying at age 6. Then again, Hornblower isn’t just fiddling around.

“He’s had two breakaway runs where he [accidentally] ran out of bounds,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Dave Bennett said. “But he’s just getting better and better. He runs with reckless abandon. Every time we give it to him, we’re not sure where he’s gonna go, but he’s off and running.”

And he’s fitting in just fine among the ensemble of shoulder-padded schoolmates.

“I’d say the camaraderie is a huge part of it, particularly right now, being a senior,” Hornblower said. “I always wanted to play football. And my father always wanted me to play football.”

At Harvard-Westlake, a private school nestled in the foothills of Coldwater Canyon, Hornblower has found, perhaps, the ideal environment in which to develop his musical and athletic talents--a blend emphasized by his parents, who were college sweethearts at Harvard University.

Ray Hornblower, who worked four years as house tenor for the Bulgarian National Opera during the family’s six-year stay in Europe, played left halfback for Harvard and was a second-team All-Ivy League selection as a junior in 1968.

As a member of Harvard’s 1968 undefeated team, Hornblower played in one of college football’s most memorable games, a 29-29 tie with archrival Yale in which the Crimson rallied for 16 points in the final 42 seconds. The following season, Hornblower led Harvard with 620 yards rushing.

Through it all, however, he continued to hone his vocal skills.

“I’ve always found a lot of cross-over between musical performance and athletic performance,” Ray Hornblower said. “I just thought it was really natural to go from the athletic field to the choir.”

Between violin lessons, Sam excelled in ice hockey while in Europe, traveling to various countries and developing into such a solid defenseman he was invited to train with the French junior national team.

But youth athletics in Europe, Hornblower said, largely were conducted on a club basis, while school was devoted to studies.

While living abroad, Hornblower’s exposure to football consisted solely of zipping spirals in the park with his father and brother Luke, who is a tailback on the Harvard-Westlake freshman team.

“I would take him out in the park in Paris and we would beat each other up, tackling each other without pads,” Ray Hornblower said. “I didn’t have to push him to play football.”

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When the family moved to Los Angeles two years ago, Hornblower was eager to combine both endeavors in one environment.

Hornblower spent most of his sophomore season sidelined because of a wrist injury. But he recovered quickly and rapidly began ascending the ranks as an athlete and musician.

“You have to give him a lot of credit, to practice an instrument after three or four hours of homework every night,” said Jerry Margolis, director of instrumental ensembles at Harvard-Westlake. “He’s really involved when he’s here. When you watch him play, he really gets lost in it. He’s not just a football player who thinks, ‘Oh, God. Now I gotta play the violin.’ ”

Hornblower is a talented musician, but he’s no virtuoso and he does not plan to make music his career.

“I don’t have the talent and the ability to become a professional,” Hornblower said. “I don’t think I’ll ever give up the violin. Serious study, maybe somewhere down the line. I’ll play for fun and I’ll probably play in some kind of orchestra.”

Aside from attending a university, Hornblower’s post-graduation goal is to travel, perhaps throughout Europe. He says he was too young to fully appreciate its offerings the first time around.

As for a future in football, he is warm to the idea.

Parental expectations indeed are high, but Ray Hornblower says his son’s decisions are his own.

“I’ve made it very clear that if he wanted to become a carpenter, that’s terrific,” Ray Hornblower said.

Hornblower has visited his parents’ alma mater but also has traveled to the campuses of Ivy League rivals Yale, Dartmouth and Brown. His options are open.

“Having been to all these places and experienced everything, it just makes me want to experience more and do that for the rest of my life,” Hornblower said. “Now I know it’s something I should look for.”