Trying New Sport Creates Big Kicks

Fernando Arias of Van Nuys High distinctly remembers the first time he saw a football as a teenager in El Salvador four years ago.

“What is this?” Arias asked a friend, who had brought back the souvenir from the United States. “How do you use it? How do you kick it?”

His friend explained the game, but Arias was still mystified. Soccer, or futbol, he understood. Football he just didn’t get. Pop Warner isn’t exactly a household name in El Salvador.

Months later, Arias saw his first football game on television, the 1993 Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys. Suddenly, it all started making sense.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s football,’ ” he said.

Arias has learned much more than the game of football since coming to the United States with his mother and brother three days before his 15th birthday in August, 1993. He didn’t speak English at the time, and spent the first two years, summers included, learning English.

Now he’s as adept at speaking English as he is at playing football.

Arias is the region’s most prolific kicker this season, making 10 of 13 field-goal attempts. This lifelong soccer player could give a kicking lesson, in English or Spanish.

Arias, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound senior who has made all 24 of his conversion kicks, has kicked more field goals than the rest of the Valley Pac-8 Conference kickers combined and is his team’s second-

leading scorer, behind running back Carlos Mack.

Arias could play an important role at 7 tonight when Van Nuys (8-4) meets University (7-5) in a City Section 3-A Division semifinal game at Palisades High.

Changes continue for Arias, who last season as a seldom-used kicker was relegated to standing on the sideline, waiting for his name to be called. But this season he broke into the starting lineup as a wide receiver and has a team-high 12 catches for 155 yards and a touchdown.

“Last year he had the talent but didn’t have the game savvy, and there were some times he choked a little bit,” Van Nuys Coach Mark Pomerantz said.

Arias said playing wide receiver has a lot to do with his new-found kicking success.

“Maybe that’s why I improved this year, because I’m into the game now,” he said.

And among the area’s best kickers.