Even Before Football Season Starts, Borland Is Well-Suited for Action

Kyle Borland is as anxious as anyone for the start of high school football season. Maybe then he can get some sleep.

Borland, who played at Wisconsin, with several United States Football League teams and for the Rams, is one of Southern California’s most prominent equipment representatives. During the season, he helps tutor Westlake High’s linebackers, but his hell weeks are going on now.

“July and August, that’s a busy time,” said Borland, who averages more than 12 hours a day dealing with youth, high school and college teams this time of year. “It’s definitely a full-time job.”

Borland, a representative for Riddell, arranges for coaches and administrators to purchase and maintain virtually every type of football equipment except uniforms.

Want a new helmet? It’ll cost you between $85-100. In California, all adult helmets must be reconditioned each year and Riddell recommends no helmet be used more than 10 years.

Shoulder pads run from $40-300, depending on size and quality. The pads designed to protect a player’s thighs, knees and hips sell for $4-10.

Borland, 36, is in his eighth year with Riddell, one of only two companies nationwide to manufacture football helmets, and deals with approximately 150 teams in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

“The most enjoyable part of the job is going around and talking football with the coaches,” Borland said. “It’s a lot of driving but you establish a relationship that’s not just business.”

Names game: The National Athletic Merit Endorsement Service’s (NAMES) annual survey of the nation’s top high school football prospects has been completed and last week the scouting service’s list of top 100 returning players was announced.

The “Super Squad,” it’s called.

Ventura High linebacker Joe Martinez and Westlake receiver Joey Cuppari both are listed.

Making the team, of course, is quite an honor.

But is the list legitimate?

The Super Squad is the best players from NAMES’s “Gridiron Greats”--a book of 28,000 of the nation’s best junior and senior players.

In a press release, the organization’s scouting director is quoted as saying, “We’ve sold Gridiron Greats books to recruiting enthusiasts in all fifty states and two foreign countries.”

All sounds great. But we did spot a rather major oversight:

With all due respect to Martinez and Cuppari--both of whom are outstanding prospects--this region’s best prospect wasn’t a member of the Super Squad.

That’s right, no Justin Fargas.

Thrown for loss: After posting a 4-16 record the past two seasons, the Oak Park High football team had high hopes for 1997. Until recently, that is.

Last Friday, Eagle Coach Dick Billingsley learned that quarterback and safety Marques Massengale has been declared academically ineligible and that defensive end and fullback Travis Johnson is transferring to Notre Dame.

Monday, Billingsley learned the father of lineman Tony Clinker has accepted a job out of state and the family is moving.

“I thought we had a championship football team and in two days we lose five starting positions,” Billingsley said. “We’ll still be good, but. . . .”

The loss of Massengale, a senior, was not a surprise. The senior was declared academically ineligible late last season and missed the Eagles’ final game.

Johnson, who will be a sophomore, told The Times in June that he applied to Notre Dame, but Billingsley said the player and his mother led him to believe Johnson would be at Oak Park in the fall.

Johnson played on the Oak Park freshman football team and was a key reserve on the varsity basketball team.

Johnson attended summer school at Oak Park and played in football and basketball summer competitions with Eagle teams, Billingsley said.

Holding out: Perhaps Ricky Helland has a future in horse-trading.

The catcher from Buena High held his ground and signed a scholarship to Cal State Northridge on Monday, declining an earlier offer of only books and tuition from Matador Coach Mike Batesole.

Spotted by Batesole during a July workout at Ventura College, Helland was given two days to accept or decline the initial offer. That time frame expired while he was on vacation in Oklahoma, but when Helland returned after three weeks, Batesole called and offered him a full ride.

Helland, a member of The Times’ 1996 All-Ventura County baseball team, batted .434 last season.

“I played hard to get and I guess it worked,” Helland said with a laugh.