Moorpark Means Less Driving for Lins

It’s only a matter of time.

If Coach Tim Lins of Moorpark High thinks running into his football players at the supermarket is strange, wait until they start showing up on his doorstep.

“Oh, I hope not,” Lins said.

For the first time in his coaching career, Lins is coaching in the city where he lives with his wife and two young sons. And loving every minute of it.

“I like the community, always have,” said Lins, a Moorpark resident of 15 years.

After 10 seasons as coach at Crespi, Lins seized the opportunity to work closer to home when he accepted the Moorpark position in March.

And by all accounts, it’s a perfect fit.

“I think he’s going to be wonderful,” said Doug Bryant, president of the Moorpark football booster club. “I think the parents have really looked forward to his coming.”

Lins, 38, an All-American tight end at Cal Lutheran, has been hoping to work closer to home since applying for the Thousand Oaks coaching job in 1995 after Bob Richards resigned. But when Lins was passed over for that position, he continued at Crespi, where he led the Celts to the playoffs in seven of his 10 seasons--six in Division I.

Bryant, one of seven members on the hiring committee, said Lins was the unanimous choice to succeed Ron Wilford, who resigned to take an assistant coaching position at Pierce College. Lins clinched it with his “appearance, demeanor and responses,” Bryant said. “His responses were without a lot of glitz and glitter.”

Although he ran spring drills at Moorpark, Lins--one of the area’s most soft-spoken, mild-mannered coaches--is still settling into the job.

It doesn’t feel like home just yet.

“[There’s] too much to do just preparing for the season and getting to know people and the way things are done out here,” he said.

No one knows if Lins will be able to bring to Moorpark the winning tradition he enjoyed at Crespi. Truth be told, Lins is still unclear on what offense the Musketeers will run.

“We’re going to have some answers in about [five] days,” he said. “We’re not even sure what the pass-to-run ratio is going to be.”

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The thought of it even amuses Alex Holmes of Harvard-Westlake.

A 6-foot-3, 290-pound . . . tailback? Say what?

That’s the position for which Michigan State coaches are recruiting Holmes, who appears better suited for tight end.

“They said they’re picturing me kind of like a Ron Dayne [of Wisconsin],” Holmes said.

If Holmes decides the Michigan State gig is for him, he’s certainly training with the right mentor. Holmes has been working out with former NFL great Eric Dickerson, an Agoura Hills resident who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this month.

“[Dickerson] basically runs me until I can’t run anymore, and then he’ll make me run stairs,” Holmes said. “He said I’m basically doing above and beyond what I’ll be doing in college.”

Holmes, listed as the nation’s eighth best tight end recruit by SuperPrep Magazine, is easily the best high school football player who won’t be competing this season. He ran out of eligibility, according to CIF rules.

Holmes missed 13 weeks of school in junior high because of illness and later ran into trouble when he was not credited for an advanced English class he took asa ninth-grader at La Jolla High.

Holmes, The Times’ Valley offensive player of the year last season, could graduate in January and enroll in college in time for spring drills. But he said there’s no rush.

“I think the situation training with Eric and Monte [Nash] is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I think it’s better to stay with them,” Holmes said.

Holmes has scheduled official recruiting trips to Michigan, USC and UCLA.

Holmes said he won’t commit until just before the signing week in February.