Small Wonder

It is a Friday afternoon and the summer heat is unbearable. The football season is two months away. It’s a perfect day for the beach.

If you’re not Tyler Ebell.

The junior tailback for Ventura High weighed 150 pounds last season, rushing for 1,268 yards and 14 touchdowns thanks to his speed and vision.

He wanted to add bulk. He wanted to break arm tackles. He wanted to keep the pile moving when he was gang-tackled.

The 5-foot-9 1/2 Ebell--he insists on including the half-inch, especially during basketball season--devoted his summer to working out. He lifted and lifted, raising his weight to 172 pounds.

He’d run the Ventura stadium steps. He’d backpedal around the football field. He’d run 40-yard dashes again and again, all under the watchful eye of his father, Dennis, a former running back at Ventura High and Montana State.

Ebell’s father skipped his lunch break, arriving at the stadium in dress shirt and tie, stopwatch in one hand, whistle in the other, sweating under the sun.

If his father could sacrifice, Ebell thought, so could he.

Part of his motivation comes from his father, who pastes fight-or-flight Vince Lombardi credos on Ebell’s bedroom walls, placing them between photos of Napoleon Kaufman and Warrick Dunn, little big men who carry the ball in the NFL.

You reap what you sow. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Part of Ebell’s determination came from newspaper articles listing All-Ventura County and All-Channel League teams.

Despite leading the league in rushing last year, Ebell was a second-team all-league selection. He can relive that whenever he wants.

It’s on his closet door.

“I leave that up there as a reminder,” Ebell said. “I kind of got snubbed.”

Ebell is determined to make people remember his name this season.

He has rushed for 643 yards and 12 touchdowns, the second-highest total in the region. He is averaging 8.5 yards per carry, helping Ventura to a 4-0 record entering a home game tonight against Oxnard.

He has a tattoo on his left biceps of Mighty Mouse, the cartoon rodent who possesses super powers and wears a cape and a costume similar to Superman’s.

Mighty Mouse’s motto: Here I come, to save the day!

Ebell was allowed to get the tattoo after his freshman year when he met two incentives set by his father. He had to rush for more than 1,000 yards on the junior varsity team, and he had to make the academic honor roll.

“My mom really wasn’t cool with my tattoo because she thought I was too young,” said Ebell, who has his own theory.

“She liked it the whole time, but she didn’t want to admit it.”

Intent on attending a Pac-10 school and playing in the NFL, like former Ventura running back and UCLA safety Eric Turner of the Oakland Raiders, Ebell can be a creature of habit.

His game-day ritual is a mixture of superstition and repetition.

In the morning, he puts on an extra-small Mighty Mouse T-shirt--a child’s size--and watches a video of Walter Payton before heading to school. He keeps the T-shirt on during school, under his football jersey.

After school, he goes to the law office where his father works, and consumes energy drinks and bars while discussing game-day strategies.

Then Ebell heads to a grocery store and gets the same thing every Friday--turkey sandwich with mustard and provolone.

“We’ve got to make sure we do the same thing,” Ebell said. “We can’t let it slip or else it might be dangerous. I don’t like to jinx anything.”

That’s fine with Ventura Coach Phil McCune, who realizes that Ebell is a key reason for the Cougars’ best start since opening the 1993 season with a 6-1 record.

McCune singles out Ebell’s vision and quickness but, above all, his personality.

“He’s a great human being,” McCune said. “He’s always smiling. He’s one of the kids you like to see do well.”

It’s safe to say Ebell won’t alter his pregame behavior on Nov. 11, the day the city of Ventura splits down the middle, the day Ventura and Buena square off.

For the first time since 1993, the rivals will meet in the regular-season finale.

Ebell is friends with Buena senior Cody Murphy, who lives two doors down from Ebell’s father and is approaching several Buena receiving records.

The duo played together on the Ventura Packers, a youth football team. But, Ebell said, “When game time comes, we’re not really friends any more.”

The Ventura-Buena rivalry also permeates the home of Ebell’s mother, Karen Hewlett. Her husband, Brian Hewlett, is a junior varsity coach at Buena.

“There’s always a lot of trash-talking going on between us,” Ebell said. “I’ve had to hear about it the last two years, how they beat us.”

Ebell, who never met Newbury Park quarterback Chris Lomardo but sent him a get-well card after Lombardo’s recent season-ending knee injury, offers a prediction.

“But that’s OK,” he said. “We’re going to show the whole town.”