Football

Costa Mesa High senior defensive back Kurt Williams has committed to play football at the University of La Verne, a Division III program, said Coach Wally Grant. Williams finished with 67 tackles last season for the Mustangs. Williams was nominated to play in the 54th Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game at Orange Coast College on June 28. - David Carrillo Peñaloza Twitter: @DCPenaloza

Barry Faulkner COSTA MESA - This time last year, Jay Noonan was preparing his resume. This spring, he is relieved to be preparing his Estancia High football team for the 2002 season, his second at the school. Toward that end, as many as 70 players are wrapping up their first week of spring practice, enjoying the familiarity with the program in place and determined to turn around a winless record in 2001. "I've been very impressed with the enthusiasm, but the thing I notice most is how relaxed the kids seem," said Noonan, who was hired after the completion of a makeshift spring practice last season.

Barry Faulkner COSTA MESA - First, the Costa Mesa High football team shared the wealth Friday night. Then, Coach Dave Perkins' Mustangs distributed the dough. The dough in question was pizza crust, which Mesa and the Canadian visitors from Centennial High in Coquitlam, British Columbia, shared as part of a little postgame football fellowship at a local pizza parlor. The aforementioned wealth refers to offensive opportunities, as Mesa (2-1) utilized 11 different ball carriers and four different receivers to post a 58-20 nonleague triumph.

Seven local high school athletes were named to their respective All-Southern California Football Coaches Assn. teams, formerly All-CIF Southern Section Division honors. Seniors Connor McKendry (Estancia), Cody De La Mater (Costa Mesa), and Erik Rask (Corona del Mar) claimed honors in the Southern Division. Nick Witte and Jamie McGee of Sage Hill were both named to the Northeast Division team. Robbie Boyer and Matt Barkley, Newport Beach residents who attend Mater Dei, both took Pac-5 Division honors.

Every summer, across the country, high school boys line up in the heat in cleats and clothes made for muddying. They run countless drills, endure merciless barking from coaches and find themselves nightly nursing sore muscles and bones. They eagerly subject themselves to abuses called two-a-days and hell week . It’s no different in Orange County. Before practicing in full pads, the boys run plays in shorts, T-shirts, and helmets, resembling sweaty, panting, life-size bobble-head dolls.

In previous columns, I suggested that the increased size, speed and strength of today's NFL players are creating a dramatically more damaging set of collisions. We have known for years of the devastation these collisions cause on every joint in the human body. It has become crystal clear that the effects of blows to the head affect emotions, memory, reasoning — what it means to be human — in frightening ways. The ticking time bomb and undiagnosed health epidemic that is developing consists of the cumulative effects of millions of sub-concussive blows that are rarely recognized or treated.

Estancia High senior offensive tackle Zach Bateman, a first-team All-Orange Coast League pick, has been added to the 53rd Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South All-Star Football game at Orange Coast College on July 6 Bateman replaces an injured player on the South All-Star team, said Phil Anton, the game's director. Bateman helped the Eagles (10-3, 5-0 in league) to back-to-back league titles for the first time and the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Southern Division playoffs, the program's first semi appearance.

Even though there are 17 seniors on Estancia High’s football team, there are three who just might be the group’s oldest souls. Eddie Tomasek, Ryan Redding, and Mike Morley are close friends who have all known each other since they were about 11 years old. They used to play in Little League together, and they went to the same middle school. Now, the three all laugh over episodes of Seinfeld (which stopped taping original episodes in 1998) and argue over sports, especially football.

It's a party that's been raging annually for 13 years. Inside the home of Chuck and Elaine Cassity, Super Bowl fanatics have gathered since 1994 to revel in the football game of the year, and more good food and libations than both team's starting lineups could put away during all the expensive commercials. Hundreds of family, friends and football enthusiasts packed into nearly every square inch of space at the Cassity's home on Boa Vista Drive in Costa Mesa to watch the Indianapolis Colts take on the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, Sunday.

Junior Luke Napolitano, a backup quarterback at Corona del Mar High last season, was named the MVP during the Football University national invite-only camp last month in San Diego. Napolitano, who is 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, stood out at quarterback during the three-day camp, which is run by former NFL players and coaches. "Luke has great intensity and high football IQ," said Sean Salisbury, a former NFL quarterback, in a press release. "Explosive arm and his mechanics allow him to be accurate.

Randy Hamilton, the director of the high school football documentary "Touchdown Newport," hopes the movie becomes popular nationwide after its premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. That desire may sound lofty, but Hamilton has seen the seemingly improbable become reality while working on the film about the Newport Harbor High School 1970 football team over the past three years. On a whim, the Newport Beach resident reached out to Emmy-award winning actor Kyle Chandler to be the narrator of the documentary.

Costa Mesa High senior defensive back Kurt Williams has committed to play football at the University of La Verne, a Division III program, said Coach Wally Grant. Williams finished with 67 tackles last season for the Mustangs. Williams was nominated to play in the 54th Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game at Orange Coast College on June 28. - David Carrillo Peñaloza Twitter: @DCPenaloza

Corona del Mar High quarterback Cayman Carter, Newport Harbor tailback Talalelei Teaupa, Estancia running back Robert Murtha, and CdM kicker Griff Amies and defensive end Tim Reinhardt have been selected to play in the 54th Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game at Orange Coast College on June 28. The five seniors from Newport-Mesa Unified School District schools will play for the South All-Stars. CdM Coach Scott Meyer will coach the South. Carter, who plans to walk on at Southern Methodist University, led CdM (12-2, 5-0 in Pacific Coast League)

Corona del Mar High is having a ring ceremony on Friday at 10 a.m. for its football team, which repeated as the CIF Southern Section Southern Division champion last December, said Coach Scott Meyer. The Sea Kings went 12-2, 5-0 in the Pacific Coast League last season, Meyer's second in charge. Corona del Mar has won four section titles in football. - From staff reports * BOYS' GOLF Tournament of Champions INDIO - Corona del Mar High junior Drew Hanson's tied-for-12th finish helped the Sea Kings earn sixth place in the 38-team two-day tournament that ended Thursday at the Golf Club At Terra Lago.

When Randy Hamilton and Tony Horvath first started working on the documentary, "Touchdown Newport," they always envisioned showing it at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Now their vision will become real. "Touchdown Newport," the film about the 1970 Newport Harbor High football team, is an official selection of the upcoming Newport Beach Film Festival. It will make its world premier at the Lido Theater on April 30 at 6 p.m. Hamilton and Horvath played on the team that won a league title under legendary coach Ernie Johnson, who turned around the program in his first year at the school.

The Estancia High School football program helped an alumna move this month. Tammy Gavel, a Costa Mesa resident and Special Olympics gold medal winner who graduated from Estancia in 1978, needed help moving from one apartment to another that was five miles away. Her parents are 74 years old and couldn't help. So Estancia football Coach Mike Bargas and Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger took an opportunity to teach the football players about volunteering. The players met at the E-Football Training Center at 9 a.m. March 16 to start the day with doughnuts, orange juice and muscles.

Rob Wigod, the commissioner of the Southern Section, wants to start a debate over whether there are too many teams being allowed in the Southern Section playoffs because of Blue Book Rule 3214.1. That rule, passed several years ago, allows schools that did not earn a guaranteed entry from their league into the playoffs in every sport but football, basketball and wrestling as long as their school finished in the next place beyond that league's guaranteed number of entries and the school has an overall record of .500 or better.

Corona del Mar High quarterback Cayman Carter, Newport Harbor tailback Talalelei Teaupa and Estancia running back Robert Murtha highlight three of 17 seniors from Newport-Mesa Unified School District schools nominated to play in the 54th Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game at Orange Coast College on June 28. If selected in the coming weeks, the Newport-Mesa players will be members of the South All-Stars. Carter, who plans to walk on at Southern Methodist University, is one of four players nominated from a CdM team that defended its CIF Southern Section Southern Division championship in December.

In previous columns, I suggested that the increased size, speed and strength of today's NFL players are creating a dramatically more damaging set of collisions. We have known for years of the devastation these collisions cause on every joint in the human body. It has become crystal clear that the effects of blows to the head affect emotions, memory, reasoning — what it means to be human — in frightening ways. The ticking time bomb and undiagnosed health epidemic that is developing consists of the cumulative effects of millions of sub-concussive blows that are rarely recognized or treated.