It May Become a Record Year for Marinovich

Some things you wanted to know about the upcoming Southern Section football season: Bombs Away: Quarterback Todd Marinovich of Capistrano Valley High School of Mission Viejo, having passed for 2,000 yards or more in his first three seasons, the first two at Mater Dei, begins his senior year 2,087 yards shy of the state and national career passing record of 8,804 yards set by L.A. Wilson’s Ron Cuccia and 35 short of Cuccia’s California mark of 91 career touchdowns passes.

Marinovich threw for 2,385 yards last season despite playing most of the time with a broken thumb on his passing (right) hand. No such injury problems now. Dick Enright, a former coach at Gardena High and Oregon State and an assistant with the San Francisco 49ers before coming to Capistrano Valley seven years ago, says of Marinovich: “He’s in the best shape I’ve ever seen anyone in at this stage.”

And even if Marinovich never throws another pass in high school, he would still be one of the most sought-after players in the state, just for his athletic ability. “He’s one of the finest safeties I’ve ever seen in high school,” Enright said.

Who Will Be the Next McGwire to Make News?: It could be J.J, a 6-foot 2-inch, 225-pound junior defensive lineman at Claremont, and the last of the five McGwire sons.

“He’s got great body strength and very good speed to go with it,” Wolfpack Coach Bob Baiz said. “He’ll make things happen because of his strength.”

J.J. McGwire may not be as big as his well-known brothers, Oakland Athletics slugger Mark (6-5, 225) and Iowa starting quarterback Dan (6-8, 215), but he has bench-pressed 300 pounds.

Back to the Future: Harvard, which won the Santa Fe League title and reached the Desert-Mountain Conference semifinals, will have a decidedly different look in 1987.

It’s more like a look from the ‘50s--the wing-back offense. Seven players on the line, the tailback five yards behind the center and basically acting as a quarterback in the shotgun, the blocking back and fullback in the I-formation behind one guard, the wingback behind the end and tackle on the same side of the line. The snap from center can go to the tailback or to the blocking back or fullback cutting in front. This should be fun to see.

“We’re not trying to be unusual,” Coach Gary Thran told the Daily News. “We’re trying to win football games.” But Thran said that the Saracens will still use an I-formation occasionally.

Getting His Kicks: Paul Stonehouse, the All-Big Five Conference punter from Loyola, has followed a strict regimen of 2 1/2-hour workouts every other day for two years, so the fact that he refused to take time off during the family’s summer vacation came as no surprise.

But imagine the surprise of unsuspecting people in one corner of Lake Shasta when footballs came raining down into the water. Stonehouse, a junior who last season averaged 42 yards a punt and hit 80% of his kickoffs into the end zone, practiced during the week by kicking from the top of a houseboat. Anything to get time in for Stonehouse, who flies to Reno three times a year to work with former Green Bay Packer Ray Pelfrey and goes through about three kicking shoes a year.

Is This What They Mean by Intangibles?: The lineman would get in front of their teammates and play the “Newlywed Game,” including dressing in drag. The defensive backs might do impersonations. The receivers act out the “Dating Game.”

All part of the pregame ritual at El Toro, where Coach Bob Johnson has been using such skits before the game-day meal to loosen up the Chargers the nine years he has been at the school. The motto: Laughing at each other makes it easier to play alongside each other.

“A lot of teams near the end of the playoffs die because of that,” Johnson said of team unity. “But we want to feel together. We believe that everyone will really miss the team the first week we’re out of football.”

You can pan the acting, but applaud the outcome--El Toro went 14-0 last season and won the Southern Conference championship.

Intangibles of Another Kind: If players should know each other’s moves on the field, why not coaches? This marks the 10th year together for Eisenhower Coach Tom Hoak and his staff, some of whom played together in high school and then went right into coaching. “We feel it’s one of our strengths,” said Hoak, who was at now-defunct Pacific High in San Bernardino from 1978-82 before taking over at Eisenhower in ’83.

“We may not be very smart, but we’re a loyal group,” he said. “We know what each other’s thinking. If we had a coach here who didn’t know exactly what we were doing, it creates problems.”

The Boys of the Boys of Summer: Jason Frank, son of former Dodger pitcher Andy Messersmith, is the starting quarterback at Servite. Willie Crawford, son of the former Dodger outfielder of the same name, is the starting tailback and a linebacker at Beverly Hills and one of the top players in Southern California. Ryan Lefebvre, the son of former Dodger infielder Jim Lefebvre, is a back-up defensive back/running back at Loyola.

The 10-Month Nightmare: When Muir plays at Antelope Valley Oct. 2, it won’t just be another nonleague game, despite what people might say. At least it won’t be for the Antelopes, who have yet to live down a 37-0 loss to Muir in the Coastal Conference title game last December. That game ended with the Mustangs scoring on a 54-yard fake punt. “There probably hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about it,” Antelope Valley Coach Brent Newcomb said. “I’ve got to get it out of my system, and the players do, too.”

Making His Mark: Darius Turner returns for his senior season at Warren with a growing reputation, on and off the field.

A 6-2, 215-pound fullback/linebacker who rushed for more than 1,000 yards, Turner was an All-San Gabriel Valley League selection as a junior, when he also competed in track and basketball. But he may have made his biggest impression last year when he was picked by school officials to speak to students at area elementary schools about staying away from drugs in a program held in conjunction with Downey police.

“He does a lot of things on the field, but he’s also a gentleman,” Warren Coach John Hennigan said. “The response was really good. Administrators at other schools were so impressed with him that they complimented our administrators for the selection.”