A New Wave Hits Hueneme : Former All-American Halfback Returns to Restore Respectability

OXNARD — The photocopies are blurred but legible under the plexiglass sheet on the battered wooden desk. They speak of wild-eyed crowds, furious comebacks and wondrous deeds.

“Vikings Squash Scorpions” blares a headline, dated Oct. 25, 1969. “Miller, ‘One-Man Gang,’ Totals 170 Yards” reads another.

Larry Miller, Hueneme High’s first-year football coach, leans back in his chair and clasps his hands in his lap. Outside the office, the locker room noise level rises steadily as the Viking freshman team spills in after a game.

“It’s fun being back home,” says Miller, a 1970 Hueneme graduate and an All-American halfback during the 1969 season. “There’s a lot of work to be done but I enjoy it.”

Miller had a lot of fun when he played at Hueneme. The Vikings were 10-0 and Channel League champions in his senior year, when he won the Thom McAn Award as best player in Ventura County. Miller went on to become a three-year starter at Fresno State and play briefly with the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League.

Good times have grown scarce of late for Hueneme sports, especially football. The Vikings won two games in the five seasons before Miller arrived in June, including a 1-9 mark last season.

The team’s record is only marginally improved--2-7 going into tonight’s season finale against Dos Pueblos--but players, school officials and opposing coaches say Miller has begun a transformation.

“It’s a lot different,” said junior tailback Ronney Jenkins, one of Ventura County’s fastest players and the Channel League’s leading rusher with 1,183 yards.

“Last year the team ran itself. We didn’t practice hard and we told the coaches what to do. From day one, Coach Miller’s had harder practices and discipline. He let us know he was the coach.”

Miller, first black head high school football coach in Ventura County, has demanded dedication and knows of what he preaches. The 42-year-old former electrician coached youth sports while living in Agoura, then became an assistant at Westlake in 1989.

Encouraged by Westlake Coach Jim Benkert to pursue a teaching career, Miller enrolled at Cal State Northridge in 1991, taking 25 credits a semester and often sleeping four hours a night. He earned a kinesiology degree in two years.

“I say to these guys, ‘Don’t tell me you can’t get it done because I just did it,’ ” Miller said.

Fresh from conquering a mountain of academic challenges, Miller undertook another daunting climb when he made the commitment to rebuild a dismal Hueneme program that was the joke of the Channel League.

Miller arrived at the school to find a team that finished the ’93 season with 19 players, and had no footballs, uniforms, coaching staff or booster club.

Miller dug right in, exhibiting the qualities that impressed Hueneme Principal Joanne Black when she interviewed him for the job.

“He had a very clear plan of what he wanted to do and he was very enthusiastic,” Black said. “He emphasized discipline and it was important to me to bring that back to the team. I liked everything he said.”

Miller marshaled considerable community support in the last five months, producing a 35-member booster club, new equipment, a game program and a 20-man coaching staff that includes 13 former Hueneme players.

Coaches realized they faced a difficult rebuilding job once practice got under way.

“I don’t want to knock the previous coaching staff and I don’t know exactly what happened here before, but it wasn’t football,” Miller said.

Returning to basics has stunted the rebuilding process at times. The Vikings defeated Channel Islands and Camarillo in their second and third games of the season but have lost the last six, including a 51-0 shellacking by Ventura. Still, the players are believers.

“He’s put his life aside for us, so we feel we have to do the same for him,” said George Jones, Hueneme’s junior quarterback. “He’s a role model to me and he’s been busting his butt, so we gotta make him look good and turn our school around.”

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Jones is one of several key players for the Vikings. Last year he piloted what was supposed to be a run-and-shoot attack but took a furious pounding by opposing defenders and was constantly on the run.

Miller has not only bolstered his players’ confidence on the field, he has aided classroom performances.

Mandatory study halls have been set up for the team, tutors are available and players have access to Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation computer programs. Miller punishes those who misbehave off the field by circling the team around the guilty party and having everyone except that person do intense calisthenics for five minutes nonstop.

“I was an OK student before but now I’m really into school,” Jones said. “Sometimes I’ll be in class and be really tired but then I’ll think of Coach Miller and I know it’ll be up-downs. I’m supposed to be a team leader and I can’t bring that on my teammates.”

Not only does Miller attend to the bigger picture of team performance, he clamps down on small details the typical teen-ager is inclined to let go. Hueneme players wear no bandannas or flashy headbands under their helmets, their jerseys must stay tucked in at all times and matching Viking gear was a must at all summer passing league contests.

They would also do Miss Manners proud. “They’re keeping their mouths shut and playing football,” said Rick Scott, the coach at Buena. “In years past, there was pushing and shoving and talking from them. They got caught up in the negative role model routine.”

Benkert, Miller’s mentor, was similarly impressed after a passing league game this summer.

“They looked like a team, they acted like a team and they were polite,” said Benkert, well-known himself for running a tight ship. “You could see all the things Larry’s trying to teach them taking hold. The Hueneme teams of the past looked like 50 individuals.”

It took one special individual to make the Vikings look like a unit.