Texan Starts Fresh in San Clemente : Prep football: After his father’s death, running back Allen Vaughan comes to Orange County. He has helped get Tritons to brink of playoffs.

“Ya’ll play football here?”

It was about the silliest question Mark McElroy had ever heard. After all, McElroy was the football coach at San Clemente High School. It had to be a joke.

But no, Allen Vaughan was serious. He had recently moved from Texas, where they do play football and play it for keeps.

Vaughan was a quarterback and kicker as a sophomore last year at Ft. Worth Haltom High School, where his future was bright. He was fast and agile, with more ability than his coach had seen in a long time.

Success was just a matter of time in Texas. That turned out to be the one thing he didn’t have.

His father’s death last May hit Vaughan harder than he had ever been hit. After a free fall of emotions, Vaughan moved west to live with his mother.

Going from the gridiron in Texas to the gridlock in Southern California was a fresh start, away from the memories.

He took up surfing and other beach recreations. He made new friends and learned a new lifestyle. But one thing was missing.

Vaughan stood in the San Clemente coaches’ office that day looking for a part of his life he didn’t want to leave behind. Football.

“I needed to play,” Vaughan said. “I’ve played it all my life. When I get mad at the bad things that happen, I can always take it out on the football field.”

San Clemente does play football and plays it rather well this season, thanks in part to Vaughan.

He has adapted smoothly to running back and leads the team in rushing and receiving. More importantly, he has become the Tritons’ big-play man, coming through when the game is on the line.

-- Against Santiago, he scored twice on runs to break open a 7-6 game. San Clemente won, 35-12.

-- Against Dana Hills, he returned a punt 55 yards for a touchdown to break a 7-7 tie. The Tritons won, 13-7, their first South Coast League victory in more than five years, a span of 26 games.

-- Against Capistrano Valley, Vaughan ran 26 yards for a touchdown on a pass-and-pitch play, then scored the two-point conversion for a 14-11 lead. The Tritons got a 14-14 tie, putting them one victory away from their first playoff berth since 1979.

“I’ll be standing, waiting to receive a punt, and I’ll start picturing a big play,” Vaughan said. “I’ll try to visualize it and tell myself, ‘OK, make good things happen.’ Sometimes, I get lucky.”

It’s more than just luck.

Vaughan has rushed for 602 yards, caught 37 passes for 336 yards and scored 11 touchdowns. Numbers such as those don’t just happen through good fortune.

“He’s just a very talented athlete,” McElroy said. “He can run, throw and catch. He’s a really good kicker and he can even snap the ball on kicks. He’s also a good defensive player. We try not to ask him to do too much.”

Vaughan learned football from his father. Floyd Vaughan, a vice president for a construction company, never played the game but picked up enough to teach his son.

After his parents divorced in 1983, Vaughan stayed with his mother, Mary Jefferies, in California for a time, but went to live with his father in Ft. Worth when he was 8.

He was immediately signed up for peewee football. This was, after all, Texas, where men are men and they play football.

“You start when you’re in the first grade and continue right on,” Vaughan said. “If you’re a boy, you’re expected to play football.”

Vaughan, who had tried other sports, fell in love with football, and why not? He excelled.

Through peewee and junior high school football, Vaughan was a standout running back. His ability was such that he was placed on the varsity as a sophomore at Haltom, a rarity in Texas football.

“We brought him up as soon as he got here,” Haltom Coach Carl Copeland said. “He was one of the best athletes we had ever had here.

“One time we went to a kicking camp put on by the Dallas Cowboys. The guy who ran the camp told me that Allen was already good enough to be a college kicker.”

While Allen played, his father watched.

“Dad never said a lot at games, but he was always there,” Vaughan said. “He would help me on weekends, throwing the ball to me and teaching me things he had learned by watching the game.”

Vaughan noticed a change, though. Trips to the park to play catch became fewer.

Floyd Vaughan was told in 1987 that he had bone cancer. He had to give up work after a piece of his tailbone broke and was lodged near his spine.

Still, he attended every one of his son’s football games.

“He was there, but I think he partly died because he couldn’t be as involved,” Vaughan said. “He never talked about it much, but I knew it hurt him that he wasn’t able to help me more.”

Last spring, Floyd Vaughan was taken to the hospital because of emphysema and spent four days in intensive care. On the fifth day, he was taken off life-support systems and appeared to be improving.

Vaughan went to football practice that day, feeling better. When practice was over, his sister was waiting for him.

“She told me we had to get to the hospital right away,” Vaughan said. “When we got there, they said dad had died.”

Said Jefferies: “None of us were sure how Allen would react. He was so close to his dad. They were much more than father and son. They did everything together.”

Vaughan tried to sustain his life in Texas, moving in with a friend’s family for a couple weeks.

But there were too many reminders and too many people asking him how he was holding up.

“It got to the point where I couldn’t deal with it,” Vaughan said. “I knew dad was better off. He was in pain down here and he wasn’t happy. But I didn’t want to talk with anybody about it.

“All through my dad’s illness, my mom had told me that I was welcome to come live with her. It was the best thing to do.”

Vaughan had been visiting his mother and her second husband Jeff Jefferies, a sergeant in the Marines, every summer for eight years. He moved back permanently last July.

The change in him was almost immediate. He was able to adapt to a new life and try to put his old one in perspective.

“I think he was here a week and I was already down pricing surf boards,” Mary Jefferies said. “He seemed to handle things a lot better here.”

There were changes, though. Mainly, the smaller crowds at games and that pesky shoe problem.

“Allen couldn’t believe he had to buy his own cleats,” McElroy said. “He said they gave the players cleats back in Texas. He said, ‘Ya’ll mean I have to pay for them?’ ”

Vaughan said he is now at ease with the death of his father. Football has helped, as has distance.

He plans to attend college after next season, whether on a football scholarship or not.

Whatever the case, Vaughan has his football world in order, much like his life.

“I learned whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I’ve learned you can’t plan too far ahead or look back too much. I’ve learned to deal with things.”