Helfrich, Green share experience

Just the other day, Michael Helfrich and JB Green rode together, preparing for their final high school football game.

Since last week, the recent Newport Harbor High graduates have been carpooling to and from Tesoro High, the practice site. Their last hurrah is Friday at the 50th Brea Lions Orange County North-South All-Star Game at Orange Coast College at 7:15 p.m.

The drives have been fun. They normally are when you are a teenager, almost on your own.

This week won’t be the last time these two sit in the same vehicle. USC is their next destination.

Before Helfrich and Green try to make the Trojans football team as preferred walk-on players, they have one goal as members of the South All-Star team.

The two are taking the all-star game seriously.

“It’s a big deal,” Helfrich said. “This is the 50th one. We definitely want to win. Our season didn’t end the way we wanted it to this year, so we want to go out as a winner.”

Helfrich and Green failed to get a taste of the playoffs as seniors.

Sure, the Sailors won the Sunset League. So did every team in the six-team league except one.

Three teams qualified for the postseason. Newport Harbor stayed home after losing out in a bizarre draw out of a wooden bucket.

Helfrich and Green hope to kick the bucket, the bad memory. A victory can only help.

Helfrich said he expects to start in the secondary at strong safety and Green said he has been working out with the offense’s first unit as a wide receiver.

The two earned All-Sunset League honors, Green shared the Offensive Back of the Year award and Helfrich made the first team.

Green and Helfrich are a lot alike, fast, strong and athletic. Both are 6-foot-1. Green weighs 196 pounds, seven pounds heavier than Helfrich.

As for who’s faster, Helfrich hesitantly gives the title to Green.

“JB is a little faster. Not by much,” said Helfrich before Green objected in the car. “I used to be faster.”

Back then, Green and Helfrich were in fifth grade, around the time the two befriended each other.

Over the years, their fathers, Kevin Green and Peter Helfrich, became good friends.

Growing up, Green and Helfrich said they rooted for USC, but they almost decided going to another Pacific-10 Conference school.

Both said UC Berkeley offered them preferred walk-on status. Even though their chances of making the field looked more promising with the Golden Bears, they chose USC, a perennial Pac-10 and national championship contender.

Location and knowing they could room together factored in their decision.

“I always wanted to go to USC,” Green said. “I’m going to do everything I possibly can to contribute at USC.”

Green did it all at Newport Harbor, earning him the Newport-Mesa Dream Team Offensive Player of the Year accolade.

He was a threat to score every time he touched the ball.

The all-purpose weapon scored 12 touchdowns, seven on catches, two on rushes, two on special teams and one on a fumble return.

Green was the kind of player Helfrich loved to stop dead in his tracks.

Dare to go over the middle and there was Helfrich walloping a receiver.

Helfrich developed into one of the most-feared safeties in the county. Some of the best in the county have learned Helfrich is all business on the field.

“I’m looking forward to going head-hunting,” said Helfrich, who recorded 65 tackles, two interceptions and two fumble recoveries. “We’ve been in full pads, going at full speed in practice. When Friday comes, watch out for the collisions.”

As long as they come during the game and not when Helfrich and Green are riding together, Green can’t wait to watch.