It was only supposed to be a one-year assignment.

Two goals got in the way.

His mission achieved, Ted Lawrence is resigning as Oxnard High's athletic director on June 13 to devote more time to his first love: teaching.

"I really did miss the classroom," said Lawrence, who was limited to teaching two English classes per day because of his responsibilities as athletic director. "This will allow me to get back into the classroom. There is nothing I like better than teaching English."

Hired to replace Tom Parizo as the school's AD two years ago as a favor to principal James Edwards, Lawrence wanted to do more than maintain the high level of performance established by his predecessor.

In his first year, Oxnard was named as the Pacific View League's School of Character.

"Building good adults is important," said Lawrence. "We wanted to have a reception of Oxnard being a respected program that does things right."

Lawrence's second goal was to see Oxnard win the PVL Cup, awarded to the school with the best overall league season over the course of a school year.

"Oxnard had never won the PVL Cup," said Lawrence. "I talked to (PVL president) Tony Diaz about how close we were. I thought that if we tweaked things here and there, that we could win it."

Mission achieved.

As a point of emphasis for the 2007-08 school year, Oxnard won league titles in three major sports — football, boys' basketball and baseball. Overall, Oxnard won 17 league titles in Lawrence's two years as athletic director.

"I was fortunate to inherit some great coaches and I made some good hires," said Lawrence.

"It's important that if you take something over, that you leave it a little better for the next person. I feel good about that. It is in excellent shape for someone to take over."

New playbook: One of the first orders of business for new Nordhoff football coach Tony Henney and his staff was to show respect for one of the program's staples.

"We had a moment of silence for the Wing T," said Henney.

The Wing T offense served Nordhoff football well in the 20-year coaching tenure of Cliff Farrar, who left after the 2007 season to become the head coach at Buena.

"I am proud of the success that Cliff had here," said Henney. "We want to keep all of the great parts of what Cliff has done, bring in some parts of the San Luis Obispo program and make it into one of my own."

Henney, a former Nordhoff player, was an assistant at SLO for the last five years.

"We might see more multiple sets," said Nordhoff principal Dan Musick.

What won't change, said Musick, is that "this is Ranger football and we are going to be good sports. We will outhustle people. We will prepare and do that things that Rangers do."

Swimmingly: Seven area individuals and six relay teams have met the automatic All-America time standards established by the National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association for the 2007-08 school year.

Nolan Koon (200 individual medley and 100 breast stroke), Kevin Nielsen (200 free and 100 butterfly) and Chase Bloch (100 butterfly and 500 free) of Oaks Christian qualified in two events each.

Oaks Christian bettered the time standards in the 200 medley relay, 200 free relay and 400 free relay.

Aislinn Smalling of Westlake is an automatic qualifier in the girls' 200 and 500 free events. Teammate Jackie Broussard had All-America times in the 200 individual medley and 100 breast stroke.

Camille Duckett of Thousand Oaks achieved time standards in the girls' 200 free and 100 free. Teammate Alex Henley qualified in the 100 fly and had a consideration time in the 200 individual medley.

Pacifica's Kendall Neely was just 0.01 of a second off the automatic qualifying time in the 100 back. Alexis Lee had consideration times in the 200 free and 500 free.

Westlake's 200 free relay and 400 free relay posted automatic qualifying times.

For the record: Newbury Park baseball player Jack Marder broke school season records for batting average (.516), hits (49) and doubles (15). Marder also holds the school career doubles record with 29. ... Oxnard has set a county baseball record for most doubles in a season with 75, matching the fourth highest total in section history. It had shared the county record with Thousand Oaks before hitting two last Friday. ... The 27-game winning streak that Simi Valley (27-0) takes into today's Division I softball game against Trabuco Hills is the ninth longest in section history. ... Brittney Harper of Calabasas (54.49 in the girls' 400) and Oaks Christian's three-time Division IV girls' pole vault champion Lauren Radke (11 feet, 6 inches) set divisional meet records at the CIF Divisional Finals for track and field last Saturday at Mount San Antonio College. ... Grace Brethren's Ashley Rice finished her softball career tied for third on the section's career list for doubles with 33. In four seasons, Rice scored 117 runs and had 145 hits.

— Derry Eads' e-mail address is deads@VenturaCountyStar.com.