2 GO BEYOND DUTY IN WORK WITH KIDS\Banquet to honor firefighter, deputy.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Looking for a more positive rapport between police and area youths, Ventura County sheriff's Deputy Gregory Sharp brought the Cops N Jocks program to the Conejo Valley.

Ventura County Firefighter Jack Nosco also is concerned about kids, helping to counsel children who start fires and raise money for young burn victims.

The time each spends using their positions to address humanitarian concerns and for public outreach will be recognized Monday at a banquet sponsored by the St. Paschal Baylon Church Men's Club.

"We found there to be a void in something we take for granted, that the people who do this work just do it because they get paid for it," said Joe Smolarski, banquet chairman. "We said, let's look at what they do outside of work."

Sharp, 31, a patrol officer assigned to Newbury Park for the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, said that one of the first things he noticed after joining the department 6-1/2 years ago was that most deputy contacts with teen-agers were "on the negative side."

"It was curfew violations or disturbance calls," Sharp said. "It seemed whenever they saw a cop, it was when they were doing something wrong."

Then he heard about the Cops N Jocks program started in 1993 in Santa Paula to establish an informal rapport between law enforcement agencies and local high school athletic teams. In May 1995, Sharp brought the program to Newbury Park High School. The program has since expanded to Thousand Oaks and Westlake highs.

"It's to let them know there's a human being behind the badge and the police car with those lights," said Sharp, who lives in Ventura.

Initially, high school students were wary when Sharp began to show up at football practices in full uniform and driving his black and white, frequently on his days off.

"I tell them I'm not here to coach you, I'm not here policing you," Sharp said. "I'm here to support you."

Nosco, 33, who works out of Station 36 in Oak Park, said that he has long been interested in issues involving children.

"I just love kids, and since I started this job that's a big part of this job - the kids coming down to the station and being in awe of what a firefighter is," said Nosco, the father of two.

As part of his job he counsels children who have gotten in trouble for starting fires. Some of them have gotten burned in the process, he said.

About five years ago he organized the annual Wayne Pulley Memorial Relay Race, held each October at San Buenaventura State Beach in honor of a Ventura County firefighter who died in the line of duty in 1991.

Though the money raised by the race initially went into a trust fund for the fallen firefighter's young daughter, in later years it was sent to the nonprofit Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, which sends young burn victims to camp and gives them counseling. The race has thus far raised $10,000 for the foundation, he said.

Nosco said his colleagues submitted nominations for the award, but he never expected he would come out the winner.

"It came as a complete surprise, because I had nominated someone else and the next day they notified me that I was selected," Nosco said. "It was kind of cool."

THE BANQUET

The St. Paschal Baylon Church Men's Club will hold a banquet honoring its officer and firefighter of the year at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the church, 155 E. Janss Road. For tickets or more information, call Joe Smolarski at [phone].

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Photo (color in CONEJO only) Jack Nosco of Newbury Park, who helps raise money for burn victims, will be recognized the St. Paschal Baylon Church Men's Club. Dusty Locke/Special to the Daily News Box THE BANQUET (see text)