football

Ships Passing in the Night

This is my son’s junior year in high school and he has participated in athletics the entire time he has been at Rancho Buena Vista High School.  I have watched him play football, swim for the swim team and now be on the water polo team for the first time.  I can tell as an outsider looking in, the swim/water polo program and the football program are going completely opposite directions.

His freshman year, I encouraged him to play football for a couple of different reasons.  Number one being that everyone is so hard core anymore you need to get in on the ground floor because if you try out your sophomore or junior year they won’t know or care who you are unless you’re a dominating athlete.  Number two reason being this is the only time in your life you can play organized tackle football for free and it’s a lot of fun.  He was small for his age and hadn’t had a growth spurt yet, but earned himself a starting wide receiver spot on the team.  The team was lackluster in performance.  The coaching is poor, the scheme is terrible and the kids collectively didn’t have any team speed.  Move onto sophomore year and it’s more of the same.  I think the jv team only won a single game all season.  I knew there was something wrong with the football program when my son broke his leg at the beginning of the season and not a single coach or representative from the football program called or emailed to see how he was doing.  I am happy to say that he is not playing football this year.

It looked like it was going to be more of the same with the water polo program this year and I was disappointed for Stewart.  The varsity coach didn’t show up to practice occasionally this summer and missed a couple of the matches.  It left me to think what the hell is wrong with athletics at  RBV?  Lo and behold, the varsity water polo coach was either fired or resigned and immediately replaced.  What a breath of fresh air!  The new coach came in with qualifications and set the tone immediatley.  You can already see that the other coaches, all the players and the parents are buying into this new guy!  Everyone is positive, the kids are practicing hard and the coach has some serious expectations of these teens.  I like it.  I’m pumped and looking forward to going to the matches and learning about a new sport.

We had a bbq in our backyard over the holiday weekend and someone mentioned that the RBV varsity football team lost 52-0 on Friday night.  Inexcusable.  I really feel for all those kids, several of whom I have known since they were little boys,  who have spent four years of their life to be coached to such a poor level.  These kids lift weights all winter, spend their entire summers at the football field and this is the end result.  Don’t blame it on the kids.  RBV is the most populous school in San Diego county and there are athletes to be had for this football team.  My daughter dances for Maroon Magic and will be dancing at half-time at the home games but you’re not going to get any money out of me to watch bad football.  I don’t watch it on Saturday or Sunday and I’m not going to watch bad football on Friday nights either.  I will save my cash and show up at halftime for free to watch my daughter and head on back home.

I will tell you what I am going to do.  I am spending twenty bucks or so in gas money to drive to La Jolla HS on Friday and Saturday to enjoy the great energy and positiveness and work ethic from these water polo players and coaches.

Someone at RBV was man enough to make the change in the water polo program, now they got to man up and make a change in the football program.  If it’s “all about the children,” then by God get some new coaches in there for these young men.

Out.

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It’s Tough To Be A Fan

During my formative years,  we lived in Dallas, Texas from when I was four years old to about eight years old.  At some point during this time, I developed an interest in the NFL.  I was a big Cowboys fan during the days of Roger Staubach, Drew Pearson, Tony Dorsett, “Too Tall” Jones, Hollywood Henderson and others.  The Cowboys were a great team to root for.  They were in the Super Bowl five times during the 70’s and won it three of those times.

We moved to southern California in 1976 before the dawn of Air Coryell.  We lived on a wide street in Pacific Beach.  All the boys of the neighborhood would get together everyday after school during football season and play two hand touch in the street.  It was sandlot football on the hardtop and a lot of fun.  We would even play at school where we had a nice green field to run around.  Since we had soft grass, this is where we played tackle and the game wasn’t football.  The game was “smear the queer.”  Could you imagine this happening in today’s world?  The noon duty would have had us all in the principal’s office for being too rough and for being haters.  We would have probably had to go to some gay and lesbian sensitivity training.

Fast forward thirty three years.  I have been a Charger fan since the late seventies.  I’ve been through the Air Coryell years and the Bobby Ross era to the hardass Marty Schottenheimer years.  There has been a lot of bad football throughout the years in San Diego, but there has been no tougher time to be a Charger fan than the Norv Turner era.  I don’t have a lot of time being a husband and father of three, so the only football I usually can squeeze into my schedule is the weekly Charger game.  However, these games are so hard to watch.  It always seems to be a lack of focus or preparation surrounding this team that you want to throw your bottle at the television screen.  This team has so much talent but always seems lackadaisical.  Lack of focus and preparation usually points to a lack of leadership.

What to do as a fan?  Well, my son started playing high school football.  I was so looking forward to attending his football games and also start attending the varsity games on Friday nights.  My son and I decided to attend the freshman game this week because a good friend of mine coaches on the freshman team at La Costa Canyon.  We sat  and watched La Costa Canyon rip Rancho Buena Vista  in a 48-6 total domination.  I have nothing to do with these players and coaches, but I was embarassed sitting in the stands.  I think the score would have been 96-12 if the La Costa coaching staff didn’t start subbing in second and third string players. 

At half time, the RBV coaches made the kids do wind sprints as punishment for their poor play.  This really pissed me off.  I wanted to go down on the field and make the coaches do the wind sprints.  The boys on both teams are all fourteen and fifteen years old.  They all come from similar socio-economic backgrounds.  They have similar practice facilities and by rule they have the same amount of practice time.  Why such the disparity on the field?  Leadership.  You can’t blame it on the kids.  The kids are there of their own free will and playing for the love of the game.

I didn’t even bother going to the jv or varsity games.  It was a clean sweep by La Costa Canyon and granted they have a great football program, shouldn’t the games at least be competitive?

I’m not even going to bring up San Diego State.  What an abomination!

Maybe I’ll become a 49′er fan, I love that Mike Singletary guy.  That’s leadership.

It’s tough to be a fan.

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