Football woes

A smiling Diego Solis, a sophomore,
before the Oct. 20 contest
against Christian.
(Photos by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

I'm not a fan.

I've never been a fan of football.

The "kill 'em" aspect when males get really aggressive, angry, even hateful. That's the part I've never thought much of, much less enjoyed.

Blame it on our mother's telling my older brother and me from a young age that we would not be allowed to play tackle football. We were told it was because our mother's brother had suffered a bad knee injury playing ice hockey growing up in China.

How she connected that with football, I don't know.

So we played baseball and basketball, and invested a lot of enjoyable time in those sports, hung out with our friends on those teams, and developed as people while taking--I think--a pretty healthy view of where competition fits into the bigger scheme of things outside sports, which are kids' games, even if older people play them.

When I served as the sports editor of a little tiny newspaper in Goleta, next to Santa Barbara, I visited a youth football practice and was disgusted by everything I saw: men, actually fathers, yelling and screaming at little boys to "hit 'em harder" and "be a man" and "don't be a baby", and stuff like that. I remember at that or another game a young boy in uniform crying his eyes out due to some part of the physical contact he had during the game.

Grown adults, as I saw it, living through these poor kids, many of whom, in my perception, or my imagination, were playing tackle football in pads largely because their fathers had made it clear they were expected to play the "manly" sport.

That is the down side of football.

Now, don't get me wrong. The young men playing football at La Jolla High (which is the setting I'm mainly thinking of at present) are good people. They are skilled athletes, hard workers, and they carry a great attitude toward themselves, others, and life in general.

The coaches: They are good people. They care about young people. They use their time in practice and other interactions with team members to instruct, model, and mentor young men in a positive direction, in my observation over the past 15 years covering La Jolla High sports.

When I did a story on La Jolla youth football a handful of years ago, I found the head coach to be a good man, very caring, and a good instructor, I believe, in safe football technique. We talked a lot about the injury issue. It was important to him. I believed him when he said he truly wanted to give his young players a positive experience and wanted to be a mentor to them.

Older brother Gabe Solis,
a senior, warming up
before Friday's game.

*  *  *

Then, why do I cover Viking football, if I'm not a fan of the sport?

I got into it with my photography, which players and their families have always enjoyed. I began with an old film camera, taking photos of my granddaughter cheerleading, her fellow cheerleaders in action, and eventually the players on the field. (I cover all other sports teams fielded by LJHS as well.) There are a lot of families represented by the football program, which at the varsity level alone has involved up to 50 or more student athletes. They enjoy it, and my covering the sport is a way to be involved with them and to support them. (I'm also a classroom teacher, retired three years ago, who substitute-teaches now.)

I waited two days to write this. It's not my purpose to run people down, especially the young people. But during the La Jolla game versus Christian held at Granite Hills High Sat., Oct. 20, I saw the old "uglies" of football again. Diego and Gabe Solis each suffered broken collarbones from hard hits during the game against a much bigger, much more talented team from a private school.

As the referee came over to the visitors sideline during the game and said to Viking head coach Tyler Roach, "It was a big hit." He was referring to the hit on Diego in the second quarter during kickoff return coverage that led to Diego, a mild-mannered, easy-going guy, finally losing his temper after the opposing player who hit him hard then ended up on Solis' back in a weird follow-up. Diego, so mad, jumped on the guy after he came down and scrapped a little. Both players had off-setting personal fouls called on them.

Diego later sustained another hard hit, within the rules of the game, that caused the triple fracture.

The "big hit" comment by the referee could have applied, as well, to the hit Diego's older brother, Gabe, sustained in the second half. Diego had already been carted off, sitting up, alert though in a lot of pain. Halftime had passed. The small La Jolla crowd was pretty quiet, having seen Diego helped to the sidelines. Now it got quieter with Gabe down for a minute or two on the field before walking off. His mother Sandy says he, too, has a broken collarbone, fractured in three places.

"Things are going to be okay," she texted Sunday.

That's the tender side. The "uglies" side is the comments, the taunts, the screaming between coaches, that lower the level of civility in the sport. I'm not talking about football having to look like tennis, where the respective team captains introduce their players and they shake hands, though I wouldn't mind it at all.

The physical part of football, as I was talking about with someone on the sideline Saturday night, is both the attractive part and the part that will eventually lead to the sport being phased out. A good football player is one who can hit hard. Yet, the hard hits cause injuries--as witnessed with Diego and Gabe, who will now miss at least the start of the Viking basketball season, both having been expected to be in Coach Paul Baranowski's starting five. (Evan Brown, a receiver/defender, a third projected starter for the basketball team this winter, suffered a fractured collarbone two weeks ago in the football game against Lincoln.)

And the injuries are the reason football authorities at all levels are continuing to make rule changes to limit the hard hits. A kickoff returner in college can now choose to call a fair catch, unheard of only two years ago (though most returners are choosing not to exercise that option, a news story last week reported).

There is something in the sport that brings out a baseness in some people. Why? Because the physicality of football has to do with being able to inflict or sustain a "big hit". People still "ooh" and "aah" at a hard hit. The PA announcer for the Christian game commented after one hard hit, "Welcome to high school football."

I'll continue to cover the Viking football team. I will add that, though I don't consider myself a "fan", I do recognize and enjoy the athleticism of players, including running backs who are fleet, quarterbacks who arc beautiful passes. I get it. I get sports. I just don't applaud the smash-'em aspect.

I hope the Solis brothers heal well and quickly. I bet they would be the first ones to say they love playing the sport. I hope Gabe, who is in his last year of high school and who missed a big chunk of the basketball season last year with a back injury from the last football playoff game, will be able to enjoy playing part of the upcoming basketball season. Diego has more time. He's only a sophomore, with two more full years after this one.