Prep FB: Lightning

By Ed Piper

The lightning strikes that halted play in many high school football games across the county Friday night, Oct. 12, prompted officials to come up with solutions to decide the games--many of which went unfinished.

Our neighboring high school off Clairemont Blvd., near the 805, illustrates some of the tenacity and some of the pettiness that evidenced themselves in the decisions that were made: trailing 21-7 late in the third quarter to St. Augustine, the other coach apparently could not bring himself to call the game at that point and swallow a loss.

This, despite the fact many other coaches in the San Diego Section of CIF accepted the fait accompli and turned their sights toward preparing for the next Friday's games, now less than a week away.

So, that means in the case of the blue-and-silver, that the two teams will meet again Mon., Oct. 15, at 3:30 p.m. and resume play from where it was halted Friday night in the storm. Bravo for stick-to-it-iveness. Hiss for the staff that never quite seems to get it right.

Witness the state championship banner that was seen displayed in the school's sports complex. The only problem is that the title was revoked by CIF when it came out that the school played the whole season with an ineligible player who, somehow magically, despite there being "no recruiting", appeared on the school's enrollment list after transferring in from Phoenix, Arizona. How does stuff like that happen "without recruiting"?

This is the program that doesn't seem to have the will, or the ability, to stay within the rules and play fairly. Good for athletes who get a chance at a school that will tolerate their ill behavior and try to mold them into young men, but were they all eligible? Did they complete all the assignments necessary to stay on the active roster during the season? Did they garner the credits necessary for them to be eligible the following football season?

When winning at all costs sacrifices integrity, fairness, and an emphasis on education in the classroom, rather than whether someone is going to be attractive to college recruiters, no one wants to get in a tangle by reporting violations or becoming the object of retaliation. They just wink, laugh when everyone repeats the mantra, "There's no recruiting in high school football," and bear it.

Years ago, during the Jason Carter years at La Jolla High, the two staffs of coaches got into it after the game after the blue-and-silver quarterback took some physical hits and had to miss part of the game. The home team ended up prevailing, anyway. There was quite a scene after the game, as former pros and D1 players in a program that was rebuilding traded jousts with members of a rule-bending staff in a perennial Open Division-level program. The losers were the kids.

Hail, hail to the coaches that run programs that are clean, play hard, and allow teen student athletes to experience success while also learning that there are consequences for their actions, without some coach or staff member intervening to enable the young men by negating appropriate consequences.