NorCal Issue 186 October 2020

OCTOBER 2020 NORCAL EDITION VOL. 11 ISSUE 186

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Sept. 28, 2018 Alhambra-Martinez volleyball standout Sterling Parker pumps her first in celebration after picking up a big point in a home match against Miramonte-Orinda.

Parker started every match as a freshman at Colorado in 2019.

Photo by Jean-Paul Toshiro

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Leaders Waiting To Lead

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t’s easy to contemplate our time away from high school sports right now and think only of the athletes.

But we wanted to use the cover story of this issue to explore how it’s affecting coaches.

Specifically football coaches, whose football clocks are normally set to high noon this month.

North Coast Section commissioner Pat Cruickshank, once himself a basketball coach, wrote an open letter for SportStars back in May in which he suggested that coaches would endure the pandemic by doing what they do best: adapting.

“No profession that I have ever witnessed is better at adapting and being flexible than coaching,” he wrote.

Well, we’re reaching the heart of adaptation time then.

Mike Wood’s cover story shares input from coaches across three different Northern California sections. He polled their level of confidence of actually starting on the current CIF timeline of December practices and January kickoffs, as well as what they’re able to do now to keep both their own anxiety downalong with their players’. He also asked them what they expect from what will essentially be a winter football season.

“Come January it’s going to be cold,” Pittsburg coach Victor Galli said. “But I had to cancel conditioning practice today because of the smoke. What would this season have even looked like if we did start on time?”

For Galli, who used some of his new free time over the summer to fully social distance and join his son on commercial salmon fishing runs in Alaska, admitted to actually benefiting from the departure of his regular calendar.

“I’ll be honest, I needed the break,” said Galli, who is entering his 19th season of leading the Pirates. “It kind of recharged my battery. It probably bought me five more years of coaching.”

While Galli is in good spirits and hopeful, nearly all the coaches we spoke with miss their in-person contact with kids on campus. Zoom meetings and occasional conditioning practices help, but it’s not the same as the daily interactions they’re accustomed to.

With many Northern California counties seeing infection numbers slow, getting kids back on campus — in full or in part — could be the next step toward normalcy for players and coaches. There may not be daily practices until December, but the value of just seeing one another in a classroom or hallway in November can’t be overstated.

Is that a possibility? It’s still too early to tell. In the meantime, these coaches will continue to make the most of what they can. While maybe squirreling away some ideas for cold weather football. ✪

YOUR TICKET TO CALIFORNIA SPORTS ADMIT ONE; RAIN OR SHINE This Vol. #11, October 2020 Whole No. 186 is published by Caliente!

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Don’t Be Relentless On Refs Why are the refs so terrible? They’re wrong more than they’re right. It’s awful.

— G. H., Milpitas

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o let’s start with the obvious: 1) The players are in high school 2) The coaches are working at a high school 3) The parents go to high school games.

So what would make anyone think that the officials should perform any better than high school-level players or coaches?

OK, 1 percent of the players (or less) will go on to success at the next level, but 99 percent of them will stop playing after high school because — wait for it — they’re not that good.

Very few coaches move from high school to college. Some could, but choose not to, but for most, high school is as high as they’ll go because — wait for it — they’re not that good.

Now, does that mean players don’t work hard, don’t have skills and don’t compete? Of course not. Does that mean high school coaches are idiots who couldn’t organize a two-car parade and can’t tell the difference between a 2-3 and a 3-2 zone? Of course not.

But it’s a huge jump from high school to college, just as it’s a huge jump from college to pro, and high school refs are no better and no worse, relatively speaking, than the players and coaches they officiate for.

Oh, and by the way, ask college fans about college officials (better than high school refs), and what will the answer be? “They’re terrible.”

Check with Warriors fans about NBA officiating. “It’s awful.”

High school officials work hard for their skimpy paychecks. They go to preseason meetings, they take rules tests, they are evaluated and instructed, and then they go out — just like players and coaches — and do the best they can. Sometimes their best (that night) isn’t very good; sometimes players miss shots and make dumb turnovers; sometimes coaches have the wrong kids in the game playing the wrong defense.

Here are some other reasons officiating isn’t as good as it could be: Know-nothing fans, emotional players and coaches who have never read a rule book (and there are many) heap abuse on officials that is almost always undeserved. Sure, refs make bad calls, but if an official hustles to get in position, has a good look at the play and blows the whistle, his or her judgment on the play is a thousand times more likely to be accurate than the coach at the other end of the floor or the loud-mouthed parent in the top row of the bleachers.

And after a while, this constant barrage of negativity wears refs down, and they finally just give up. Or, to put it another way, the available talent pool of officials is shallower than it needs to be thanks to the unwarranted criticism that refs must endure — even when they make the right call in pressure situations.

So here’s step one to make officiating better: Grab a whistle and go do some games yourself. “Oh,” you say, “I’d never do that. It’s too hard.” OK, then do everyone a favor, in the stands and on the court, and keep it to yourself when you think a bad call is made. If you’re not willing to take the heat yourself, then how is it fair for you to dish it out?

If you think you can do the job, then sign up. The more good officials, the better for everyone, right? Of course no one would ever, ever call you a terrible ref. ✪ Follow Us On Twitter & Instagram, Like Us On Facebook!

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“I think for me and a lot of coaches, we are used to seeing our guys on a daily basis, maybe just to have a couple laughs together, because that’s important. We keep aware of which guys are struggling with all this and which guys are handling it well.”

— Mike Machado, pictured above, Valley Christian-San Jose 12

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inning their hopes on a winter start for a football season postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic, high school players and coaches are growing anxious.

As the Tom Petty song goes, the waiting is the hardest part.

With a CIF start-up date for practices set for Dec. 7 and a January-through-March schedule, the plausible start looms on the horizon, but still far away as autumn winds pick up.

“Shadows are starting to creep in, the sun’s a bit lower in the sky, it’s getting darker earlier ... it’s time to play football,” said Serra-San Mateo coach Patrick Walsh, who is more than eager to see his 20th season as Padres head coach get underway.

Many college conferences are playing, with the Pac-12 slated for a Nov. 6 return. The NFL is a few weeks into its season, though largely without fans. Two-thirds of U.S. states have decided to play high school football this fall. California is one of 17 states along with the District of Columbia planning to start in 2021, according to MaxPreps.com.

Many Northern California teams are relegated to working in small groups. Due to restrictions, most teams have been unable to do basics like passing the ball and running contact drills. And wondering when, or if, they will get to Friday night lights, regardless of what a winter season would be like.

“At this point, we don’t care … we need something,” said Kevin Macy, in his 25th season at Campolindo-Moraga. “Our players are watching (most of) the rest of the U.S. do it, and they are wondering ‘how come we can’t?’”

After all pro and college sports initially went dark for nearly four months, the situation has evolved

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Salesian coach Chad Nightingale

to the NBA and Major League Baseball in postseason, and the NFL underway. It’s hard for players to miss, and easy to understand how much they miss playing.

“It’s just hard for kids in our state, turning on TV on weekends and watching football. … For 16- 17- 18-yearolds, they are wondering why aren’t we doing it,’’ said Mike Machado, embarking on his 24th season at Valley Christian-San Jose. “So there is an important lesson: You have to deal with it when you have things come across in life and adjust to it.”

Serra is coming off a 2019 season that culminated in a Division 1-A State Bowl appearance. But this issue affects all types of programs.

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“Whether a team came off a 0-10 season or a 15-0 season, this isn’t good for anybody,” Walsh said. “This is affecting all of us. I’ve been coaching for a long time, and part of our existence is through the lives of others and our student-athletes and their successes and that is not happening at the moment and that is hard. From a spiritual and relationship perspective, this has not been good.”

T.J. Ewing, gearing up for his 16th season as Monterey Trail-Elk Grove’s head coach, said his players’ attitude has been impressive, as they look forward to eventually playing on their new turf field.

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“We’ve been lifting through Zoom, and it’s a lot better than I ever would have imagined. I can correct them even easier when I see a wrong technique, because I don’t have to walk around the room to get to them. We give them a workout if they have a weight set at home, or alternative exercises if they do not.”

— Tim Murphy, pictured right, Clayton Valley-Concord

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with more difficult situations,” Ewing said. “At least we are not out of our homes or had our house burn down or lost family members — things that are horrific.”

Veterans coaches are doing whatever they can to stay in touch.

Before the pandemic, Machado was aware of Zoom — the meeting app that’s served as a vital connection point this year — because quarterback Jakson Berman’s father, David, was president of Zoom. Now, Machado feels he can teach anyone to use it. But it is not the same as being in-person with players.

“I think for me and a lot of coaches, we are used to seeing our guys on a daily basis, maybe just to have a couple laughs together, because that’s important,” he said, wanting to keep aware of how players are coping. “We keep aware of which guys are struggling with all this and which guys are handling it well.”

Walsh said his team used Zoom for a chapel service, but said he’s using it sparingly. “It’s tough to connect in a fabricated digital environment. It runs counter to what we do at Serra with brotherhood and building bonds.”

Tim Murphy, who’s been a head coach since 1996, is using Zoom for virtual weight training for his Clayton Valley-Concord team that’s coming off its first state bowl championship season.

“We’ve been lifting through Zoom, and it’s a lot better than I ever would have imagined,” Murphy said. “I can correct them even easier when I see a wrong technique, because I don’t have to walk around the room to get to them. We give them a workout if they have a weight set at home, or alternative exercises if they do not.”

Salesian-Richmond also won its first state bowl championship in 2019. Coach Chad Nightingale, who doubles as the school’s athletic director, began this school year putting academics on the front-burner.

“I wanted to make sure that with virtual schooling, we were getting into a groove academically, so for the first four weeks we were not doing anything related to athletics,” Nightingale said.

“We were making sure they were getting used to online school.”

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For Campolindo, limitations of small groups just went from a maximum of 12 to 14, but running workouts remains difficult.

“It is grueling just trying to accommodate it,” Macy said. “It took all day to get all three groups in and out.”

Workouts are without the physical gestures customary to sports.

“To be honest, I get sad a little bit, because they can’t high-5 each other or fistbump,” Ewing said.

“For me, I’m not sad, I’m not happy … my nose is to the grindstone,” Nightingale said. “I know I have to make sure I am prepping for the classroom, providing for my coaches, doing all those things.”

Nightingale has been putting his players in a horizontal format on the field to make social distancing work.

“My kids have been very excited when they are out there, sprinting, push-ups, body-weight squats,” he said. “They are happy to be out there with their peers. That has been a positive surprise.”

Macy points to a myriad of things that Campolindo can’t do right now, the little building blocks that helped produce two state championships and four state appearances over the past six seasons.

“We’ve built so many mini-events over the summer and spring traditions in the program, and they’ve all been wiped out,” Macy said. “Passing leagues, camps, social events; all things have been our magic and what holds the kids together … we’ve been totally fragmented.”

They’ll face new circumstances playing a winter season, with many California teams opening on Jan. 8. Murphy figures the schedule means they’d run practices through much of the holiday season, except for Christmas Day. And instead of playing in latesummer heat, they’re faced with winter cold and the heart of the rainy season.

“I imagine if it is raining hard, we’d skip practice,” Macy said. “Game day is a different thing. But I’m not going to be stubborn (when it comes to bad weather).”

Salesian doesn’t have lights, which means afternoon practices will be short. Kelly King, whose run as head coach at Milpitas began in 1990, will be ready for whatever curveballs mother nature tosses.

“It depends what type of winter you have; you just don’t know with global warming and all,” said King, whose programs have won state titles in two of the past three seasons. “You have got to take it a day at a time.”

For smaller schools like Salesian and Monterey Trail that rely on multi-sport athletes, trying to play a full slate of games in CIF’s two-season format will force some athletes to choose.

“If I had been king for one day, I would have made it a shorter season, like seven games,” Nightingale said. “I have a lot of football-basketball-baseball athletes.”

There’s the likelihood that games will be played before few, if any, fans. Murphy, who said he disagreed with NBA star Lebron James’ initial reaction to playing without fans, says it will be fun to play football, regardless.

“If you love football, you are going to enjoy playing,” Murphy said. “There may be some guys who are disappointed their girlfriend or uncle can’t go to the game, but they will enjoy it.” ✪

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Monterey Trail coach TJ Ewing

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Nothing is a certainty in these times, but there’s always hope. That’s what the NCVA is leaning into after announcing its 2020-21 girls season schedule.

In a late-August press release, the NCVA unveiled its Power League schedule as well as its 2021 girls tournament slate. While the schedule follows a timeline similar to the regular club season, this one carries a bit more complications due to the CIF having to push back the high school season to a January start.

“With the high schools announcing major changes to their sports schedule, the NCVA has had to make similar changes,” the press release read. “Our goal with the new schedule was to secure as many private facilities as possible since getting into high schools and colleges may be an issue this season.”

The first Power League qualifier will be for the 18s 16

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Division and is set for the weekend of Dec. 12-13 at the Capitol Sports Center in McClellan. The first date of high school practice for most CIF sections will be Dec. 14.

While the 18s Power League schedule will essentially follow the high school season, the qualifiers for 14s through 17s won’t occur until the weekend of Feb. 6-7.

That’s just three weeks before the high school regular season is set to end on Feb. 27. The regional championships for those divisions will not take place until the first and second weekends of May. While seniors may be forced to make a choice between club or high school competitions — or attempt both — it appears most underclassmen may not face as many conflicts.

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ment from Jan. 16-18 across three different NorCal venues.

Action will take place at the San Jose Convention Center, Santa Clara Convention Center and the San Mateo Event Center.

The Sierra National Qualifier for all 18s divisions will be held at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center from March 5-7.

The two-weekend Far Western Regionals, also held in Reno, will take place on the weekends of April 17-19 and April 23-25.

Like everything in today’s world, the schedule will be fluid.

“Understand that this is the schedule as of today,” read the press release. “Any changes or developments with the current pandemic may create changes to our season, but much like high school sports, we must have an optimistic plan to return.”

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J

aden Rashada just wanted a chance at playing football in 2020.

It was that desire that led him to the house of his best friend, Rashid Williams, on an early-Summer evening — to say goodbye — before catching a 4 a.m. flight to Florida the following morning.

“It was sad,” said Williams, a talented sophomore receiver for Pittsburg High. “But sometimes you have to try to understand that maybe there’s a better situation for certain people.”

While the state’s COVID-19 infection rate spiked, and the rest of the Bay Area’s aspiring high school football players waited on a plan from the CIF, Rashada believed that opportunity was accepting an invitation to attend IMG Academy.

IMG, located just 45 minutes south of Tampa, is a national powerhouse that attracts and recruits talent from across the country. Rashada came onto the academy’s radar through scouting reports targeting him as one of the country’s best young dual-threat quarterbacks — despite the fact that he’d seen action in just a handful of games as a freshman at Liberty-Brentwood.

The promise of a normal football season seemed too good to pass up. Then, just weeks before Florida high schools began their season — and around the same time 247Sports.com ranked him the nation’s No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the 2023 class — Rashada and his family decided a Bay Area season would be worth the wait.

“It was an alright experience, but it wasn’t what was best for me at the time at all,” Rashada said on a late September evening on the Pittsburg campus, where he hopes to suit up for his last three prep seasons. “My family thought deep into it and thought it was just best to come back and end my high school career at Pitt.

“The reason I came back was a lot bigger than football. It was a lot to think about but we got to the bottom of it.”

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Rashada said it was an adjustment living on the IMG campus, and his family was trying to figure out how to make it all work as well. Keep in mind, this was all in Florida — in the middle of a pandemic, and hurricane season.

“It’s hard enough to imagine your son being in a whole different place, in a bubble with sirens and storm watches and big bugs,” Jaden’s dad, Harlen Rashada said. “With everything that was going on there was really a lot of uncertainty. … It was an emotional rollercoaster.”

That uncertainty and emotional strain seemed far removed from the 6-foot, 4-inch, 15-year-old after a month back in the Bay Area.

He’s back amongst friends. That includes Williams, who has also landed inside 247Sports.com’s list of Top 100 national 2023 recruits. Both are part of an extremely talented sophomore class that should make a big impact for the Pirates over the next three seasons.

“When I knew I was coming back, I was thinking that I can’t wait to do something big,” Jaden Rashada said. “Down there at IMG, they’re expected to do something great with kids coming in from every state. But if we can do something great here, it’s going to be much bigger than anything I would’ve ever experienced there.”

Rashada’s friendship with Williams goes way back. The two families have been close since the boys were 3-years old. They grew up playing on the same youth football teams together.

“When we were younger and showed up for a practice or workout, we’d always ask if Jaden was coming,” Williams said.

“He was way taller and could see over the line. He has a great spiral and puts it where it needs to be. I was probably 8 or 9 when I realized, ‘Yeah, he’s super good.’ We knew he was going to be something great.”

That he ended up in the premiere offensive position is kind of funny since he comes from a family of defenders.

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James K. Leash

Pittsburg senior transfer, Eli Brickhandler, throws a pass for Whitney-Rocklin during the 2019 Sac-Joaquin Section Div. II final.

Harlen Rashada starred in the secondary for Skyline-Oakland before becoming a standout safety at Arizona State in the mid 90’s. Jaden’s older brothers Roman and Harlen Jr. also specialized on the defensive side of the ball. The latter logged 60 tackles, 3.5 sacks and two blocked punts for an 11-2 FreedomOakley team in 2016.

“I coached all of my sons at some point,” Harlen Sr. said.

“Each time, I was the defensive coordinator. At one point I was talking with one of Jaden’s first coaches and he told me, ‘You know, I’m thinking of putting him at quarterback. He’s a leader and does some things really well.’ And of course, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. But what about on defense?’”

It wasn’t until around sixth grade when Jaden knew that quarterback was the position he really wanted to pursue. It was around that time that he gave up travel baseball to focus on developing his football skills. He thinks he might return to the diamond for Pittsburg in the spring.

Pittsburg coach Victor Galli knew of the Rashada Family, and coached against Harlen Jr., but hadn’t met Jaden or spoken with him before he’d enrolled at the school. Certainly he’d heard the buzz about him though. After all, he does already hold offers from Auburn, Cal, Utah, San Diego State, as well as his dad’s alma mater.

“Obviously he’s known as an elite athlete, but he’s very humble,” the 19-year Pirates coach said. “I think it’s good. He wants to work and he wants to compete.”

He will have to compete.

Before Pittsburg takes the Pirates Stadium field to host Serra-San Mateo on the bizarro season-opener date of Jan. 8, Rashada will need to beat out a handful of quality starting quarterback candidates. It’s also unknown if he’ll be subject to a transfer sit-out period.

Eli Brickhandler is a 6-2 senior transfer who led Whitney-Rocklin on a Cinderella run to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship game last season. There’s also 6-1 Follow Us On Twitter & Instagram, Like Us On Facebook!

junior Khamani Blakney, a baseball standout who Galli hinted at being no pushover. Christian Aguilar is a sophomore the coaches like as well. His older brother Joey passed for more than 5,500 yards with 59 touchdowns across two seasons at Freedom from 2017-18.

“Last year we had a QB competition all the way into the first game, and then Jerry (Johnson) grabbed it,” Galli said. “We’re definitely going to be in that situation again.”

Rashada says he’s already struck up a rapport with Brickhandler.

“He wants it just as bad as I do,” Jaden said. “We’re just going to get each other better day by day. Whoever gets the starting job gets the starting job. It’s going to be a competition, but I don’t have a problem with helping my competition out. We’re all teammates at the end of the day. They should be someone you can lean on for whatever.”

Neither Jaden, Harlen Sr. or Galli know what to expect when it comes to a January-to-March season. The current CIF plan has Dec. 7 as the date sections can begin allowing practices.

“You can sneeze loud enough and the whole practice is over right now,” Harlen Sr. said. “So I don’t know how that’s going to play out when you go through flu season. … But if it does get going, I think we’ll get some good football. You’re talking about a very hungry group of kids across the area.”

Though his Liberty team visited Pirates Stadium for a playoff game last November, Jaden admits he remembers nothing about the setting. But ever since he enrolled, he’s had all kinds of people ask or tell him about Pittsburg’s renown game night atmosphere.

“I’m hoping we’re just able to have fun playing the game we love and there’s no limitation on seats,” he said.

Reflecting on over 5,800 miles traveled in one wild summer, Harlen Sr. seemed to sum the Rashada Family’s recent past and hopeful future with one thought. “Sports are important, man.

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Perspective Has A Way Of Changing With The Season For St. Mary’s-Berkeley Girls Basketball Coach Chris Toler, A Contra Costa County Fire Captain

S

ometimes basketball takes a back seat — and now is one of those times.

The disappointment for Chris Toler and his St. Mary’s (Berkeley) girls’ basketball team back in March was hard to swallow – after all, they were poised to play for the Division IV state championship when COVID-19 cancelled the game – but for Toler, a fire captain with the Contra Costa Fire Protection District, that’s obviously no longer something he’s focused on.

“Right now, we’re working way too much,” he says, as headlines every day detail the latest wildfires, evacuations and devastation. “There are days you don’t get any sleep and you’re expected to go out and perform physically.”

And of course, there’s danger as well, as the risk of injury or even death is part of the firefighting package.

Toler works out of the Pacheco station, and heads one of the 28 crews that make up the CCFPD team, but he’s fought fires all over the state, depending on the needs at the time. Sometimes, in fact, his crew is “prepositioned” outside of Pacheco in anticipation of greater fire danger in other areas, and until the rains come, the likelihood of a good night’s sleep and a few days off is pretty low.

Dean Coppola/Contra Costa Times/ZUMApress

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Story by Clay Kallam | Photos by Gint Federas

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But Toler isn’t complaining. “Every one of us loves our job,” he says. “It’s what we signed up for, and it’s what we do.”

Toler, though, also has a passion for basketball. He grew up in the hoops’ hotbed of Memphis, Tenn., playing in the same AAU circuit as future NBA players Penny Hardaway and Todd Day, and then joined the Air Force, which allowed him to play all over the world, “from Hawaii to England,” in his words.

He was stationed at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield, and first got into coaching at Rodriguez High School when a friend asked him to help with the freshman boys.

Oddly, his first experience coaching girls and women came at Napa Valley College rather than at the prep level, and there he began to learn “the subtle nuances of coaching female athletes.”

But he was helping on the boys’ side at St. Mary’s when the girls’ job opened up, and once he settled in, he said “I think I found my niche.”

It hasn’t been a completely smooth ride, though, as St. Mary’s has changed some of its policies over the years, and after a first season with 22 wins, the program took a step back. But Toler got the program on track in 2019-20, going 27-7, in part because of the emphasis on mental toughness that is a necessary part of success in both basketball and firefighting.

“I know exhaustion,” he says, “and to be mentally tough, you have to be physically tough. So how do you perform when you’re tired?”

The same issues apply to his fire team, especially during this time of year. “The two jobs are similar in the sense that they’re leadership positions,” he says, “which means not putting yourself first. In both situations, I’m in charge of improving and developing the people I’m responsible for.”

And speaking of improving and developing, his St. Mary’s basketball team will need to do both to have a shot at another state title run next spring.

“We lost our leading scorer and rebounder (Kayla Rosemon), and four seniors who had been in the program since they were freshmen,” he says. St. Mary’s does return four starters, so he says “I think we’re going to be OK, but it’s going to be different.”

One thing that’s definitely different is the schedule, as it’s possible that not only would the high school playoffs extend beyond the end of school, the state championship game might overlap with the beginning of the always expanding fire season.

Toler, though, isn’t that worried. “I hope it does become a problem,” he says, “because that means we’re still playing.” ✪ 24

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