When the Game Stands Tall, Special Movie Edition

by Neil Hayes

  “It’s one thing if a kid moves to Sacramento. It’s another thing when you have to play against that kid year after year,” said former Antioch and Deer Valley coach Mike Paul. “In high school football a couple kids can make a huge impact on your program.”

  Actually, Drew grew up in Antioch but attended Saint Peter Martyr Catholic Grammar School in the neighboring town of Pittsburg. The closest Catholic high school is De La Salle.

  Erik Sandie knocks the defensive lineman he is assigned to block 10 yards into the secondary before falling on him in the second play of De La Salle’s next possession. Drew runs up the middle and is in the clear once again. Liberty defenders give up the chase when he reaches the 10-yard line. Drew’s 54-yard run gives De La Salle a 21–0 lead with 2:06 left in the first quarter.

  “A lot of years when teams go down to us, I walk away thinking they got what they deserved,” Ladouceur says. “They never show us any respect or say anything nice about us in the paper. They approach the game the wrong way, and it starts with the coaches. They’re always complaining about how it’s unfair or they’re making excuses. Rarely does a coach say, ‘These guys are a good team. We’re going to have to play our best.’ I don’t want them to kiss our ass or anything, but if I were in their shoes I would approach it much differently.

  “First of all, I’d coach my kids and put them in a position where they had a chance. It’s the same way I approach the Mater Dei or Long Beach Poly games. It’s a win-win situation. It’s an opportunity. These guys are really good, and we’re going to take our best shot; and if they win, they’re better than us and we’ll come back next year. Instead, it’s always pissing and moaning. I don’t like it. It’s a poor example of the kind of message a coach should send to his team.”

  Ladouceur has heard about De La Salle’s “advantages” before, of course. In his opinion, most of his so-called advantages are the result of stability, success, the high standard he imposes, and the collective effort to outwork opponents.

  He doesn’t feel the need to apologize for that.

  He believes that high school football today is in crisis. He sees a decline in the quality of coaching and quality of play. Head coaching positions are no longer coveted and often are filled by well-meaning off-campus coaches who are unable to put in the necessary time. Administrators don’t support coaches the way they once did, and coaches are unable to hold players accountable in an increasingly litigious society.

  “There’s a lot of incompetence out there, and the finger gets pointed at us for it,” Ladouceur said. “I don’t see us as geniuses. I don’t see it that way at all. We’re vigilant and we know technique and that’s all you really need to be successful at our level. The solution to the De La Salle problem is not to get rid of us but to elevate their own programs and put in the kind of time we put in here. If they can’t get that type of dedication and commitment from their kids, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to tell them. It’s possible.”

  Stantz begins substituting en masse early in the game. He prepped his team for De La Salle but has kept his focus on the next league opponent. His goal is to bring a rare BVAL championship to Brentwood. He won’t risk suffering an injury to a key player just so he can keep the final score respectable. He will substitute liberally for the rest of the game, giving everybody on his roster a chance to play.

  In other words, the game is over.

  The final score is 48–0. De La Salle finishes with 220 rushing yards to Liberty’s 14.

  “They better win,” Stantz grumbles. “That’s what I tell people. He better win with the setup he’s got.”

  ★ ★ ★

  Freedom High School coach Kevin Hartwig approaches his matchup with De La Salle much differently. When he was hired before the season, he told his players that his goal was to build the best program in the area. De La Salle is going to get beat sooner or later, he tells his team in the days leading up to the game. Why not by us?

  He has prepared his team well and it shows. He has a tough, hard-nosed roster dominated by seniors. Many De La Salle opponents are defeated before they take the field. That isn’t the case on this night. Freedom comes to Owen Owens Field determined to give De La Salle its toughest test of the year, regardless of the final score.

  “Everybody thinks they’re good, but everybody thinks they’re overrated, too,” running back and linebacker Stuart Gobble said. “They can be beat. It’s not impossible.”

  An interception and 35-yard return by Willie Glasper sets up De La Salle’s first touchdown, a 1-yard sneak by Britt Cecil. Freedom isn’t about to cave in, however. Gobble is all over the field on defense and picks up hard-earned yards as a running back on offense.

  A pass interference penalty against De La Salle on fourth-and-4 keeps Freedom’s first drive alive. Gobble plunges into the end zone from a yard out to knot the score at 7–7 with 8:53 left in the first half.

  Kickoff was moved up to 7 p.m. to accommodate ESPN2, which is televising highlights of the game throughout the broadcast of the Friday night college game between Hawaii and Fresno State.

  With the score tied, the network’s timing seems impeccable.

  The Spartans score quickly when Cecil throws a 43-yard touchdown pass to tight end Terrance Kelly, who continues to make big plays. The Spartans lead 22–7 when ESPN cameras capture De La Salle players running off the field at halftime.

  Eidson didn’t anticipate the Freedom quarterback being a running threat and makes adjustments that don’t go unnoticed on the opposite sideline.

  “We made them change,” Hartwig said. “That was a big accomplishment by us. The kids didn’t recognize it and the fans didn’t recognize it, but as a coaching staff that meant a lot to us.”

  Ladouceur writes “44” on the marker board at halftime. It’s Gobble’s number. “That guy is chewing you up,” he says.

  Meanwhile, Eidson is addressing defensive players across the room: “I told you they were seniors. I told you they were tough. I don’t care who they have played. It’s not just about your heart. It’s about their heart also. This is Mitty all over again!”

  Drew returns Freedom’s first punt of the second half 71 yards for a touchdown when Rich Sjoroos runs under the goalpost hoping to catch the extra point.

  Sjoroos is in town on a business trip of sorts, having convinced two other members of the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears football coaching staff to make the journey from Alaska. The three out-of-towners spent the week watching practice and talking with Ladouceur and Eidson while their wives shopped in San Francisco.

  “I expected to see a slew of 26-year-old Tongans who ran a 4.4,” said Eddie Brakes, Juneau’s junior varsity defensive coordinator. “I’m comparing these kids to our kids and thinking we could physically compete with them. But it’s the system. It’s a program and a half.”

  “The biggest difference is the sureness of everything,” says Juneau varsity head coach Richey Reilly of De La Salle’s football team. “They play at a higher level than even I thought it would be, and I thought they would be bigger. I imagine everybody thinks that. But they’re the fittest group I’ve ever seen.”

  The PA announcer congratulates the Spartans on their 132nd consecutive victory. The scoreboard reads 46–7 as players mingle with their parents beneath a spectacular harvest moon.

  “Tonight was our homecoming,” Eidson tells players in the locker room. “Next week will be a homecoming for [Pittsburg] Coach [Vic] Galli. He’s a friend of mine but that doesn’t prevent me from wanting to kick his ass all over the football field. I know he feels the same way, too.”

  19

  1991 PITTSBURG’S CLAIM TO FAME

  Joe Aliotti kept a notebook and pen on his bedstand because X’s and O’s often played chess in his dreams. That’s how the idea came to him. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

  He had seen Dennis Erickson’s Idaho teams run the same offense when he was at Boise State. He had even planned to incorporate it into
his playbook had he been named head coach at Pittsburg High School before the 1991 season.

  The job had gone to Herc Pardi instead. Many in the community had supported Aliotti, who had been one of the best quarterbacks in school history before starring at a nearby junior college, then leading Boise State to the Division I-AA national title.

  He came from a coaching family. His brother Nick was a University of Oregon defensive coordinator. Joe spent five years coaching at Boise State and Oregon State before moving his family back to Pittsburg, where he became a teacher at his alma mater. He eventually rose to vice principal.

  Pardi also was a Pittsburg boy, even if he had grown up in Clayton and attended Clayton Valley High School. His father and uncles starred for the Pirates in the late 1930s. As a child Herc Pardi attended every Pittsburg High game, home and away, and was drawn to the rich tradition that played out under the bright lights at Pirate Stadium.

  Pardi—stout, fit, and equipped with the authoritative voice of a talkradio host—was a master organizer. Aliotti became Pardi’s offensive coordinator. Aliotti’s brother-in-law Jerry Haflich was named defensive coordinator. Pardi took on the role of CEO and father figure.

  “Pittsburg loses a lot of good athletes because they’re out selling dope,” former player Derrick Huffman said. “That’s what Herc kept us from.”

  Pittsburg coaches didn’t take the Spartans lightly when De La Salle joined the Bay Valley Athletic League in 1988. Former Pirates coach Larry Rodriguez scheduled scrimmages with De La Salle twice in the early 1980s. The first scrimmage was fairly even. De La Salle dominated the second, and Rodriguez and his assistant left the field with newfound respect for the private school from Concord.

  De La Salle defeated Pittsburg 28–21 in the BVAL’s first year, finishing the season undefeated and winning the North Coast Section championship. The Spartans whipped the Pirates 43–18 the next year on their way to another perfect season. Pittsburg didn’t fare any better in year three, getting trounced 49–14 in 1990.

  Pardi, Aliotti, and Haflich realized that Pittsburg was one of the few schools that had equal or superior talent to De La Salle. But the Pirates kept losing. The only logical explanation was that they were being outcoached, but they didn’t believe that, or didn’t want to believe it.

  Beating De La Salle became an obsession.

  “Joe and I desperately wanted to beat those guys,” Haflich says. “We thought we were good coaches, but to be considered good you had to beat the boys over the hill. You had to beat De La Salle.”

  The team Pardi inherited was dominated by a close-knit senior class that had come up through the program together. Nine of the eleven offensive starters for the 1991 varsity team had started for the 1988 freshman team. The junior varsity teams defeated De La Salle in back-to-back years by scores of 31–7 and 19–7.

  The Spartans had won three straight NCS title games by scores of 42–0, 41–6, and 49–24, and they were the fourth-ranked team in the nation when they met Pittsburg during the 1991 regular season. But Pardi and his staff were convinced they had the team to beat them.

  Their team wasn’t intimidated by the De La Salle mystique. There was a unity among this group that hadn’t been present in previous years, which made the 28–16 loss in the 1991 BVAL opener all the more painful.

  Pittsburg’s standout running back Percy McGee scored on a 78-yard run late in a hard-fought game to make the final score somewhat deceiving. The Spartans racked up 261 rushing yards on the most basic play in their playbook, the dive. Still, the Pittsburg staff was encouraged. McGee had run for 208 yards. They’d have to iron out some problems defensively, but at least they knew they could move the ball on a De La Salle defense that has always been tough against the run.

  “We’ll see you in December,” Pardi told Ladouceur after the game.

  Ladouceur believed him. He fully expected the two teams to meet in the NCS 3A championship game later that season.

  “I just felt they were capable of more,” Ladouceur said of that first 1991 meeting. “As I watched them throughout the season, I knew they were getting better. They were gaining momentum.”

  The momentum came in the final game of the season against hated Antioch. The neighboring communities had maintained a fierce rivalry for seventy-three years. The annual game is marked by parades, pageantry, and standing-room-only crowds.

  It was a matchup of Antioch’s league-leading defense and Pittsburg’s league-leading offense. Percy McGee made a fingertip catch in the end zone to give the Pirates a 26–20 overtime win and a playoff berth.

  “Antioch was a stepping stone, but our sights went well beyond Antioch,” Pittsburg’s two-way lineman Jon Buxton said. “De La Salle was our world. They were the archenemy. That’s what may have made the Antioch game as close as it was. Our sights were set on De La Salle.”

  While Pittsburg was gaining momentum, De La Salle was losing it. Quarterback Alli Abrew was continually harassed and sacked three times during a 13–9 win over Ygnacio Valley in the second-to-last game of the regular season. The Warriors had a chance to snap De La Salle’s 30-game win streak after driving to the Spartans 42-yard line with 5:00 left. An interception sealed the win for De La Salle.

  “That was disgusting,” De La Salle receiver Tyler Scott remembers. “That’s when we realized we had to do some soul-searching because we weren’t as good as we thought we were.”

  Actually, trouble had been brewing all season.

  There were divisions on the team, especially between the junior and senior classes. The coaching staff also was in flux. Ladouceur promoted junior varsity line coach Steve Alexakos, the father of the commitment card, midway through the season. Still, there was something missing.

  “Sometimes as a coach you have the realization that you’re in trouble as a team,” Ladouceur said. “When that happens it usually means you’ve been in trouble for a long time. There was an intangible missing, and it was hard to pinpoint what it was. It didn’t seem like that team respected each other like good teams do. There were two camps, and they pulled against each other all season. That’s not like us. We usually mix real well but that team was divided. It was a season that was slipping between our fingers and we didn’t even know it was happening.”

  Both teams rolled through the playoffs, inching ever closer to Pardi’s prediction. The Pittsburg coaching staff sensed De La Salle’s vulnerability and remained convinced it had a team talented enough and determined enough to upset the Spartans for the first time in school history. But the Pirates needed something else. They needed an edge.

  “Joe kept talking about how we had to have something for them,” Haflich said. “We were well aware that we needed a Plan B, C, and D because they always did. Joe kept saying we have to have a plan.”

  Aliotti talked to other coaches who had had some success against De La Salle. Pinole Valley’s Jim Erickson told him they needed to come up with some new plays to run in the second half so De La Salle wouldn’t be able to make adjustments at halftime.

  It came to Aliotti in a dream. He scribbled it down on Monday night and thought it through for two full days before calling Pardi on Wednesday night, three days before the championship game.

  It wasn’t the Spartans’ athleticism that had been the deciding factor in previous victories over Pittsburg. It was their discipline, precision, and execution. If Pittsburg could surprise them, find a way to match its athletes up against De La Salle one-on-one, it might be able to create indecision and undermine that cohesiveness.

  Players were excited when Aliotti introduced the spread formation during practice on Thursday. They would wait and unveil their secret weapon in the second half, employing one-back or even no-back formations with multiple receivers instead of their split-back scheme.

  Multiple-receiver formations would spread out the De La Salle defense and allow Pittsburg’s quicker skill position players to make plays. The Pirates had never run anything like this before. De La Salle coaches couldn’t prepare for
something they didn’t know was coming.

  De La Salle’s linebackers were big and physical and dominated at the line of scrimmage, but it was hoped they would struggle defending quick passes on the perimeter. Forcing them to line up farther outside would open up the middle for McGee to run traps and draws.

  “Our goal was to keep it close in the first half so they couldn’t make adjustments,” Aliotti said. “De La Salle makes the best adjustments. Their kids have always understood quicker for some reason. At halftime you can talk to all of them, but during the second half you can’t because some are playing offense and some are playing defense. That was the idea, to keep them from making adjustments.”

  Coaches have spent years trying to answer the perplexing question of how to beat De La Salle. First, players must believe they can win. Many teams are defeated before they step on the field.

  An opposing coach must also find a way to negate the Spartans’ get-off—easier said than done. You have to keep them from jumping out to their typical big lead and capitalize on their mistakes while making few of your own. Big plays: that’s another time-tested answer. To beat De La Salle a team has to keep the ball away from the Spartans’ offense while also scoring on quick strikes.

  Most people fail to mention the common thread in the Spartans’ past four defeats. In each of those games the opposing coach has saved something for the second half—something the Spartans weren’t prepared for.

  Skyline held on for a 22–21 win in 1984 after coach Tony Fardella ran a fake field goal and a fake point-after-touchdown late in the game.

  El Cerrito edged De La Salle 14–13 in 1989 after coach Frank Milo pulled dusty plays out of a file cabinet. His teams ran variations of the I formation at the time but practiced a series of wing-T plays for four weeks before debuting them in the second half against De La Salle.

  Rob Stockberger followed the same formula while preparing for Monte Vista’s rematch against the Spartans in the 1987 NCS championship game.