Scorpion Football

My oldest boy made first string Wide Receiver on the Freshman Football team at his High School and today is game day.  This will be his first game as a starter, so we are all very excited for him.  Go Josh!!!!

A Great Adventure

I have been following a blog of one of my old High School Football Coaches....it's called "Coaching for Pizza".  The name derives from his initially coaching Euro Football over in Italy, he has since moved up to Sweden.  But, his latest musings have been about his "Camino" or Pilgrimage across Spain on foot!!!!
He started in France, crossed the Pyrenees and has trekked across Spain and it has been like following a combo of Jimmy Buffett, Papa Hemingway and Jack Kerouac all rolled into one.  I believe this Pilgrimage has something to do with his Catholic faith, but regardless of creed, it is a pretty amazing thing and it makes me want to do it to.....add another one to the bucket list!!!
Thanks George for allowing us daily views into your life and adventure, it is inspirational and a very motivating force to have read. 
It's the grand adventures in our life, especially the ones that come at a toll, that bring us our greatest joys and memories.  If it is easy, then everyone would do it......so.....way to go Coach!!!

Football Saturday

Great weekend for our boys....we're 2-0 today.  Joey's team played first at 10AM at Rio Mesa High, our home field, against the Oxnard Knights.  We won 27-14 and Joey scored his very first ever Touchdown!!!!
Oxnard had some BIG kids, but they were a bit slow.  They did have one very slippery back, but we managed to keep him contained for the most part.

Noah's team won 28-14, he ran at Fullback all day and was the go to guy.  "Five yards and a cloud of dust"...that's my boy.  All of our scores came on passes....the QB has got one heck of an arm for a ten year old.  And they also have a pair of very talented receivers. 
It was freaking HOT in Moorpark where our kids played...probably about 100 degrees.

Looking forward to next week!!

Another Game Day

This morning my youngest son's team travelled to Santa Clarita to play their Junior Navy team....we won 18-0 against a team that we were not supposed to beat.  It's always good to go into someone's home and whoop up on em'.  Noah didn't play as much as he usually does, but when he was in....he caused some havoc.  They will not forget number 25 anytime soon!!

Santa Clarita J2 Gold came to our home field...Rio Mesa HS to play our J2 Gold.  SC was unbeaten and had run up two very high scoring games.  They won by a score of 42-28, but the game was closer than the score indicated.  They got one cheesy TD on play where the runner was clearly down, but the refs did not blow the whiste and our kids stopped playing thinking it was a dead ball.  The guy just kept on trucking and when our kids quit, he took off and scored.  It was just a bunch of BS if you ask me, but you can't beat the refs.  They had another TD where I had an all out blitz going and we had three guys on the ball carrier, but they didn't wrap him up and off he went....that kid ran hard though, gotta give him props for that.

We scored three TD's on passes, they ran a 62 defense and were very vulnerable deep.  One of our players caught those three TD passes by himself.....Chase had one heck of a day for sure!!!
We ran the ball well enough, but that six man line was tough to penetrate and they held us to only one rushing TD.
My biggest beef was my kids not wrapping up and tackling hard enough....it's like they were playing patty cake and it drove me nuts.  My blitz calls and line stunts had them confused and we had kids in their backfield the entire game, we just couldn't make the stops when we needed to...daggonit!!

One bright spot was a kid I put in at Defensive Guard, he had several solo tackles for losses, he squeezed through the Offensive line and made some great plays....way to go JA!!!

Next week is Oxnard, they run an option style offense....so more preparation and hopefully we put another tick in our "W" column.

more football

My oldest son plays on Camarillo High Frosh football team and they were 1-0 going into yesterday's game against Righetti HS.  No more, they are now 1-1.  We were up 20-0 at the end of the first quarter and it went downhill from there.  I'll just say we lost and leave it at that.

Tomorrow both my younger boys play teams from Santa Clarita.....this organization plays the same offense and defense from the youngest age up to the oldest age group in the league.  They start basic and by the time they reach the Senior division, the kids are well trained and know their system in and out.  So..it will be a challenge to beat them as they are always tough, but they are NOT unbeateable.  I have drilled my defense on reading the Double Wing, which is what SC runs, and hope they retain the info I gave them and play how I know they can.  I think we can actually win, so I guess we something to look forward to...wish us all luck!!!

Game Day

This past weekend we had one good game that we won and one that we lost.  My youngest son's team lost their game against Ventura....we gave that game away with all the mistakes and turnovers.  Teams just cannot turn the ball over and expect to win.  The Head Coach got thrown out too, the ref was just too over zealous about tossing him, but he was advocating for his kids' safety and that is always acceptable. Noah was in on many tackles and carried the ball a bit, but it was a pretty lackluster performance.

Joey's team....the one I am Defensive Coordinator for won.  We played Saugus and won 12-6.  The score should have been twice that on our side, we had a TD called back and then we got stuck on the one yard line and turned to ball over on downs.  Still, my defense rocked and we had some great performances and I am pleased. Joey did great, he kicked butt at his linebacker spot and carried the ball like a bull.  I promised a one hundred dollar reward for a TD and he bulled his way down to the one yard line and unfortunately, we were stopped.  Next time Joey.
Next week we play a Santa Clarita team that runs the Double Wing...and they are very good at it....I have a HUGE challenge coming up and I hope we are prepared for it.

A Not so quiet Labor Day

I have been on duty for two days straight.  Yesterday we had a fire on the beach in some bushes.  A fire on the beach isn't much of a problem really, it can't go anywhere, but the smoke does interupt the flow of traffic on HWY 101....so we put it out.  We went on two older folks who are residents of a local popular surfing beach....first the man after he fell down.  We picked him up and put him in his bed, bless his heart.  Then after we had been back at the station for about fifteen minutes....."DING"...bells go off for the same residence..this time the wife had fallen.  So, we did what we always do....we went and picked her up and put her into bed with her husband.  The old guy asked us if we wanted to just the stay the night at their place and have a few beers.  While that sounded really good, we were on duty and so must abide by the rules, but it was tempting!!!
Then, around 4AM the bells went off and we were dispatched in our water tender....a giant rolling water supply....to a brush fire up in the Piru area.  It was up in the hills in the oil lease area and it was a fairly small fire as fires go, but it still required water and there is no water supply up there.  We got back to the station around 11 AM and cleaned up.  I tried to take a nap, but that didn't happen....call me a "wahmublance".
The today we had another beach fire that was in some bushes and putting out a decent amount of smoke and wafting across the 101 by La Conchita...so we put that one out too.  Dinner was Carl's Junior Grilled Chicken Salad....tasty.  I'm hitting the sheets now, but I did get to watch Boise State beat Virginia Tech in a televised football game that was a hard fought battle and really fun to watch.....go Broncos!!!

I've also been following an old High School football coach of mine in his blog..."Coaching for Pizza".  It chronicles his coaching American football over in Europe and is fun to read, but right now he is on a bit of a "walk about" over in Spain and I am righteously jealous.  I want an adventure too!!!!!  Way to go George, one day I just might follow your footsteps on the CAMINO......awesome adventure.

Football Saturday

Saturday was a long day, and though it was a good and fun day....we went 0-2 with our boys' teams.

We started the day off by meeting in the parking lot at Rio Mesa High for a breakfast cookout with my youngest son Noah's team.  Can I say that this just plain ROCKED!!!!!!  We had chorizo and egg burritos, we had sausage, cheese and egg sandwiches, watermelon, danish, donuts, juices and coffee and it was really, really tasty.  Thanks to all the Mommies that cooked for us.....great job girls!!

First game was versus Westlake and they walked on us, though our kids played well enough, Westlake was not to be stopped.  Noah was starting Middle Linebacker and was in on many tackles.  He also played fullback and pounded out yardage up the middle, he is an animal.

Second game, Lancaster......yuck!!!!  We played the West Valley Rebels and they walked on us too.  They had a tailback that could run like a madman.  I think their kids were an "A" team, we are a "B" team....they definitely out sized us.  Oh well, at least we got the first game of the season over with and shook out the cobwebs.  It was not a league game either, so the loss doesn't count against us.  We definitely have some room to improve, but the adjustments are easy enough to make and with some extra coaching on pass coverages...we should be much better.  My son Joey played outside linebacker and hit like a madman.  He also played fullback and while he didn't run the ball much....he did an outstanding job on his lead blocks and his pass blocking which enable the QB to get off some great passes.  We lost 32-7...oh well.

Next weekend will be here before you know, though not soon enough for me.  Man I love youth football, and especially watching my boys play...what a great thing for a Father to have.!!!!

surf day

I surfed yesterday with my son Joey and seven of his teammates from football.  The waves were small and mushy, but we all had a blast anyway.....kids are good at having fun.  One of the Dads dropped off two pizzas, so we feasted on the beach, that was pleasant.

Up on the Promenade.....the beach walk way......I met an old gentleman running who I instantly recognized as the track coach from a rival High School back in my day.  He also was a college coach at the rival JC of my school.  Coach Tuck Mason was at Oxnard High when I attended TOHS and then when I went to Moorpark College, he became the head coach of Ventura College. Anyway, I said "hi coach" and he stopped and we chatted...he remember me too, which was nice and made me feel quite good.  It was nice little visit and reminded me of how life seems to go in big circles.  It was good to see him still running and being active....he has to be in his mid seventies or so by now and he looks great!!

We had a really good football practice today, my boys are finally getting settled into my defensive schemes and have their assignments down fairly well. I am thankful for this as our first game is this coming Saturday...so the timing is right.  Let us hope they keep on improving.  I keep teaching them new things and adding in little bits here and there for them to digest, it is interesting to see how they are taking it all in and how they are progressing. I think I have a very good set of defensive alignments and packages and we will be pretty hard for the opposing team to figure out.  I am pretty certain of my starting line up too, but have one or two possible line ups, we'll see how things go the next two days and I'll have it solid for Saturday.

We had a "coaches meeting" at a local watering hole....a sports grill and bar where they serve good food and ICE COLD beer......rather pleasant.  We hoisted a toast to one of my old HS football coaches who is on a walkabout in Spain right now....go George!!!  The meeting consisted of diagraming out our line up with starters and substitutions and talking about our kids.....it was productive and pretty fun.

Today is now the first day of school for my boys and my oldest son is at his first day of High School at Camarillo High.  He is also playing Freshmen football....so it should be a pretty exciting year. Our youngest has another audition for pretty huge movie...one starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.....go Noah!!!
Joey is in eighth grade this year and has grown so much.  His team is the one I am coaching and Joey is starting strong side linebacker and fullback.....he is doing awesome.  I am excited for the boys starting school and also for my wife....she now gets a few hours free for herself each day.  Mama deserves her time, she has definitely earned it.  Go Marnie!!!!