When the Game Stands Tall, Special Movie Edition

by Neil Hayes

  When the “All-Stars” lost, which wasn’t often, the popular opinion was that the coaching staff had been outcoached.

  Lara’s fourth game as a varsity head coach was arguably the biggest high school football game in history. His offensive and defensive coordinators also were new to their jobs. Now that they had seen De La Salle, they knew what to expect. Next year would be different.

  “It hurts,” Lara said that night. “I’ll probably go home and cry.”

  ★ ★ ★

  A cool breeze blows down off the brown slopes of Mt. Diablo as the Spartans finish practice three days before the long-awaited 2002 rematch with Long Beach Poly. Rush-hour traffic backs up on Treat Boulevard, and a lone jogger sends blackbirds scurrying from her path as she circles the track. Thirsty players gulp water from hoses.

  “I feel good about the game plan,” Ladouceur tells assistants Nate Geldermann, Joe Aliotti, and Justin Alumbaugh as they stand in a circle in the middle of the practice field. “They understand what we’re trying to do.”

  Ladouceur is as relaxed in the days leading up to the showdown with Poly as he was on edge the week before the game against St. Louis.

  He didn’t spend the summer watching Poly film the way he had while preparing for the Crusaders, but Poly’s offense and defense haven’t changed from the year before. Plus, he had gauged their speed and size while watching them destroy Kahuku in Honolulu.

  He spent all day Saturday and Sunday engrossed in the long, tedious process of breaking down film and compiling a scouting report. Mark Panella stopped by his house on Sunday afternoon to make suggestions. Ladouceur studied more film with Alumbaugh and Aliotti early in the week before the game plan was finalized.

  The 2001 Poly team may have been one of the most talented rosters ever assembled, but Ladouceur and his staff think the 2002 version might be a better team. The young, inexperienced receiving corps that dropped several passes the year before has matured. This group appears more selfless than the team dominated by the “Fab Five.” Poly has outscored its four opponents by an average of 42–9.

  The Sporting News has ranked Poly’s defensive line number one in the nation. De La Salle won the battle on the line of scrimmage the year before, but not by much. And that was with the departed Derek Landri and Andy Briner in the lineup. It’s frightening to think that Poly’s defensive line is superior to the line the Spartans faced last year.

  Ladouceur added several wishbone plays before the 2001 game in an effort to fool the Jackrabbits. He won’t do anything as radical this year. The only thing he’ll change is blocking assignments.

  De La Salle coaches have told their offensive linemen to double-team larger Poly players all the way across the line. The Jackrabbits’ linebackers aren’t as active as they were the year before. Drew, who breaks tackles himself, can gain enough yards to keep the chains moving. The coaching staff hopes the strategy will give their offensive linemen confidence against a defensive line that averages four inches taller and thirty-eight pounds heavier per man.

  “That’s one of the gifts and curses of coaches,” Ladouceur says. “They think they can control a lot of stuff. They want to be in control and be the difference-maker. We get caught up in that sometimes. If I decided to run the same things we ran last week, I wouldn’t feel like I was doing my job, even if last week’s game plan seems perfect. We have to tinker and put our bit in. But it doesn’t matter what I know. It only matters what the kids know. That’s what gives me confidence. I’m seeing them understand what we want and perform it in practice. That’s when I start feeling good about our game plan.”

  Ladouceur may not have installed any new base plays against a Poly defense that hasn’t allowed a touchdown all season. But he has added a few trick plays that he thinks might work in the right situation. He likes using trick plays in big games because players seem to execute them better. They almost always go for scores or long-gainers.

  “Against Poly you’ve got to be right on the money because those guys are so fast,” he says. “You can fool them a little bit, but once they see it they recover quickly. Last year we caught them off balance on misdirection plays. We hit them three times, once for a touchdown and twice on critical third downs, to keep scoring drives alive. That’s how you have to hit Poly. The slow-developing trick plays don’t work. They may suck up but they’ll turn around and catch you in a second.”

  The inattention to detail that plagued the offense and frustrated coaches for much of the season has subsided. They haven’t had to harp on the team for mental mistakes this week. The players have put together back-to-back solid practice weeks, and they haven’t had to be reminded of plays and techniques introduced a few days or weeks ago.

  “In order to beat Poly they have to truly elevate their game, which they have not done yet,” Ladouceur says. “But I get the feeling they’re on the cusp of that. We’ve prepared these guys as well as we can. At this point in the season they have probably come along as far as they can. Are these guys good enough to beat Poly? I don’t know. I really don’t. They may not be. But I feel that in the last few weeks they’ve put themselves in a position to beat them. If they carry that through and play hard, I’ll be proud of them no matter what. I really will.”

  He has pushed this team harder than he has pushed teams in recent years. Now it’s time to build its confidence. “You guys can do this,” he tells his team after Wednesday’s practice. “You can put up twenty-eight to thirty-five points on these guys if you get off the line, protect the ball, and run the option. But you have to believe. You have to believe in a game like this—not wish, believe. That’s how we’ve always approached big games like Mater Dei, Merced, and Bakersfield. Those teams believed and that was the difference.”

  Poly has destroyed its first three opponents with long passes to speed receivers and a potent running game. Eidson wants to make the Jackrabbits earn their points, which they haven’t had to do thus far.

  He watches tapes of six different Poly games before formulating a defensive plan based on stopping the run and the long pass. He wants to force Poly to complete intermediate throws, which is difficult for high school quarterbacks to do, even with talented receivers.

  After a few incomplete passes and stalled drives, he hopes that Poly players will become frustrated. Everything has come easily for the Jackrabbits thus far. He wants to make it difficult.

  “In every film we’ve got they score so quickly,” Eidson says. “When a team is used to scoring so fast, being patient can be extremely difficult for them. Since summer passing leagues, they have been scoring and attempting to score in the same way. We want to change their coordinator’s mindset and force them to move the ball down the field. We want to see if they can do that. I don’t think they’ve been practicing for it. They definitely haven’t had to do it in games.”

  Eidson and Ladouceur are preparing for the biggest game of the season with a skeleton staff. Panella is out of town on business but will return in time for the game. Geldermann will be at his twin brother’s wedding when the De La Salle–Long Beach Poly game kicks off. Even Aliotti, in his role as dean of students, will be out of town later in the week to attend a mandatory Christian Brothers conference.

  Alumbaugh works with offensive linemen on their new assignments and preps his inside linebackers while packing for his long-awaited trip to Europe. His brother and several of their friends are meeting him in London for a journey that will mark the end of their college years. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime, something he may never get a chance to do again, especially on a De La Salle teacher’s salary.

  Still, he has mixed emotions.

  “I’m used to leaving every year, but it’s a lot harder this time because I’ve been here so much more,” he says. “It’s amazing how much time these kids put in. They’re here all the time. That’s why I keep popping in film and coming earlier and earlier. I want to help them succeed. I don’t want to let these kids down. They have put in so much work that if I don
’t do these things I couldn’t look them in the eye.”

  The pregame hype isn’t as intense as it was the year before. Requests for media credentials have dropped from 121 in 2001 to 69, but camera crews have still descended on the school, and out-of-town reporters are leaving numerous phone messages. Drew is the focal point of the media. Everybody wants to interview him about his four-touchdown performance the year before. He won’t catch the Jackrabbits by surprise again. Stopping him is their number one priority.

  drew won’t sneak up on poly again reads the headline in the Long Beach Press Telegram.

  ★ ★ ★

  The faculty lounge is abuzz Friday morning. Teachers sip coffee at long tables and discuss a quote from Brother Christopher Brady that appeared in a front-page article in the Contra Costa Times.

  “It’s hard to say I want them to lose,” the De La Salle principal told reporter Joe Stiglich. “But losing is part of the game. We just haven’t experienced it. There’s a lot to be learned from finishing second or third and not having the score in your favor.”

  Several players approach Ladouceur that morning. It almost seems to them that their principal is rooting for them to lose. They want an explanation. Ladouceur isn’t sure what to tell them.

  Brother Chris is tall, thin, and bald. He’s forever bustling around campus, his black robe billowing around his ankles. He knows a little about the mentality of a football player. His nephew Tom Brady is the three-time Super Bowl–winning quarterback of the New England Patriots.

  Ladouceur bumps into him in the main office later that morning.

  “The kids are mad at you,” Ladouceur says matter-of-factly.

  “Why?” Brother Chris asks, surprised.

  “Because of what you said in the paper,” Ladouceur says.

  “What did I say?”

  “Did you read the paper?” Ladouceur asks.

  “Yes,” Brother Chris replies.

  “The kids feel like you’re rooting against them.”

  Brother Chris has made similar statements during his two years as principal. In this case it’s the timing that has created the uproar. It’s not as if he wants them to lose, he tells Ladouceur. But there are valuable lessons to be learned from losing.

  “I know what you mean,” Ladouceur says. “But I don’t know if the kids do.”

  Later, after relaying the conversation to his assistants—several of whom, Panella in particular, are irritated by the quote—Ladouceur grumbles: “I don’t like to have to defend the principal to the kids.”

  “To think that a principal would want his team to lose in order to experience what that means is ludicrous,” Brother Chris would later say. “I was speaking to a much larger audience than De La Salle football players. I’m about as supportive of the program as I can be, but a loss is inevitable and I think our players are well-equipped for when that does happen, whether it be this week, next month, or whenever.”

  It’s a common criticism. The only lesson the football program doesn’t teach student-athletes is how to lose. That’s one popular perception, anyway, but Eidson says that’s not true.

  “There’s no great lesson in losing,” Eidson claims. “The lesson comes with the effort you put into it. These guys lose at things all the time. They lose every day in practice. Cameron Colvin lost his mother. The daily life of a teenager is one of trauma with girlfriends and friends. The one tangible thing in life is they can play a sport and control the outcome a little bit through their work ethic.

  “You have to remember that we may win as a team, but individually we have a lot of losses out there. We don’t look at the scoreboard. It’s about individual commitment and effort. Anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand our program. It’s not results-based. You need someone with a unique perspective on winning and losing to keep something like this going. If it was about wins and losses we would’ve lost a long time ago.”

  The game against Long Beach Poly is drawing interest around the state and nation. Tickets are selling briskly in the small campus bookstore, but there is no visible evidence of big-game fervor at De La Salle save a lone sign—Drop Dead Bunny Rabbits—that hangs over the school’s theater. Teachers are talking about the game more than the students are.

  “For any other school in the country this would be a pinnacle event in the history of the athletic department,” says Lou Ascatigno, a De La Salle graduate, longtime teacher, and the football team’s public address announcer. “To me it’s sad that we’re not getting more psyched up. But at this school it isn’t the cool thing to do.”

  The student body got excited about its football success in the early years. Winning, however, has long since become a foregone conclusion. The low-key approach is now part of the tradition. It’s a lost opportunity, in some ways. How often does a high school football team play for a national championship? With De La Salle ranked number one in the country by USA Today, and Long Beach Poly ranked number two, that’s what this game boils down to.

  Then again, when De La Salle played Mater Dei in 1998 for its first national title, there wasn’t a pep rally, either.

  “This school tries hard to keep things in perspective, but sometimes we go overboard,” Eidson says. “There shouldn’t be a rally before every game, but with this type of event you would think there would be more of a buzz. I can’t really explain it.”

  Late in the week rumors circulate that a pep rally has been planned for lunchtime Friday. Erik Sandie, wearing a black T-shirt, sits on a brick wall near the main quad, eating his lunch in the warm sunshine. Ladouceur, wearing a white golf shirt and a charcoal vest sweater, sits next to him.

  The leaves on the small trees lining the courtyard are tinged yellow, one of the first visible signs of the changing season. Sandie is not wearing his jersey, unlike many of his teammates, but his thick chest and wide shoulders are impossible to disguise. The marks on his protruding forehead can only be the result of wearing a football helmet day after day.

  “I don’t like to wear my jersey,” he shrugs, chewing. “I don’t like to be singled out as a football player. It’s uncomfortable, too.”

  Most students don’t bother to look up from their brown-bag lunches or interrupt their conversations when a student who has smeared his torso and face with green body paint chases another student wearing rabbit ears through the quad. Water balloons are flung from the roof of the theater and it’s over before most students realized it began.

  “The rallies sure have gone downhill at this school,” Sandie says, chewing, his face never changing expression.

  The student covered in green paint, obviously pleased with his performance, approaches Ladouceur, who has taken in the scene indifferently.

  “Hey, Big Daddy,” he says, referring to Ladouceur by his nickname.

  “Hey,” Ladouceur answers dryly. “When are you guys going to crank things up here?”

  “We’re already finished,” the boy says.

  “I let the kids out of films for this?” Ladouceur says, rising wearily to his feet and beginning to make his way across the quad, his words trailing behind. “I don’t understand this school sometimes. There should be a rally for these kids.”

  ★ ★ ★

  Players file into the campus chapel after school on Friday, drop their backpacks, and slip off their shoes in the foyer before lying down on the soft blue-gray carpeting and closing their eyes.

  Sun splashes through the narrow marbled windows on each side of the room. Jesus’s body is twisted in pain as it hangs on the cross above the altar. Eidson is as quiet and calming in this setting as he is easily incensed on the practice field. Listening to him talk about relationships as he moderates these sessions, about mistakes he has made and what he learned from them, makes it easy to understand why his brother calls him “The High Priest of Football.”

  “From this point on it’s just us and getting ready for this game,” Eidson says. “Clear your mind. We all have distractions in our lives, but now it’s ti
me to focus on your role. What are you going to do? I’m giving you permission to do just one thing. That’s nice. It can be a very freeing experience. So relax and get yourself ready to go.”

  Eidson’s love of heavy-metal music serves him well when he is helping seniors pick out an appropriate song for chapel. John Chan and Erik Sandie have helped him select “Rooster” by the heavy-metal band Alice in Chains. They all three feel that its chilling lyrics are appropriate this week.

  Ladouceur is lying face down on the floor with his eyes closed when the tribute to a Vietnam soldier’s life begins.

  Matt Drazba is a meaty six-foot-two, 250-pound junior lineman. He lives twenty-three miles from the De La Salle campus and drives himself, his sister, and two other students to school each morning. He has discovered a motivational passage that he wants to share with his teammates.

  “It really hit home to me because a lot of people said Poly is bigger and faster and will be out to get us after we beat them last year,” Drazba says. “People thought Poly was going to kick our ass. We needed confidence. You won’t win if you don’t believe you will win.”

  He rises from the floor and walks slowly to the podium as “Rooster” ’s haunting guitar riffs fade into silence. He shares the quotation from Barbara J. Winter:

  When you come to the edge of all the light you know and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.

  “I chose this reading because faith is believing what you can’t see,” Drazba says. “It’s just like I have faith we’ll win tomorrow based on the hard work and sacrifices we’ve made this season.”

  There is a momentary pause as players absorb this. The only sounds are the soft clearing of throats or rustling of paper.

  “I think that’s one of the more profound things we’ve heard in chapel,” Chan finally says, breaking the silence.