by Neil Hayes
“Are you going to give us anything tonight?” Anthony screams at the officials after a Jackie Bates fumble is negated after it was ruled he was down. “Do you think it’s going to hurt them?”
The De La Salle offensive line is mowing down defenders, opening huge holes on every play. Drew scores on a 2-yard run two plays later to make it 21–0 with 3:43 left in the first quarter.
Anthony is livid. In his six years at Antioch, he thinks that only one of his team’s games against De La Salle has been officiated fairly.
“Maybe the officials don’t know they’re doing it or they’re not doing it on purpose, but it’s definitely one-sided,” he says.
He’s not alone. Many area coaches believe the Spartans get the benefit of the doubt more often than not. Their complaints range from De La Salle’s aggressive play to offensive linemen not being set for the required one second before the snap.
Anthony speculates that officials hear so much about the Spartans’ discipline, they assume Ladouceur’s teams don’t make mistakes.
“That’s a bunch of B.S.,” says Dave Cutaia, who has been assigning officials to games in Contra Costa County since 1978. “They’re reacting to what they see. They’re not thinking about whether it’s De La Salle or the Green Bay Packers. There’s no merit to that statement, just like there’s no merit to those who say the officials watch De La Salle more closely because they’ve won all those games.”
Luoma is being pressured on every pass attempt. Mulvanny sacks him on the first drive of the game. At other times Luoma is forced to scramble or throw an off-balance pass.
“Where’s the pressure coming from?” a teammate asks Luoma on the sideline after the Panthers fail to pick up the first down for their fourth straight series. “Everywhere, dude,” the quarterback says.
John Chan, who played one of the worst games of his career the week before, wipes out the safety on a 45-yard touchdown run by Drew and is the first player downfield to congratulate him when he crosses the goal line.
“We’re better than this!” an Antioch player yells to his teammates on the sideline. “What happened to us on the bus ride here?”
“He played at Deer Valley for two years,” an Antioch player tells a teammate after Mulvanny makes a tackle on the next drive. De La Salle leads 35–6 with 5:21 left before halftime.
“They take all our players, man,” his teammate says. “I hear they’ve got a house in Concord where all the Antioch players live during the season. They’re beating us with our own players.”
“It’s bullshit, man,” says yet another Antioch player.
Drew bolts up the middle and a helmet-to-helmet collision with the Antioch safety creates a sickening thud. Drew spins away, runs five more yards, and there’s another sickening helmet-to-helmet thud before he crosses the goal line after scoring a 24-yard touchdown to make it 42–6 with under four minutes left in the second quarter.
“It ain’t over yet!” an Antioch player screams emphatically after De La Salle scores to make it 62–6 with 9:23 left in the fourth quarter. “We’ve still got time. We can still do it!”
The final score is 62–13.
★ ★ ★
A dozen Hayward Farmers fans wait in the parking lot outside Viking Field in the early evening twilight. The ticket booths are boarded up, the gates locked, the stadium empty. The fans hold blankets and thermoses and talk excitedly in the growing darkness.
They’re waiting for the gates to open for the NCS semifinal game. Hayward assistant coach Jamond Williams is waiting for the team bus to arrive.
“Good things are going to happen,” Williams predicts confidently. “I’ve got a real good feeling about this.”
The Farmers made winning the league title and meeting De La Salle in the playoffs their two primary goals for the season.
Their only loss was to league rival San Leandro, a school De La Salle has defeated in the NCS championship game in each of the past three years.
Hayward head coach Casey Moreno has firsthand experience against De La Salle, even if this is the first-ever meeting between the two programs. He was the starting strong safety for Moreau when De La Salle defeated his team 42–16 to win the Catholic Athletic League title in 1984. Moreno got tossed out of that game for spearing a De La Salle player after an onside kick late in the game. That player was Mark Panella.
Moreno steps off the bus looking so young and fresh-faced that it’s hard to believe it has been eighteen years since his playing days ended.
“It’s like these guys are playing a scrimmage or something,” Moreno announces proudly as his players file past. “They’re not tripping at all.”
This is easily the biggest game of Moreno’s coaching career. He left his old high school coach a message earlier in the week. Tim Walsh, who coached Moreno at Moreau, is now the head coach at Portland State. Moreno’s message was a short one: “We’re playing De La Salle. What do I do?”
When Walsh called back Moreno could hear his mentor’s one word of advice before he put the receiver to his ear: “PUNT!”
“It’s an absolute honor,” Moreno gushes on game day. “We have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. We’re not scared at all. We’re going to throw caution into the wind.”
He notices few differences between Ladouceur’s 2002 Spartans and the team he played against in 1984. What impressed him most then—the offensive line’s get-off and special teams—impresses him most now.
He has had his kickoff team practicing high, short, directional kickoffs to prevent Drew from breaking long returns. He has even devised a strategy to negate De La Salle’s line surge.
“We’re going to jump the count,” Moreno whispers, as if revealing a military secret. “We’ll probably be offsides a few times. If that doesn’t work we’ll try something else next year because we plan on playing them next year, too.”
Hayward fans fill the visitors’ bleachers to capacity as the teams go through their pregame routines. It’s a loud, boisterous group that blows air horns and begins lustily heckling De La Salle players and coaches as soon as they take the field for warm-ups.
“Hey, Ladouceur!” one man yells as the Spartans coach puts his linemen through their pregame paces. “Don’t get blown out. You guys are going to be on skates all night.”
Ladouceur goes about his business as if he is unable to hear.
“The Streak ends tonight!” comes another shout.
“I don’t know why they would heckle us,” Eidson mutters, irritated. “High school kids take that kind of stuff seriously. All it’s going to do is piss them off.”
The De La Salle offense is warming up at the 30-yard line a few minutes later. Those not on the first-team offense stand in a line near midfield as Hayward players bounce up and down in a large scrum, just a few yards away from where the Spartans are calmly standing.
“These guys ain’t nothin’!” shouts one Hayward player.
“These guys aren’t shit!” yells another.
“Let’s end their season!” comes a voice from the center of the scrum. “Let’s end it tonight!”
Steam rises off Maurice Drew’s scalp and into the chilly, damp night air when he takes off his helmet to adjust his chinstrap. “They talk a lot,” he says quietly, watching them. “We’ll see. We’ll see.”
The junior college is hosting a basketball tournament in the gymnasium. One of the visiting teams is leaving the locker room as De La Salle players enter for final instructions before kickoff.
“That’s the best team in the nation right there,” one basketball player tells a teammate as they watch De La Salle players walk past. “They play all their games on TV.”
“Hey, how many games have you guys won?” the coach asks.
“One hundred thirty-four,” Tony Binswanger answers proudly.
“Actually, it’s 136,” backup quarterback Kevin Lopina correctly points out.
“Really?” Binswanger asks, surprised.
Fans are still standi
ng in line at the ticket booth as Hayward huddles on the field before kickoff. Hayward players bounce up and down on their toes, waiting for the referee to signal the start of the game. Anxiety could also be felt on the sideline, where Moreno would later admit “my heart was in my throat” just before the kickoff.
The Hayward kicker has been instructed to punch a high, short kick toward the right sideline while members of the coverage team thundered down the field, quickly converging on the ball and forcing a fair catch. This is Moreno’s idea. He knows how dominant De La Salle’s return teams can be. He’s had his team practicing this for two weeks.
The kick is deeper than Moreno would’ve liked. Drew fields the ball near the sideline at the 22-yard line and begins angling back across the field. By this time, the Hayward player responsible for outside containment is converging on the ball, which puts him closer to the middle of the field, allowing Drew to dip outside.
Drew picks up several key blocks while running the width of the field before cutting up the opposite sideline. A Hayward defender makes a desperate attempt to collar him from behind at midfield, but Drew is too strong and barely slows. Another defender dives at his feet from behind, but it’s futile.
Moreno worked all week to prevent what is happening now before his very eyes. Drew is in the clear now, the near-capacity crowd rising to its feet, the hash marks a green-and-white blur under his feet. When Drew crosses into the end zone, no Farmer within 10 yards, the young coach looks as if he might burst into tears.
“Our kids came into that game so hyped,” he said. “I didn’t see anybody with fear in their eyes. As soon as that happened their whole demeanor changed. It was like, ‘Oh, so this is how it happens.’ ”
Hayward’s offense is led by running back Stevelan Harper, who scored a league-record twenty-six touchdowns during the regular season. Six-foot-four, 210-pound quarterback John Russell is drawing interest from smaller Division-I programs.
Spartan Terrance Kelly almost intercepts Russell’s first pass. The Hayward fullback gains three yards on second down before Erik Sandie and Mike Pittore converge on Russell, sacking him for a 7-yard loss.
Russell stands on the sideline moments later, his helmet pushed back on his head, his chinstrap dangling.
“Wow,” he says, blinking.
The defense has been the strength of Hayward’s team all season. It held previously unbeaten Berkeley High to minus-2 yards of offense the week before.
Jackie Bates takes a pitch from Cecil one play later and cuts back to his left before dipping outside again, his long strides propelling him over the turf. The 49-yard run makes the score 14–0.
“I’ve never seen a high school team so good at converting the pitch,” Moreno says. “It’s a great pitch, a great catch, a great block by the wide out on the cornerback and then he’s gone.”
It has been obvious since the first play of the Antioch game the week before. The offensive line, De La Salle’s greatest weakness during the regular season, has turned into its greatest strength.
People call De La Salle “The Green Machine,” and the Spartans resemble a machine when offensive linemen are blowing off the ball, knocking defensive linemen into the linebackers, and linebackers into the secondary. The whole left side of Hayward’s defense is collapsed on Bates’s touchdown run.
Sandie is dominating on both sides of the ball. John Chan is ranging far downfield, to pick off unsuspecting linebackers and safeties. Chris Biller is back. The junior tackle hasn’t played since he sustained a hairline fracture of his left fibula against Poly. Now he has recovered and is making the Farmers pay for his time away. On Bates’s run, he knocks a linebacker on his rear before peeling back and blindsiding a defender who was turning to pursue Bates from behind.
“Good surge,” Ladouceur tells his linemen as they come off the field. “You guys are kicking their asses up front.”
“This game ain’t over until we say it’s over,” barks a Hayward assistant after Bates breaks two tackles en route to a 19-yard touchdown. “You’ve got to take this shit personal.”
Bates is finally developing into the kind of talent Ladouceur expected him to be at the beginning of the season. The turning point came during a conversation with Drew the night before the Pittsburg game. Drew sensed Bates’s disappointment over his limited role and told him how he felt the same way before his breakout game against Poly the year before. Bates admired Drew more than anyone else on the team. He listened when Drew told him it wasn’t about touches, but what you did with the ball once it was tucked under your arm.
“Everybody knows how good you are,” Drew told him. “Everybody knows you’re way better than this. Do you know it?”
Bates quit thinking about making defenders miss and let his instincts and athleticism take over.
“He just talked about my game, and coming from him—the best athlete I’ve ever seen—it meant a lot,” Bates says. “He was real supportive. He has really helped me mature.”
Drew’s 41-yard run sets up a 15-yard touchdown scamper that makes the score 26–0 with twenty seconds left in the first quarter. A bad snap foiled Binswanger’s extra-point attempt after Bates’s second touchdown, which now gives Eidson the opportunity to prove Ladouceur wrong once again.
Eidson had his field goal unit working on two different trick plays all week.
“That will never work,” Ladouceur said predictably. “It’s too slow-developing.”
It’s a longstanding Thursday tradition. No matter what trick play Eidson runs during special teams practice Ladouceur always says the same thing: “That will never work.” It’s become his weekly shtick.
To Eidson’s ultimate satisfaction, the shovel pass works to perfection, making it 28–0.
A 48-yard pass from Cecil to De’Montae Fitzgerald sets up another touchdown, this one coming on a 1-yard sneak that stretches De La Salle’s lead to 34–0 with 6:26 left in the second quarter.
“Hey, you’ve got to pick up the blitz!” Moreno screams to his running back after his quarterback is flushed from the pocket.
“I got him. I picked him up,” his player yells back defensively.
Moreno stomps his foot in frustration. “Then what’s he running around back there for?” he demands to know, referring to his quarterback.
The running back looks toward the huddle for a moment before placing his curled hands on either side of his mouth, making a megaphone that will help carry his words to his coach on the sideline.
“Because he’s scared, Coach,” comes the answer.
Hayward wanted De La Salle, and the Farmers are getting the Spartans at their best. There’s no way to know how accurate USA Today’s national rankings are. Earlier in the season, when the Spartans were struggling against Archbishop Mitty and St. Francis, their number one ranking was suspect. The way they have performed in their first two playoff games, it’s difficult to imagine a team in America that could beat them now.
The final score is 47–7.
“I think we match up against them talent-wise,” Moreno says. “Technically, they are so skilled. Most of those kids are average athletes but they play with a passion that is unmatched. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played. It’s impressive as hell.”
25
1998 MATER DEI THREATENS THE STREAK
It was thirty minutes before kickoff in what USA Today had billed “the biggest high school football game in history.” De La Salle players sat on plastic chairs inside the locker room at Anaheim’s Edison Field, showing no outward signs of anxiety. The only sounds that broke the unrelenting silence were occasional coughs and flushing toilets.
An official knocked on the door less than fifteen minutes before kickoff. The walk-up crowd was much larger than anticipated. Fans were standing thirty deep at the ticket windows. Kickoff would be delayed in order for them to purchase tickets and find a seat.
“That’s OK,” head coach Bob Ladouceur said, shrugging off the delay. “We’ve waited a year to play this g
ame. We can wait another twenty minutes.”
De La Salle players were still celebrating their record-breaking victory over College Park on November 6, 1997, when reporters asked them to respond to criticism that The Streak was a product of inferior competition. The Spartans had established a new national high school record with their seventy-third consecutive win, but it wasn’t until a year later that they got the chance to legitimize it.
There are more than nine hundred prep football programs in California, which long made it impractical to implement a statewide playoff system. Thus, the long-awaited 1998 matchup between tradition-rich De La Salle and Southern California private-school powerhouse Mater Dei of Santa Ana was the most anticipated high school football game in state history.
The hype had been building for more than a year, and the buzz extended beyond the two campuses. Mater Dei had won three Southern Section titles in the 1990s, more than any other school. The Monarchs won mythical national championships in 1994 and 1996 but finished behind De La Salle in the state poll in each of those years.
De La Salle had won seventy-eight straight games and was ranked number one in the country, but they had never played such a high-powered opponent before. Mater Dei plays better competition week in and week out in Southern California, which has a denser population, more schools, and therefore more quality athletes and quality teams. The 1998 Monarchs had big-game experience, too, playing in front of some of the largest crowds in Southern Section history. The game was close to Mater Dei, while De La Salle had to travel to Southern California.
De La Salle was the most highly decorated program in the nation, but many considered it a decided underdog against another Catholic school that has been accused of recruiting.
“Mater Dei set the standard for high school football in California during the 1990s,” Ladouceur says. “They were nationally known and they had a wonderful reputation. There was a battle cry for us to play them. People kept saying we needed to play those guys.”