As a man of countless mantras, it’s no surprise Sacred Heart Cathedral football coach John Lee has another one ready for the 2012 season, but it’s far from a trite sports cliche.
The quote, which he has borrowed from Vince Lombardi, speaks directly to how the Irish are positioned heading into the 2012 season, as the school in The City that lost the most talent from 2011.
“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have,” Lee said, repeating Lombardi’s words. “These are the cards we’ve been dealt. We can’t hand them back. I’m not going to let it faze me.”
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If momentum can be carried through the nearly nine-month-long football offseason, it would be hard to find a team that has more of it than St. Ignatius.
The Wildcats capped a whirlwind Central Coast Section playoff run with a win over eternal rival Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Division III championship game in front of an estimated 12,000 fans at AT&T Park.
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Only two players from Lincoln High School’s 2010 football team will be on this year’s squad, but that season still bothers coach Phil Ferrigno.
The Mustangs’ 0-11 record in 2010 is one of the lowest points in the program’s history and it provided a wake-up call to the most decorated Academic Athletic Association football program of the 2000s.
A 4-7 record in 2011 and a first-round playoff exit doesn’t exactly have Lincoln supporters jumping for joy, but the Mustangs have officially picked themselves up from the pavement.
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It’s hard to say just how good Zach Masoli could have been on the Riordan High School football team last season.As a sophomore, most of his athletic ability on the field was shown scrambling, but not by choice.He was running for his life.The Crusaders had the worst offensive line in the West Catholic Athletic League last season and the opponents exposed that weakness, putting Masoli under constant pressure.Protecting him and giving him time to make plays is of the utmost importance for the Crusaders this season.
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A year ago, the Mission High School football team was highly motivated.A loss to Balboa in the first round of the playoffs in 2010 — after an undefeated league season — led to Mission in 2011 claiming their first Academic Athletic Association championship in 57 years.With a key core of graduating seniors long gone, the attitude is significantly different at summer practice on 18th Street.Like the bloated, sleepy feeling after a big Thanksgiving dinner, the Bears are experiencing a Turkey Bowl hangover.
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There’s a line that some around The City say with a snicker about the Thurgood Marshall High School athletic programs.
There’s more untapped talent walking around the hallways at Marshall than on the field — at any school in San Francisco.
Whether that’s true is almost impossible to determine, but it speaks to the problem at the school in the southeast corner of The City, or at the very least the perceived problem.
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The Galileo football team had one of the youngest groups in the Academic Athletic Association in 2011 and, in several moments last season, that inexperience was glaringly evident.
With 20 players from last season’s 31-man varsity roster being underclassmen — including 12 sophomores — the Lions missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008, and in the roller-coaster year, the lows were stunningly low.
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You don’t have to dig very deep to find out what will be motivating the Washington High School football team this season.
A disappointing 12-7 loss to Mission on Turkey Day that ruined what would have been an undefeated Academic Athletic Association season was followed by the curious and abrupt departure of coach Karl Finley on June 26.
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The St. Ignatius football and baseball teams won unprecedented section titles in the 2011-2012 school year and one player was at the center of it all.
At quarterback and in the outfield, junior Jack Stinn led each team to its first respective Central Coast Section titles in school history.
That’s why he’s The San Francisco Examiner and SanFranPreps.com Boys’ Athlete of the Year.
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Stephen Domingo’s exit from St. Ignatius has been rumored for at least a year and the San Francisco native made it official Tuesday when his parents told the school’s administration that he would be enrolling early at Georgetown University, where he committed to play in May.
Originally reported by PremierBall.com and confirmed by St. Ignatius boys’ basketball coach Tim Reardon, Domingo, who just completed his junior year, is already in Washington, D.C.
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St. Ignatius’ standout basketball player Stephen Domingo made his intentions clear as soon as he was named to the USA Basketball Men’s Under-17 team headed to the World Championships.
"Everything is the gold-medal standard here," Domingo said in June.
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Maria Kemiji-McDonald is a dying breed.
In the age of specialization, where athletes, specifically in high school, improve on skills by focusing on one sport, Kemiji-McDonald has played three at St. Ignatius for her entire high school career.
For the second year in a row, Kemiji-McDonald is The San Francisco Examiner and SanFranPreps.com Girls’ Athlete of the Year, not only because she plays three sports, but because she excels at them all.
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After five years as the football coach at Washington High School, in which he won an Academic Athletic Association championship and made four Turkey Bowl appearances, Karl Finley resigned from the position this week.
Finley did not return repeated phone calls, messages and emails on Thursday, but Washington athletic director Lawrence Chan confirmed the resignation and the San Francisco Section’s website has the coaching position at the school listed as “TBA.”
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Burton High School effectively canceled its 2012 varsity football season earlier this month, but coach Anthony Rollins, who would be entering his fourth year at the helm of the program, has a lone message for the rest of the Academic Athletic Association.
“Don’t count us out,” Rollins said.
The decision by Rollins, which he admitted was embarrassing but necessary, is also a reversal of what he views as self-destructive practices of the past.
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Dylan Nelson was such a force on Galileo Academy’s baseball team in his junior and senior years that when he was redshirted at the College of San Mateo his first season out of high school, the lack of competition nearly killed him.
That year off the field drove Nelson, one of the most decorated athletes in Academic Athletic Association history, into a scholarship to play at Cal.
Nelson will join the Bears next season after a season where he had a 3.50 ERA in 46¹⁄³ innings pitched at CSM, almost entirely out of the bullpen.
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