A couple of minor Super Bowl LIII back stories
Posted by John T. Reed on
The Rams QB is Jared Goff. He played high school football at Marin Catholic High School in Greenbrae, CA. That is about 12 miles north of San Francisco—near San Quentin prison, actually. I live about 32 miles east of San Francisco.
My adult baseball team often played at Marin Catholic. A pitcher broke my hand there in one game. I did not know it was broken at the time and I hit a double later in the game???
My oldest son Dan was a senior on the first team in his Miramonte High School’s then 40-year history to go undefeated. His classmate/QB was Ken Dorsey who won the national championship three years later at Miami and almost won it a second time the following year. He was a two-time Heisman finalist. Dan was a tailback at Ivy League Columbia.
My son’s team won the North Coast Section championship 40-0 over El Cerrito High School that year, 1998. That was the highest championship you could win on the field in CA at the time.Dan scored 26 of our 40 points. It was pouring rain, very cold, and howling wind—thus the future Heisman finalist scoring fewer points than my tailback son (who did catch a PAT pass in the game).
.
In CA then, the state champs were decided by polls, like college football. Why? We were the only state with no state championship tournaments because we are too big to have one. It would have too many rounds. Our population is greater than that of Canada, let alone every other state.
So the polls that year said that the state champ in the division with my son’s school’s male student body size was Marin Catholic—now famous for Jared Goff. Marin Catholic had also played El Cerrito that season and beat them, but it was a closer margin than Dan’s team’s 40-0 over El Cerrito.
So how did Miramonte end up #2 in CA behind Marin Catholic when we had a common opponent—El Cerrito—whom we beat more convincingly?
We got robbed. I can only guess the stated reason was the El Cerrito star tailback was hurt for the NCS game. That tailback tried to play a few plays in the NCS game, but he was unable to gain any yards because of the injury. The El Cerrito tailback sought out Dan after the game and congratulated him on his performance which we can guess was the tailback as game hero role that the El Cerrito guy had hoped HE might have played. I think it may have been Terrell Roberts who later played DB at OR State U. He was on the Bengals for two years.
But on the other hand, we played them at the end of the season when they were at peak skill level. I assume we also had injuries and maybe El Cerrito did, too, when they played Marin Catholic. And we won in a cold, driving rain. Marin Catholic played them early in the season when Northern California has no rain and not much cold.
Today, we have a state championship tournament, but polls decide who gets into it. Then I think it is a four-team tournament at each school student-body size. Two teams in Northern California play each other to decide the NorCal champ and the same happens in SoCal that week. Then the NorCal and SoCal champs play each other to decide the state champ.
.
Goff is 24. My son Dan is 37. Different eras.
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Tom Brady played high school at Junipero Serra Catholic School in San Mateo, CA, which is about 30 miles southwest of my house. That is near Silicon Valley ground zero, near San Francisco Airport. There is a famous statue of Father Junipero Serra in that area.
https://www.yelp.com/…/father-junipero-serra-statue-hillsbo…
Father Serra is on one knee pointing. Locals joke that he is a holder for a field goal, sometimes putting a giant football under his finger before a Stanford game.
And there you have back stories you probably won’t see in the SuperBowl LIII pregame show.
My adult baseball team often played at Marin Catholic. A pitcher broke my hand there in one game. I did not know it was broken at the time and I hit a double later in the game???
My oldest son Dan was a senior on the first team in his Miramonte High School’s then 40-year history to go undefeated. His classmate/QB was Ken Dorsey who won the national championship three years later at Miami and almost won it a second time the following year. He was a two-time Heisman finalist. Dan was a tailback at Ivy League Columbia.
My son’s team won the North Coast Section championship 40-0 over El Cerrito High School that year, 1998. That was the highest championship you could win on the field in CA at the time.Dan scored 26 of our 40 points. It was pouring rain, very cold, and howling wind—thus the future Heisman finalist scoring fewer points than my tailback son (who did catch a PAT pass in the game).
.
In CA then, the state champs were decided by polls, like college football. Why? We were the only state with no state championship tournaments because we are too big to have one. It would have too many rounds. Our population is greater than that of Canada, let alone every other state.
So the polls that year said that the state champ in the division with my son’s school’s male student body size was Marin Catholic—now famous for Jared Goff. Marin Catholic had also played El Cerrito that season and beat them, but it was a closer margin than Dan’s team’s 40-0 over El Cerrito.
So how did Miramonte end up #2 in CA behind Marin Catholic when we had a common opponent—El Cerrito—whom we beat more convincingly?
We got robbed. I can only guess the stated reason was the El Cerrito star tailback was hurt for the NCS game. That tailback tried to play a few plays in the NCS game, but he was unable to gain any yards because of the injury. The El Cerrito tailback sought out Dan after the game and congratulated him on his performance which we can guess was the tailback as game hero role that the El Cerrito guy had hoped HE might have played. I think it may have been Terrell Roberts who later played DB at OR State U. He was on the Bengals for two years.
But on the other hand, we played them at the end of the season when they were at peak skill level. I assume we also had injuries and maybe El Cerrito did, too, when they played Marin Catholic. And we won in a cold, driving rain. Marin Catholic played them early in the season when Northern California has no rain and not much cold.
Today, we have a state championship tournament, but polls decide who gets into it. Then I think it is a four-team tournament at each school student-body size. Two teams in Northern California play each other to decide the NorCal champ and the same happens in SoCal that week. Then the NorCal and SoCal champs play each other to decide the state champ.
.
Goff is 24. My son Dan is 37. Different eras.
.
Tom Brady played high school at Junipero Serra Catholic School in San Mateo, CA, which is about 30 miles southwest of my house. That is near Silicon Valley ground zero, near San Francisco Airport. There is a famous statue of Father Junipero Serra in that area.
https://www.yelp.com/…/father-junipero-serra-statue-hillsbo…
Father Serra is on one knee pointing. Locals joke that he is a holder for a field goal, sometimes putting a giant football under his finger before a Stanford game.
And there you have back stories you probably won’t see in the SuperBowl LIII pregame show.
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