JJ SAYS: Football very much alive

Football is still the biggest thing on campus.|

A good friend of mine once proclaimed: “If you don’t get excited about the start of the high school football season, you don’t have a pulse.” Of course, my friend was a football coach, so he might have been slightly prejudiced.

I admit to the same prejudice. I like all sports, but there is something special about football. At least on the high school level, it transcends the sport itself. It excites the entire school. In some parts of the country, high school football excites the entire community. It is not so extreme in our community for all sorts of reasons, one of the biggest being that Petalumans prefer doing to watching. They had rather golf, play tennis, bike, hike, canoe, run than watch someone else play.

We watch as Tomales drops to eight-man football; we hear horror stories about concussions and leg injuries; we see St. Vincent, with its tradition of football excellence, struggle to get enough players; we read about Novato almost dropping its varsity program.

You would think the end is near. But, the truth is, football is not only alive, but still thriving in Petaluma, and players, coaches, students and the community still get excited over a new season.

Teenage males still want to test their manhood in a contact sport, and football serves more as a bonding experience than an opportunity for individual statement.

As an aside, it should be pointed out that while there are some young women who play football, the sport remains overwhelmingly male dominated.

It is true that football games don’t draw capacity crowds as they once did, but they are still, by far, the most popular spectator events on campus. If you have doubts as to the sport’s continued popularity, drop around the Casa Grande field on Sept. 16 when the Egg Bowl returns.

The Egg Bowl will, of course, be the highlight of this year’s season, but there is much to look forward to as Friday night’s lights go on. I don’t know how successful our local teams will be, but they will be fun to watch.

Petaluma, of course, has no home field this year, but what it does have is a pretty darn good team to put on the Casa Grande turf. Petaluma isn’t huge, but it does have some size this year. It looks to be one of those squads whose team ability might be greater than its individual parts.

Casa Grande, under new coach Denis Brunk, is an enigma. Players seem to have reacted well to the change in coaches after Trent Herzog was let go last January. A great deal of that has to do with Brunk’s positive personality and his ability to relate to players and adults.

The attitude at Casa Grande seems to be, “We miss Trent, but it is time to get back to business and play football.” How well the Gauchos take care of that business remains to be seen.

As always, Casa has good athletes. The Gauchos will have a good team. Their problem is not with themselves, but with the opposition. The North Bay League is, as always, loaded with talented teams. A schedule that includes Cardinal Newman, Rancho Cotate, Windsor and Ukiah is always tough. One of these seasons, Maria Carrillo is going to live up to its talent as a team, and even Santa Rosa, a team built by Brunk last year, and Montgomery can be dangerous.

St. Vincent is in a tough spot. The Mustangs’ numbers are down and that isn’t a good situation in a North Central League I that might be every bit as good, top-to-bottom, as the Sonoma County League.

Once school opened last week, Galloway, a teacher at St. Vincent, was able to do a little in-school recruiting, but any new players won’t be available Friday night when St. Vincent opens at Elsie Allen.

Regardless of how well they do on the scoreboard, you can always count on Galloway-coached Mustangs to play hard and be fun to watch.

Am I excited for the start of another football season? Do I have a pulse? Let me check.

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@arguscourier.com)

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