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[Excerpts from a letter to my son]
The varsity game was very interesting. As you know, playoff participation is dependent on how a team finishes in its league.
Playoff seeding is largely dependent on rankings. Hart was not even ranked in the top ten despite playing a very tough pre-league
schedule, beating the third-ranked team in California (Loyola) and beating the tar out of Canyon. On the other hand Valencia
was once ranked as high as third and was ranked fifth last week. Palmdale, which Hart beat convincingly, was ranked fourth.
The newspapers have been paying a lot of attention to Valencia and kind of slighting Hart. To add insult to injury, some
Valencia kids teepeed the Hart quad and put graffiti on the new gym (fortunately, it was chalk and could be washed off).
Hart was out for blood on Friday night. Valencia received the opening kickoff and took it down the field with the help
of a 15-yard unsportsmanlike call against Hart and some scrambling by the quarterback. Valencia 7-0. It was all downhill for
Valencia after that. Hart scored the next 37 points and won 37-7.
But for a few miscues in the redzone, the score would have been about 60-7. Cody Joyce (playing at defensive end I think;
I'm not sure where he came from) flattened the Valencia quarterback from the blindside. The QB sort of staggered off the field.
Valencia's star running back (at least 100 yards rushing in every varsity game last year and this year) was held to negative
yardage on about 12 carries. He did not play most of the second half. He apparently separated his shoulder the previous week
against Burbank. In any event, the Hart defense was keying on him and absolutely swarmed over him every time he touched the
ball. Even if he had been at full strength he would have been in real trouble.
Interestingly, there was virtually no POST-game coverage of the contest in the newspapers (the Daily News gave nothing
but the score). The Daily News did have a separate article a couple of days later about the Valencia running back and reported
that he will miss 4 to 6 weeks which means he's done for the year. Valencia moved Manuel White, a freshman, up to the varsity.
There is some guy over at Valencia that is in charge of the ASB and he has managed to get this new series off to a REAL
rocky start. COC is, off course, Hart's home field. This clown had the student body and parents parade from Valencia to COC,
stage a party in the parking lot and then some sort of demonstration when they got in the stadium. Hey, when it's your own
place that's fine but you don't do that in the other guy's home.
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