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[Excerpts from a letter to my son]
The situation with Valencia is interesting. The Hart kids really want to beat Canyon and Saugus. They want to hurt Valencia.
It started last year in football when Valencia, then 4-1 and ranked 3rd in CIF Division 2, came to play Hart which was
3-2 and ranked about 10th. Prior to that game, Valencia had played mostly division 11 teams except Littlerock, which was Division
2 (guess where the loss was). The Valencia fans staged a big parade into the stadium at COC where Hart was the home team.
Their fans and students were really very snotty. In the 1996 game Valencia scored first and then Hart scored 37 unanswered
points. You'd think that would have quited things down a bit but alas, it did not.
Things got a lot worse in basketball due almost entirely to the ASB Director at Valencia. In the last league game of the
season at Valencia, he created a "spirit award" and awarded his student body a big trophy after the game - which
Valencia lost in overtime to Hart - and then spent over $1000 on a full page ad in the Signal the next day describing the
award. Pretty neat, huh? Create an award and then give it to yourself; I was thinking of buying a trophy for myself as Professional
of the Year). This yahoo thinks that he can "create" a rivalry. You do that on the playing field or the court, not
through obnoxious behavior. Needless to say this has not gone over too well with the Hart student body or fans.
This year the game was at COC but Valencia was the home team. The ASB guy at Valencia, Frank Ferry, among other things,
planned to "dedicate" the field as Valencia's home field at half time -- he also wanted to have the Valencia logo
painted on the turf on the fifty-yard line. Fortunately, the Valencia coaches said forget it. It's not their field (their
home field actually is Canyon High, the Hart-Valencia game is played at COC for convenience as much as anything). [See below
for some of the extraordinarily obnoxious antics in the Hart-Valencia JV game].
In the Varsity game, Hart took a 14-0 lead on some very nice passing by David Neill. Jerry Owens is starting to really
get the hang of being a receiver. He's the fastest kid on the team, about 6'3" and extremely agile and fairly strong.
He's learning to find the open seams and also starting to catch on that you don't have to go down just because somebody hits
you. He had both of the first two touchdowns.
Valencia scored at the end of the first quarter when the Hart safety just assumed he would get an interception (he was
in perfect position). The receiver came over him and took the ball away for a touchdown. If the Hart DB had done what he was
supposed to do -- knock it down -- there would have been no play.
Hart scored again in the second quarter to go up 21-7.
Manuel White, Valencia's sophomore running back had about 125 yards in the quarter (215 for the game). He scored after
handling the ball on almost every down during the drive. 21-14.
Hart scored again. 28-14.
Valencia then moved the ball down the field with White doing most of the damage. They got a first down on about the 12.
Then the Valencia coaches, being somewhat dimwitted, did not give the ball to White for 3 downs and therefore lost yardage.
They kicked a field goal. 28-17 at half.
Hart completely dominated the second half and pretty much shut down White (hit him in the backfield before he could get
up a head of steam is my theory). Hart was up 42-17 when Valencia recovered a dropped punt at about the 18.
Valencia scored to make it 42-24.
Valencia had three underclassmen -- White, Hamilton (the quarterback) and the middle linebacker who were impressive. However,
Hart gets virtually its whole team back next year plus a very good sophomore class. I don't think a Valencia victory is in
the offing the next couple of years.
Other items of note regarding obnoxious Valencia: they have a new sound system which they set up on the track which has
about 8 speakers (each speaker is about six feet by three feet by three feet, they are gargantuan). THEY POINTED THE SPEAKERS
AT THE FIELD. On the far side of the field where we sat it was sometimes painfully loud. Imagine what it must have been like
in the middle of the field! They regularly played rock music when Hart had the ball. And of course, turned it off when Valencia
had the ball. An eloquent statement of Valencia sportsmanship. The referees finally told them to cut it out.
Hart had a couple of nifty signs made by the cheerleaders: "If you want to be our rivals, transfer to Canyon"
and "Second Annual Hart Beats Valencia game."
The Canyon people have been very unhappy with the way the Valencia people have treated the Canyon field (apparently taping
over or permanently marking over anything that says "Canyon" on it).
So here's how it is this week. Hart is 2-0, Canyon, Valencia, Burroughs and Saugus are 1-1. Burbank is 0-2. Burbank couldn't
beat our JV team. Saugus, at least so far, is awful. Burroughs is surprisingly good. We can only hope that Burroughs beats
Valencia this week and that Saugus and Canyon can do the same the next two weeks.
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