I attended the Clinic of Champions this weekend and spent 3 sessions with Coach Lavarato of SHP. WOW!! I was in the room for 5 mins. and I knew then how he gets his players to compete at a high level. Very strong talker and teacher. Very impressed.
Coach Lavarato, The Real Deal
- Thread starter farmair3
- Start date
Great coach. Lavorato got his Fly offense from Palma's Coach Norm Costa who sent him the Palma playbook, and also from studying the offenses at North Monterey High, where Phil Maas and Roger Sugimoto installed it. He started running it in Canada when he coached prep football and of coursed honed it and changed it to his flavor.
Ernie Cooper (Graite Bay) got interested in the Fly offense when he coached at Aptos and saw North County and Palma run it. He then studied Mark Speckman's offense (considered the Guru of the Fly) at Willamette University (Speckman also coached North County- Castroville where it was first installed locally, and for a short time at Gilroy High and later Merced High where the offense had great success where Merced was ranked #1 in CA and 5th in the Nation). Lavorato's offense has a history of success in Northern CA prep football. As with all coach's they put their flavor to it.
Palma still runs the Fly set a little, but I've always thought they should have kept it as their base rush attack instead of the spread and single back formations and Stanford running game ( Palma's line coach was OL line coach under Harbaugh). I like how SHP runs their offense since they have the pass threat to go with the deception of the Fly. If they have the right personnel, it is a very tough offense to stop. Coach Costa got the offense from North County-Castroville which started running it in 1979 (after losing to the Larry Souza coached Condors and going 0-4-1 against them).
John Murphy, prep2prep, write a nice article on the inception of the offense and Speckman --
http://prep2prep.com/prepcat/?tag=fly-offense
Per Murphy's story and another the root of the Fly in northern CA cam from Delano. Phil Maas and Roger Sugimoto installed the offense they saw from Delano High while coaches at Coachella Valley High and brought it to North County (where Speckman remained as an assistant after being interim head coach for North County's first year offering varsity football in 1978 . The pioneer of the offense was Gene Beck of Delano High and his staff (coach at Delano from 1953 through 1979 including the 1960-1979 years as head coach).
http://prep2prep.com/prepcat/?p=2543
As the story goes Dr. Robert Aguilar, who coached baseball and football at Delano High in the 1960's attended a football clinic that featured coach Darrell Royal, Texas University. Royal spoke of the man-in motion and Aguilar asked Royal for a copy of his playbook who gave him a copy. Aguilar and Nolan Shaffer (another DHS coach) went through it and adapted some things and Ed DeFraga gave input on blocking and other areas. They passed it along to Gene Beck who incorporated much of it into his later-famed fly offense referred to by locals as the "Musca" offense.
Funny story is that my RB coach as a freshman at Palma was Father Ron Shirley (which actually dressed out in full pads to teach hitting), and he was a long time assistant coach at Palma including when they implemented the Fly offense. When he moved parishes to Arroyo Grande, Father Shirley was instrumental in bring the Fly to Arroyo Grande High School (Father Shirley also was an assistant at Aptos High who also ran the Fly - now a Wing T offense though under Blankenship). Arroyo Grande had quite a bit of success with the Fly. It seems Palma started to have move away from the Fly after the DeLaSalle series which the DeLaSalle defense completely stifled, and Palma started to pass the ball more and change their sets.
This post was edited on 2/8 3:54 PM by NorCalSportsFan
This post was edited on 2/8 3:57 PM by NorCalSportsFan
This post was edited on 2/9 2:39 PM by NorCalSportsFan
Ernie Cooper (Graite Bay) got interested in the Fly offense when he coached at Aptos and saw North County and Palma run it. He then studied Mark Speckman's offense (considered the Guru of the Fly) at Willamette University (Speckman also coached North County- Castroville where it was first installed locally, and for a short time at Gilroy High and later Merced High where the offense had great success where Merced was ranked #1 in CA and 5th in the Nation). Lavorato's offense has a history of success in Northern CA prep football. As with all coach's they put their flavor to it.
Palma still runs the Fly set a little, but I've always thought they should have kept it as their base rush attack instead of the spread and single back formations and Stanford running game ( Palma's line coach was OL line coach under Harbaugh). I like how SHP runs their offense since they have the pass threat to go with the deception of the Fly. If they have the right personnel, it is a very tough offense to stop. Coach Costa got the offense from North County-Castroville which started running it in 1979 (after losing to the Larry Souza coached Condors and going 0-4-1 against them).
John Murphy, prep2prep, write a nice article on the inception of the offense and Speckman --
http://prep2prep.com/prepcat/?tag=fly-offense
Per Murphy's story and another the root of the Fly in northern CA cam from Delano. Phil Maas and Roger Sugimoto installed the offense they saw from Delano High while coaches at Coachella Valley High and brought it to North County (where Speckman remained as an assistant after being interim head coach for North County's first year offering varsity football in 1978 . The pioneer of the offense was Gene Beck of Delano High and his staff (coach at Delano from 1953 through 1979 including the 1960-1979 years as head coach).
http://prep2prep.com/prepcat/?p=2543
As the story goes Dr. Robert Aguilar, who coached baseball and football at Delano High in the 1960's attended a football clinic that featured coach Darrell Royal, Texas University. Royal spoke of the man-in motion and Aguilar asked Royal for a copy of his playbook who gave him a copy. Aguilar and Nolan Shaffer (another DHS coach) went through it and adapted some things and Ed DeFraga gave input on blocking and other areas. They passed it along to Gene Beck who incorporated much of it into his later-famed fly offense referred to by locals as the "Musca" offense.
Funny story is that my RB coach as a freshman at Palma was Father Ron Shirley (which actually dressed out in full pads to teach hitting), and he was a long time assistant coach at Palma including when they implemented the Fly offense. When he moved parishes to Arroyo Grande, Father Shirley was instrumental in bring the Fly to Arroyo Grande High School (Father Shirley also was an assistant at Aptos High who also ran the Fly - now a Wing T offense though under Blankenship). Arroyo Grande had quite a bit of success with the Fly. It seems Palma started to have move away from the Fly after the DeLaSalle series which the DeLaSalle defense completely stifled, and Palma started to pass the ball more and change their sets.
This post was edited on 2/8 3:54 PM by NorCalSportsFan
This post was edited on 2/8 3:57 PM by NorCalSportsFan
This post was edited on 2/9 2:39 PM by NorCalSportsFan
@ NorCalSportsFan......
Over 7000 posts, more sports knowledge just in your pinky finger nail than most of the other posters combined.(No insult intended to many of the other passionate & knowledgeable posters) Whenever your posting-name/moniker appears on any thread I invariably go to it first........even if it's on a subject I have no interest.....say, for example, the number of stitchings on a baseball or Berkeley High's defensive coordinator 1957-1961.
You are NorCalPreps human, sports wikipedia. Whatever you do for a living....thanks for contributing to this board.
I stand in awe...........
@farmair....
No disrespect intended for straying from your original post. If you feel this is a hijacking I will put my response elsewhere but his breadth of knowledge is just....................Bam!
This post was edited on 2/8 9:35 PM by concrete17
Over 7000 posts, more sports knowledge just in your pinky finger nail than most of the other posters combined.(No insult intended to many of the other passionate & knowledgeable posters) Whenever your posting-name/moniker appears on any thread I invariably go to it first........even if it's on a subject I have no interest.....say, for example, the number of stitchings on a baseball or Berkeley High's defensive coordinator 1957-1961.
You are NorCalPreps human, sports wikipedia. Whatever you do for a living....thanks for contributing to this board.
I stand in awe...........
@farmair....
No disrespect intended for straying from your original post. If you feel this is a hijacking I will put my response elsewhere but his breadth of knowledge is just....................Bam!
This post was edited on 2/8 9:35 PM by concrete17
Thanks. I can't believe over 7,000!? There are a few that have been on this board and others longer. Lots of knowledgeable posters on this board.
Palma and Sacred Heart Prep have only faced each other one time in football. 2011 CCS D4 semifinals and Palma won 34-7 and went on to win D4 championship against Carmel. It was one of a few times Palma played down in the D4 division other than the Open Division or D1 in recent years. That Palma team had several eventual FBS players in multiple sports (at least 6) including Jack Powers (OL AZ state) and 6'6" Noah Allen (UCLA basketball who played receiver). Sacred Heart Prep went on to win the 2012 and 2013 CCS D4 titles (also participating in 2013 state bowl) and the Open Division Title in 2014.
Both Palma and SHP will have some talent next season - Palma probably should be better than last year, but SHP loses Burr-Kirven who is a game changer. Still would expect SHP should be pretty good given their QB. Regarding Sutter, I have both Palma v Sutter games on my calendar and hoping to see the games (my nephew should be on the team). Sutter and Sacred Heart Prep would be a great series to see.
Palma and Sacred Heart Prep have only faced each other one time in football. 2011 CCS D4 semifinals and Palma won 34-7 and went on to win D4 championship against Carmel. It was one of a few times Palma played down in the D4 division other than the Open Division or D1 in recent years. That Palma team had several eventual FBS players in multiple sports (at least 6) including Jack Powers (OL AZ state) and 6'6" Noah Allen (UCLA basketball who played receiver). Sacred Heart Prep went on to win the 2012 and 2013 CCS D4 titles (also participating in 2013 state bowl) and the Open Division Title in 2014.
Both Palma and SHP will have some talent next season - Palma probably should be better than last year, but SHP loses Burr-Kirven who is a game changer. Still would expect SHP should be pretty good given their QB. Regarding Sutter, I have both Palma v Sutter games on my calendar and hoping to see the games (my nephew should be on the team). Sutter and Sacred Heart Prep would be a great series to see.
Concrete beat me to the punch! Great knowledge. I went to the Merced-DLS game at Merced when both were nationally ranked and I believe they had Anthony Volson who was a force. Merced suited up over 100 players and put on an intimidating show pre-game in their warm ups. DLD had about 45 and were not very big or intimidating. DLS executed perfectly and beat them in a classic game.
Re Coach Speckman- Quite a guy and quite a coach. I got to meet him when he was coaching Willamette as my nephew played for him.
Re Coach Speckman- Quite a guy and quite a coach. I got to meet him when he was coaching Willamette as my nephew played for him.
@NorCalSportsFan
Great Post NCSF: Pete Lavorato is a
great coach, and like they say about LAD and now Dean Smith, he is an even
better man. I once interviewed for a HC
job at SHP and I walked in and they had about 9 guys asking some rather silly
questions.
Pete took over the meeting and kept it direct and asked almost all
of the pertinent and applicable questions.
I also think Mark Speckman (another great coach/man) ran the
Fly during his brief stay at Menlo College. (Seems like they have now dropped
football)
Speck
Great Post NCSF: Pete Lavorato is a
great coach, and like they say about LAD and now Dean Smith, he is an even
better man. I once interviewed for a HC
job at SHP and I walked in and they had about 9 guys asking some rather silly
questions.
Pete took over the meeting and kept it direct and asked almost all
of the pertinent and applicable questions.
I also think Mark Speckman (another great coach/man) ran the
Fly during his brief stay at Menlo College. (Seems like they have now dropped
football)
Speck
NorCalSportsFan -- It's awesome you posted all this. While doing some research a couple months ago, I stumbled across a couple of articles detailing the lineage of the fly offense and the involvement of each of the coaches you listed. It was a great read.
Here's a couple of passages regarding Cooper. Interesting stuff.
Here's a couple of passages regarding Cooper. Interesting stuff.
Peter is 62 years old. He attended Utah State and was a theater arts major.
He played in the Canadian Football League for ten years years as a defensive back for the Edmonton Eskimos, BC Lions and Montreal Concordes from 1975 to 1984 and was part of five Grey Cup winning teams for the Eskimos.
Pete was an All-Star in 1977.
.
He played in the Canadian Football League for ten years years as a defensive back for the Edmonton Eskimos, BC Lions and Montreal Concordes from 1975 to 1984 and was part of five Grey Cup winning teams for the Eskimos.
Pete was an All-Star in 1977.
.
Speck might not be the grandfather of the fly, but he's at least the Godfather. All the men mentioned on this thread send their tape to him. Amazing coach, legendary guy.
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