It wasn't all that long ago that the football program at South San Francisco High was strong and successful. Its legacy in the Industrial City and on the Peninsula stretches back well prior to World War II. Not so much today. The once-dominant Warriors are 0-6 and allowing about 45 points per game. Friday evening in their newly-renovated stadium beneath the SFO flight pattern, they were demolished by Burlingame, 51-0, in a PAL Ocean Division clash. South City, a shell of its former powerhouse status, had just 17 players available. The visitors had 23. The Warriors were unable to field a JV team earlier in the season. They have one now but it's a bare-bones affair. One can only hope that the varsity can finish out the 2018 campaign. But there are no guarantees at this delicate point.
SSF's dire descent
- Thread starter colhenrylives
- Start date
It's not much better up in SF. Washington High was an AAA power in the early 2000's. But the past few years, the program has hit rock bottom. The school is struggling to attract players and also dropped their frosh / soph team this year. Hard to believe that a big school like Washington can't field two teams. Mission High (smaller enrollment) also dropped their frosh / soph program this season.
Last season, Lowell barely had 20 players most of the season for their varsity. I don't know Lowell's rosters this year but they have both a varsity and frosh/soph team. So it's just one of those cycles that public schools go through. Hopefully all the schools bounce back.
I hate to be debbie downer but I feel like in certain areas, especially the bay area with its diverse population we will only see this getting worse. Whereas, outer areas like Antioch, Pittsburg, Elk Grove, Stockton, Sacramento, etc it feels like Texas certain times of the year. I was at Loomis for DO and OR. I can tell you football is still huge in that neck of the woods. Look at the kids demographics though. How many Asian or Indian kids play football? This isn't a knock on anybody. Its just what is happening. Then you toss in the concussion and risk factor thing and that of course isn't helping the cause.
Good points, LL. In many ways, the northern PAL schools (Westmoor, Oceana, SSF, Jefferson, El Camino) resemble AAA student bodies.
Today's SF Examiner features a piece that professes that the AAA is strong, terrific and worthy of serious attention.
How many Asian kids play football? In the AAA, quite a few or the schools wouldn't be able to fill their rosters. Without seeing the actual rosters or pictures, I can't say exactly how many Asian kids are actually participating. BUT if you extrapolate the percentage of Asian kids compared to the actual enrollment in the school, the percentage may be low.
But it's a combination of factors that have been discussed before (some old Chronicle article). The demographics have changed. Asian kids / families aren't culturally familiar with football. But that's assuming lots of Asian kids are foreign born or have parents who were foreign born. You have a lot of Asian kids who were born in the US and many who are second or third generation who are familiar with football.
The keys are the rather violent nature of football AND that most Asian kids are smaller in stature and parents (of the kids themselves) don't think they can compete against the big boys in football.
Trust me, I'm Asian myself and you always have parents saying it's hard for Asians to compete against the bigger and more athletic players in all sports.
The reason the AAA can get SOME Asian players out? There is a good number of Asian coaches (Lowell / Galileo) who can encourage the kids to come out. The same could be true for other schools.
Note I left Indian kids out as I have no idea how much indian kids participate in football or other sports. In SF, I don't see a lot of Indian kids on teams. I think it may be mostly a South Bay thing.
Which article are you referring to? There were a couple published before the weekend and also the one on the Galileo / Mission game.
The odd thing is with only four schools with Frosh / Soph teams, the varsity league is probably having it's most competitive year in a while.
I never played football in the AAA (school didn't have the sport) but always hopeful the AAA can stabilize and have consistent athletic programs.
But year to year, things change. Football is up an down and surprisingly wrestling is going through some changes. Some schools don't have wrestling (Mission, Balboa I believe) which is a shock to me.
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Coach41- More Indian kids in east bay down Fremont and SJ area. I work with a few and they know soccer and cricket like no others but don't have much interest in Football. Again, just a change in demographics in those areas.
Hopefully the kids that are competing today in SSF, AAA are having fun and enjoying the experience. That is really what its all about.
Coach41- More Indian kids in east bay down Fremont and SJ area. I work with a few and they know soccer and cricket like no others but don't have much interest in Football. Again, just a change in demographics in those areas.
Hopefully the kids that are competing today in SSF, AAA are having fun and enjoying the experience. That is really what its all about.
Asian/Filipino kids also are not typically enamored of football. Just look at Westmoor in Daly City. There are just under 2,000 kids enrolled and the Rams dropped their football program in the 1990s. Why? Lack of participation. Westmoor is a majority Filipino campus.
Yea it certainly seems that for whatever reason Asian and Indian kids just don’t play football much. While in college I coached at Evergreen Valley in southeast SJ and despite being one of the largest schools in CCS with almost 3000 kids we played most of the season suiting up less then 20 kids. Our enrollment was about 2/3 Asian/Indian, with most of the remaining kids being Mexican; I think the white and black kids combined made up less then 10% of the enrollment. And you would think that most of our team was Asian/Indian, but no. If memory serves me correct we only had 3 Asian kids and 3 Indian kids on the team. That’s 6 kids out of about 500 male Asian/Indian upperclassmen.
From SF to Gilroy/Morgan Hill is a different ballgame today. It isn't 1958 anymore. Heck, it isn't 1978.
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Will schools add table tennis and cricket to the athletic ledger? No doubt would have a lot more participation with those sports.
Will schools add table tennis and cricket to the athletic ledger? No doubt would have a lot more participation with those sports.
They had a very good badminton team at the time. And no, that is not me trying to be funny, they actually did. Not sure how good they are now though, but I know they still field a team.
I'm going to call BS on this one. South City is in the toilet because they've been terribly coached since Moro retired. He was no world beater but he held guys accountable. 2012 Frank got them to win the Ocean division. He got them promoted to the Bay Division which is a hard promotion and then retired. The coaching at the school since then has been terrible on both levels since. The talent is on campus, trust me.
Not buying it. I coach at a school nearby and we had the same exact problem before the current staff took over. I will add that I was part of the previous staff before the program was handed over to the incompetent who drove it into the ground. Numbers were down. Guys were quitting.
At the end of the day football is meant to be fun and kids will play if the culture around the football program is well organized and fun. I'm not negating that certain demographic groups tend to shy away from the sport but Westmoor lacked participation because the program stopped winning, not because of an influx of Asians.
I'll give you a great example of a culture change: Mission High School.
Mission High had never really been good at football. It got so bad one year that they decided to cancel Football and only added a JV team after there were enough kids to keep that program alive. But they built on that. The head Coach, Joe Albano, wasn't even a football guy. He had never coached or even played. But he surrounded himself with young coaches who were in tune with the type of athlete that was already walking the campus and held the kids accountable but let them be who they were. Mission has probably been the most consistent program in the AAA since 2011.
Agreed! It's like Friday night lights in he SFL and in the entire SJS as a whole!
I won’t speak for anybody else, but I was talking about majority Asian schools, and Mission is not that. I’m talking about schools like Lynbrook, Evergreen Valley, Westmoor, etc.
Going through some of the AAA teams that have their rosters on Maxpreps, I only see a few obvious Asian names (not counting the kids that may be mixed).
I can't speak with 100% certainty why Asian / Indian kids don't play but some thoughts:
1. Asian parents may be a big influence. I know my mom discouraged me from even thinking of playing football. My school didn't have sports until my sophomore year and I wanted to pay freshman year. I heard you could play for your district school (Balboa) but my parents never did anything and I didn't know how to get connected as I was young.
2. At least in the Bay Area and LA / SoCal area, there is a strong contingent of youth Asian basketball clubs. Throw in all the AAU basketball teams around and you have kids who start and grow with basketball. I don't think Football is something many kids (at least in SF / Daly City) start off with.
3. Quick: Name an Asian-American NFL (or heck even college) football player? (Dat Nguyen comes to mind and Ed Wang who didn't last long). Ed Wang is a big of the exception as he was a big 6'5" 250 pound or so offensive lineman. Nguyen was 5'11". Point is that unless you're a QB / RB or WR, you probably aren't going to get a lot of attention. Hate to say, but having a role model helps sometime but those role models have to be visible. For those of you are either go to SI or familiar with the SI basketball program, there's this HUGE Asian kid that's probably 6'3" and at least 200 pounds. I watched him play when he was young and he was on the JV team last season (I think he was a sophomore but could be wrong). The kid likes basketball but I thought he could be on the football team. But don't see him on any rosters for football.
In basketball, you have Jeremy Lin, Yuta Watanabe (2 way guy from Memphis) and previously Yao Ming. In baseball, you've had Ichiro and a host of others who have played.
4. American football is strictly played in the states (unless you count the Canadian Football League). I don't know the exact number of non-American players but most of the talent originates in the states. The NFL tried the Euro League and there's a push into China with a football development program. If there was a push to develop American football in other countries, you could see more talent come in and people be more familiar with the sport. But at this point, Asian kids play basketball, badminton and volleyball (large volumes of Asian girls playing high school and club volleyball).
There is a small Asian kid named Evan Dere # 27 who plays and starts for SHC football...He makes the most of his time and excels for his size and hits hard. Its truly about the size of the fight in the dog not the size of the dog. I was also one of the smaller players and played football in my high school years. You just have to take it with the attitude of liking contact and whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger in life
Football does teach a lot of life skills win or lose.Chris Park played for Serra last year as a CB/WR. He was WCAL Utility Player of the Year and is an Ivy Leaguer at Columbia now. 6’0” tall and a great athlete.
Nice kid, great attitude too. However, I was pointing the fact that you don't have to be big to play football if you are smaller in stature, it certainly helps but the desire and sheer will also compensate for a lot.
I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that, I was just saying that Chris is an example of an excellent student-athlete with Asian-American background who chose to play football. Worked out well for him. He’s one of the top corners I have seen play in recent years and will get a great degree from Columbia.
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Years ago, Riordan had Rich Ting (Arthur Ting MD’s son) as it’s starting qb for Coach Peralta. He went on to play @ Yale. He’s now a successful model/actor and was in the movie, Lone Survivor and Waco. Most recently, Aidan Verba-Hamilton, Filipino, played a key role for the Crusaders and now is at Lewis and Clark.
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And Rich Ting’s brothers, twins Brandon and Ryan, both went on to play at USC after their HS years at James Logan.
http://blatanthomerism.com/articles...mber/profiles-in-style-the-ting-brothers.html
Okay but neither is South San Francisco. My argument is that numbers go and stay up when football is made fun. Too many coaches have a militaristic approach to the sport. I get that football is supposed to build character, teach life lessons and all that but above all it should be fun. The reason numbers fluctuate with football is because of the sport's physical nature. When you lose in basketball or baseball it's irritating but it can still be fun. When you lose in football, more times than not you literally have to take an ass whooping which is more often than not followed by an ass chewing and probably some running.
I know nothing about Lynbrook or Evergreen Valley but I know Westmoor very well. Westmoor is about 40% Asian versus Jefferson which is 25% Asian but how many kids pick Jeff over Westmoor for the opportunity to play football? How many kids pick Terra Nova over Westmoor for football? Hell, there are 2 or 3 kids who grew up playing youth football at Shasta Summit. Westmoor dropped football in the 90s because they werent winning anymore. If they started up a football team today which was remotely competitive and organized they would be able to field a team, trust me on that one.
According to data provided by the California Department of Education, Westmoor's total enrollment is just under 1,700 and is 70 percent Asian and 19 percent Hispanic.
Just would like o point out some schools do well with militaristic coaching. The one program I know about is Oakdale. In the weight room at 6:00 every morning. With many kids joining the military after high school. Oakdale is a pipeline to the Marines. My nephews and many of their friends join after high school. And one of my nephews is Asian. So some Asians do play football.. But a disclaimer most of my nephews are track athletes.
I never said South San Francisco was majority Asian. And if you feel that majority Asian schools don’t struggle to get kids out for football then I guess we will just have to disagree.
