Saturday, September 30, 2006

(Fri)Days of our Lives

After coming back to the office from Paso Robles late Friday, looking at the high school football scoreboard up on the wall had my eyebrows raised so much, they make a bigger salary than I do now.

Here's a sampling:
Atascadero 17, Clovis 15 — In Clovis. On homecoming!
Nipomo 23, Cabrillo 7 — The Titans (3-1) have doubled their program's win total in four games this year.
West Bakersfield 37, Paso Robles 12 — I was there for that one, and it still had me shocked.
Santa Ynez 30, Templeton 27 — The Eagles lead their first Los Padres League game well into the fourth quarter before falling short.

The Atascadero victory gives Central Coast football a ton of legitimacy. The Nipomo win continues an unprecedented year of success that has to be a big step for the fledgling football program. Paso Robles' crushing defeat keeps in line with the Bearcats' Jekyll and Hyde routine. And Templeton was this close to silencing all those critics who knocked the Eagles for playing weaker competition in the Central Section but collapsed down the stretch.

Friday night was full of soap opera plotlines. It's too bad I couldn't be everywhere at once.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Cal Poly Hall of Famer considering Mission Prep

Mission Prep boys basketball nearly has the man of its dreams. But it's costing the Royals precious time.

Sean Chambers seems like the perfect choice to replace former Royals coach Tom Mott, who led the team to three straight Southern California regional finals but resigned in May amidst a recruiting scandal.

Chambers is in the Cal Poly Athletic Hall of Fame. He's Mustangs basketball's first All-American. He played professionally for 14 years overseas. He has credentials that would make any athletic director swoon. And he's excited about the job.

“(Mission Prep has) got a good nucleus of kids coming back,” he said Wednesday. “I think they can win the state from what I’ve seen. They could be a state contender.”

Even Chambers' wife, Marina, is pumped about the possible move, but in the end (an announcement could come by the end of the week), the pair could decide that it's not the right time to relocate from the stable life they've built in Chambers' home town near Sacramento.

The worst part about that is it would leave a bunch of kids — which has already been stripped of two section titles and had its coach shockingly resign the week of prom — directionless with less than two months before the start of what could be a tumultuous season.

But to be fair, it doesn't seem the Chamberses are trying to hang the kids out to dry. Chambers said Marina has had two job interviews in San Luis Obispo since he applied for the Mission Prep coaching job. And he's even explored at least partially relocating his athletic jersey manufacturing outfit to the Central Coast.

Chambers is trying to make it happen. But it still might not. And it's not all his fault. First-year Mission Prep athletic director Brady Lock wasn't brought on until July, and when principal Rev. Charles Tilley resigned abruptly in August, Chambers said it only stalled the hiring process.

If Chambers comes on, it looks like a great hire. But if he doesn't, you can't blame him.

Or can you? Tribune readers left page after page of finger-pointing messages on sanluisobispo.com on the Mission Prep scandal, blaming whomever they felt like. Tell me what you think about this new development.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Scroggin's blog: Can Tigers keep up strong defense?
With the San Marcos High football team flopping fumbles all over the field against San Luis Obispo on Friday, it was hard to tell if the Tigers' defense was forcing the fumbles or if the Royals were giving them away.
But this can't be disputed: In three games, San Luis Obispo (2-1) has held each of its opponents to an average of two scores per game.
Ambiguity of the fumbles aside, the Tigers' defense was smothering in a 43-10 win over San Marcos ' giving up just 170 yards of total offense, picking off a pass and limiting several Royals ballcarriers to zero or negative yards rushing.
Including a 14-13 loss to Oxnard and a 34-14 win over Dos Pueblos, the San Luis Obispo defense is giving up just 12.7 points per game. In PAC 5 play last year, the Tigers gave up 31.7 points per game.
Although standout quarterback Conner Reese and the offense are the ones getting the recognition, it'll be the performance of the defense that will determine whether the Tigers can continue a positive turnaround from a 2-7-1 2005 season, their worst in more than 10 years.
San Luis Obispo coach Craig Winninghoff declined to predict whether the defense can remain this stout all season, but he said that's the goal.
To those of you that have seen the games, what do you think? Is the Tigers' defense for real or a byproduct of slumping offenses? Can it keep San Luis Obispo in PAC 7 contention?
Joshua D. Scroggin