School spirit

I've been thinking back again to the Development Academy conflicting with high school soccer instead of the entrenched youth club system. The sad part about that is - school soccer is where the sport is truly egalitarian. Unlike club soccer, there are no expensive fees that mean a player's parents are either shelling out the dough, or a player is a scholarship ringer on the team.

School soccer also binds kids to a cause - they're representing not only their soccer team, but the place where they study and learn, their part of the city where they live, and even an entire town at times. Sure, some players will get that same feeling playing on a college team one day, but more and more quality players leave the college ranks early these days.

High school rivalries can be intense. I'll never forget Long Beach reporter Matt Zimmerman's lead for a Millikan/Wilson game back in late 2006.

Just 11 minutes in, the home team had a two-goal lead. Midway through the second half, the visitors had tied it on two goals from the same player, who then ran over to the home team's bench pointing and taunting. And was of course promptly ejected, leaving his team a man down. Welcome to another edition of the best, most intense boys soccer rivalry in the area, the Moore League tilt between Wilson and Millikan.

Actually, perhaps the best look at what high school soccer can mean to participating players can't be summed up in mere words. Here's a glimpse at Wilson's recent season.

HDC, I love you

"There's no place like Home Depot Center, there's no place like Home Depot Center."

Laptop? Check. Digital recorder? Check. Jacket? Check.

I followed my normal match-day routine yesterday afternoon as I prepared to head out to a soccer game on a Saturday night. It felt like I was covering an MLS game.

Until I exited Firestone off the 605 instead of Central off the 91.

Unfortunately, my destination was not Home Depot Center but rather Warren High School in Downey. I wasn't disappointed that I was covering a girls high school soccer game; I was actually looking forward to the Temecula Valley-Redlands East Valley game. But there was the small detail of an 8 p.m. start and no internet access at the stadium. Who the hell needs internet anyway?

So I was hoping that the match would end in regulation but before the game even started I knew that would not happen. There was no chance of that happening, actually. Seems that in CIF the finals end at regulation no matter the score. One of the earlier games had ended in a 0-0 tie. Yes, the dreaded co-champs.

That's just another reason why I much rather prefer dealing with Major League Soccer than CIF, because they don't just change rules on a whim.

Oh wait....

Still, Chivas USA have provided a wireless internet feed since the 2005 season and the Galaxy got on board at the beginning of last year. It's pretty much a given now for most places to provide a wireless feed.

The game was pretty exciting. There were a lot of great plays and awesome performances as you would expect from a final. Redlands East Valley scored early and carried the lead into the second half but REV scored an own goal and then Temecula Valley won it on a nifty little run by by Natalie Ducatenzeiler. Temecula Valley held for a 2-1 win.

After the game, I went down to do interviews, raced back up to the press box and wrote my story. I was done writing right at 10 p.m. but of course with no wireless feed, I couldn't send it in anywhere. I was headed toward the Starbucks but a colleague, Damian Secore, had suggested the Kinkos so I stopped there and filed.

I take Home Depot Center for granted sometimes. Never again!

Last day of prep coverage

The high school soccer season comes to an end Saturday with a whole lotta finals being held on the same field. Out in my neck of the woods, the CIF Southern Section, we've got the soccer finals held at two high schools: Downey High School in Downey and Warren High School in Downey. Not sure why they have to choose schools a few miles from each other to host the finals but then again I don't deal with CIF too often, thank goodness.

Anyway, there are two games I care about. One is the Boys D4 final between La Quinta and Coachella Valley. Unfortunately for me, the other game takes precedence but I would love to go out to Desert Mirage HS in Thermal and watch those two schools play. There are a lot of good soccer players out there that go unnoticed because they're in the desert and i wish I could go and watch it all. There is even at least one player who went from a desert high school to the Mexican league: Juan Carlos Zaragoza. However, that guy has since been spotted orbiting Mars after falling off the face of the Earth.

The other game, though, is a biggie: Temecula Valley-Redlands East Valley. Each school is in a competitive market for The Press-Enterprise and each school is pretty good. On soccer alone those schools' teams should get coverage but throw in the other stuff and it's a no-brainer.

The only bad part for me is that it starts at 8 p.m. Yes, a high school soccer game will start at 8 p.m. Now, never mind that this game will be played far from the two schools. It's roughly 60 miles from Redlands to Downey and 75 miles from Temecula to Downey. It's the last of six games, the earliest of which will start at 10 a.m. Yes, it is just my luck.

And to top it off, there will be no phone service available. In an earlier post I vented my frustration with that though of course then I thought I'd have plenty of time to get home and write. Now, I'll have to hurry and interview some kids and get the coaches and shuffle off to Starbucks. Yes, I'll be at the Starbucks on Firestone in Downey sometime around 10:30 trying to write up a story. So if you're in the neighborhood, come by, stop by, wait for me to file and you can gladly buy me some coffee :)

As far as the game goes, I think Temecula Valley will win handily. That might be the kiss of death for the Golden Bears but they looked very good when I saw them Tuesday against Thousand Oaks.

Prep people

One of the 137 stories (okay, it's not quite but it just feels that way) I'm chasing today is a preview of tomorrow's semifinal round of the CIF playoffs. Temecula Valley is hosting Thousand Oaks in a girls' semifinal and Redlands East Valley is traveling to College of the Canyons to play Hart.

Anyway, I just got off the phone with Temecula Valley coach Adam Skumawitz and was gracious with his time. I'd talked to him a few weeks ago after a 1-1 tie and he seemed irritated with the officiating but we had a fine chat regardless. I was researching him this morning it turns out he was once a Yank Abroad. Anyway, he was a star at Cornell University in 1997 and after graduating starred in the Verbandsliga, an amateur league in Germany. From there, he landed a contract with Aalesunds F.K. of Norway (Adin Brown's current club) but injuries forced him to retire, apparently.

Now, he runs the Football Proper academy in Temecula, which is just north of San Diego county.

Several weeks ago, Brad Friedel told me that he thought the youth developmental system in this country is farcical and that 70 percent of coaches here were in it solely for the money. I don't know him that well but I think Skumawitz falls into the other 30 percent.

Emphatic coach

I covered yet another high school soccer game today. Fourth in four days. Whew. I'm exhausted.

Anyway, I was the San Gorgonio-Marshall game in San Bernardino today. It was cold (yes brucio, I'm wimpy, what can I say?) and windy and bright outside. Weird combination.

I found myself more entertained by the Marshall coach, however. Not that the game was bad - it was actually quite good. But this coach was something else. I think he was Costa Rican - he looked like Hernan Medford from afar. He spoke Spanish fluently and had a rhythm to his voice.

Some of the things he said were classic but the best was:

Amarrense los huevos y juegen! (Tighten up your balls and play!)

But the game ended in controversy. A PK was called in the 9th minute of the first overtime session. On the spot kick, a kid from Marshall ran up and took a stutter step and then scored. It shouldn't have counted. I don't know what the rule is in pro and international soccer but in high school you can't take a stutter step on a PK. He should have been cautioned and the goal should not have counted.

I looked up the rule. Yes, I did some homework on the matter. Wanted to get the story straight.

Stone Age

As the de facto prep soccer guy for The Press-Enterprise, it appears likely that I will be covering the season through to the end. That means a boys quarterfinal game tonight and a semifinal game on Tuesday, either boys or girls (I'm eyeing that Temecula Valley girls game) and finals on March 3.

So I went to CIF's web site (CIF is the governing body for California high school athletics). I wanted to see where the finals would be at. I found it to be a little vague, actually. CIF says the finals will be at Warren HS and Downey HS. They don't specify who would play where or the times or anything like that. They do, however, inform us in bold and large print that there will be NO phone service at either site.

How am I supposed to do my live blog?

No, seriously though, it's absurd. Phones? They still use those things for internet? Now, if you are at home and choose to use dial-up, that's your choice. Whatever works for you and your budget, right? But for an organization that wants coverage and is trying to provide coverage for its members to basically tell the media that we won't be able to file from there is ridiculous.

For me, personally, it won't be too much of a hassle. I think the games will end early enough for me to go home or to the nearest Starbucks (mmm... coffee) or somewhere else to write. But for prep writers and staff photographers, it means a long haul back to the office (because there are some papers who will have to drive quite a distance to get there and back) and then try and bang out stories and photos quickly.

I guess I'm spoiled. Covering games at Home Depot Center has done that to me, I suppose. The wireless feed was available all season long last year. I don't even think twice about it anymore. I turn on my laptop and - Voila! - I'm online. I worry sometimes about games at other venues but the US-Mexico game in Arizona was the same drill as HDC. Instant internet access.

I'm not a tech guy but it seems to me that it wouldn't take too much trouble to get some sort of cable or broadband internet feed, run it through a router and provide it for us hacks. I know I sound like I'm complaing but when people get their papers on Sunday morning and the story about their school's soccer final is subpar, it's probably because the writer had to rush back to the office to get it done. If I had to hurry and go home after Galaxy games to write my stories, they wouldn't be that good... hmm.. I guess some people would say they're not that good now.

What are the odds?

So I had to cover yet another high school game. This time, I was back at Redlands East Valley but it was a girls quarterfinal match.

REV won again, 1-0 in double overtime on a soft goal off a set piece. This game, though, was even better than the boys game the day before. These girls played well and both sides did well to maintain their composure.

Murrieta Valley - the losing side - was unfortunate. They hit the post twice - once in the 75th minute and the other time early in overtime. I interviewed the girl who rattled the first shot off the woodwork. She was in tears but managed to string some words together, basically telling me that they had their heads held high because no one expected them to get that far.

Donovan's alma mater

I covered yet another prep soccer game on Wednesday. I was at the Redlands East Valley-Temecula Valley game. It started off as a pretty bad game to watch but it got better. Way better. REV started to lose their composure and Temecula Valley's offense finally started to click. But the game was 0-0 after regulation and 0-0 after the first 20-minute overtime.

Then, it went to golden-goal overtime. The game was all set for PKs when REV scored on a set piece. The goal was not worthy of the game, though. To win that game, there should have been some blistering 18-yard rocket that the keeper would have had no chance of stopping (think Phillip Lahm against Costa Rica). Instead we got some cheap goal on a save the keeper should have made.

Redlands East Valley, incidentally, is where Landon Donovan attended high school. I saw him play a few times with REV. I remember one game where he scored five goals against Indio HS.

Preps, again

Sometimes I take covering professional and international soccer for granted. If I am working on a feature on, say, Jesse Marsch or Peter Vagenas, I can call Keegan Pierce or Patrick Donnelly and usually something can be worked out via phone.

Not so much with high school soccer. I filled in again for the PE's soccer writer on Monday on one of the busiest high school soccer days of the year. The playoff pairings were released so there were a lot of local schools that reached the postseason and I had to try and hit some of the better teams' coaches. Now, i don't cover that beat so I had little to work with but I managed to talk to Temecula Valley coach Adam Skumawitz who was very gracious with his time and had a nice little conversation with him. I spent the rest of the day tracking down coaches and athletic directors with no success. It didn't help that Monday was a holiday for most school districts, which only further complicated the matter. So I only tracked down Riverside King coach Todd Mapes.

But undoubtedly the worst part of the whole day was typing in all the agate. Holy crap. I started out in my journalism career as an agate clerk for the San Bernardino County Sun back in 1997. That was cool. It really helped me learn how a sports department works from the ground up because I was at the ground level. It also helped me to learn how to type fast. I can type at about 60-70 words a minute, sometimes faster (if I'm on deadline at Home Depot Center after a game for instance). But yesterday was something else. I literally had to type in all brackets for 10 divisions. That took all stinking day. By the time I filed (I started chasing the stories at about 12:30 and filed everything at 9 p.m.) I was so tired that I fell asleep in my recliner.

Anyway, the Temecula Valley girls will be tough to beat and Riverside King boys face a stiff test.

And check out what I typed up with regards to the agate. Starting with the Rialto Eisenhower-Lake Elsinore Temescal Canyon game, all the way down, I typed all that in. Whew.

Shut yer yaps

Aside from covering MLS and international soccer, I occasionally dabble in covering high school sports. Tonight I had the pleasure of sitting through the Temecula Valley - Chaparral game. Okay, I wouldn't call it so much as pleasure as a task, I suppose.

The game wasn't bad. Chaparral was the better side in most parts of the game. Chaparral pulled it out when Amanda Windsor struck a lethal free kick that fooled Valley's keeper. It was a 1-1 draw but Chaparral needed just that to get through to the CIF playoffs.

Stirring stuff, I know. But what I will remember most isn't really the game or the free kick or my 90-minute drive there. No, it was the performance by the parents and supporters from one side.

The calls were going against one team and that team's parents and supporters were none too pleased. After every call that went against them, the complaints grew louder.

"Put on a white jersey, ref!"

"Just give them a goal!"

"Get some glasses!"

"Call a fair game!"

And with every call that went against the team, with all the sour grapes from the peanut gallery, I grew more and more irritated. Really, I wanted to turn around and say "SHUT THE @&#$!* UP!!!!!" at the top of my lungs.

I mean, for ****'s sake. It's HIGH SCHOOL. Isn't soccer, or sports for that matter, supposed to teach these kids how to work as a team and leadership skills? Instead, these parents are teaching them how to bitch and moan and complain.

I called a high school ref I know pretty well and he told me that they're used to that stuff, which bothered me even more.

Lousy complainers.

Hatfields and McCoys

Here's Matt Zimmerman's article on the most recent game in the Wilson/Millikan rivalry that is mentioned in his Roundtable farewell.
If there's such thing as a soccer feud in the Long Beach Area, this is it.