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Countdown to Week 0: 22 days
TEHACHAPI WARRIORS
Coach: Steve Denman (28th year)
2008 record: 10-4 (4-1 South Sequoia League, 5-1 home)
Average points: 32.9
Average points allowed: 19.6
*Average rush yards: 318.3
*Average rush yards allowed: 139.6
*Average pass yards: 64.8...
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What Zach's doing: Leaving for his honeymoon — sorry, this is where the updates stop ;)
BAKERSFIELD CHRISTIAN EAGLES
Coach: Matt Love (first year)
2008 record: 12-1 (5-0 South Sequoia League, 5-1 home)
Average points: 43.9
Average points allowed: 18.5
*Average rush yards:...
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What Zach's doing: Sleeping in, taking photos with my new bride
TAFT WILDCATS
Coach: Steve Sprague (sixth year)
2008 record: 7-4 (3-2 South Sequoia League, 3-2 home)
Average points: 25.9
Average points allowed: 18.7
*Average rush yards: 230.4
*Average rush yards allowed: 187.5...
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What Zach's doing: Getting married, aka becoming a real man, accepting the ball-n-chain, tying the knot, etc.
ARVIN BEARS
Coach: Edgar Mares (ninth year)
2008 record: 5-7 (2-3 South Sequoia League, 3-3 home)
Average points: 20.5
Average points allowed: 21.4
*Average rush yards:...
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What Zach's doing: Attending a football game — that's English football mind you — with his groomsmen. One day till wedded bliss.
WASCO TIGERS
Coach: Russ Prado (third year)
2008 record: 4-6 (1-4 South Sequoia League, 3-2 home)
Average points: 25.3
Average points...
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What Zach's doing: Wedding rehearsal! Sounds like fun, right? Then, um, bachelor party. boring
SHAFTER GENERALS
Coach: Ben Ansolabehere (first year)
2008 record: 1-9 (0-5 South Sequoia League, 1-4 home)
Average points: 9.6
Average points allowed: 37.7
*Average rush yards: 87.4...
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What Zach's doing: Landing in London, meeting up with family, trying to stay awake until it's nighttime in England
CESAR CHAVEZ TITANS
Coach: Sergio Barajas (first year)
2008 record: 3-7 (2-4 East Yosemite League, 1-4 home)
Average points: 20.8
Average points allowed: 32.0
*Average...
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What Zach's doing (come on, you know you care): Flying east, hopefully sleeping to beat the inevitable jetlag
DELANO TIGERS
Coaches: Steve Brown/Mario Millan (co-head coaches, second year)
2008 record: 8-4 (4-2 East Yosemite League, 4-2 home)
Average points: 29.3
Average points...
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Football season is approaching ever closer, and we're into the Central Section on our team-by-team season previews here at School House Zach.
If you missed it, I profiled a couple of interesting city teams for the first day of practice yesterday.
Also, a housecleaning note — I will be out...
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Check Tuesday morning's Californian for a report on the first official day of football practice in the Kern High School District. I just finished making my rounds to Bakersfield, Independence and Ridgeview. Saw quite a few athletes out there.
Among my observations:
— Brian Burrell looks...
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Holy cow, it's 9:30, and I'm late with this post again.
In my defense, it's my day off. And there won't be a season preview tomorrow, so this one will serve for Sunday as well. It's a look at two closer-to-Bakersfield-than-you-think schools, Kern Valley and Frazier Mountain. Both will play their...
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Late again. Sorry. I'll do better, I promise.
Today's preview takes us into the High Desert League, which is always a good race between some evenly matched schools. You rarely see the mismatches here that you do in the Yosemite Leagues around the Central Section, so it can be kind of fun to keep...
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Sorry this is a bit late tonight — just got off the phone with Boron coach Todd Fink a few minutes ago and have been gathering some more info.
We started high school football season previews yesterday with Kern County's 8-man schools, and now it's time to move on to the full squads....
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is that time again.
I told you last year that I considered my birthday the unofficial Time-To-Talk-Football Day, so here we are again. I'm a year older and the kids are five days away from putting on pads (in the Central Section, anyway) and about...
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I spent the lunchtime hour at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, listening to Fresno State football coach Pat Hill talk to the local Rotary Club about Bulldogs football, in general, and specifically about the contributions of some of Bakersfield's finest.
Former West running back Ryan...
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Just dropping a quick line to let you know that School House Zach hasn't forgotten where he came from — ugh. Too weird talking about myself in the third person.
Anyway, I'm swamped this week with finishing up The Californian's All-Area coverage, so I just wanted to let everyone know...
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Some really bad news to report today that probably shouldn't come as a shock to anyone but will to a lot of people: Facing a tremendous budget deficit, the Kern High School District today announced its plans to do away with the junior varsity level in the six team sports that still have...
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I don't think this exactly qualifies as a beacon of the coming high school football season, but the Kern High School District sent me some tentative schedules for fall sports today, and I thought I'd pass along some tidbits from the football portion.
Keep in mind, these could change slightly by...
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As much as I am fan, I'm as sick of Favre’s never-ending retirement as the next non-Wrangler-jeans-wearing guy. He doesn’t realize the number of people asking for one more song keeps dwindling.
You may want to prepare yourself for another eight months of hearing about Brett Favre...
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I was out at North Kern Golf Course today covering a Southeast Yosemite League mini-tournament, and as I was leaving, the Highland golfers were piling into their team van to head back down into town in the parking space next to mine.
Right before the door closed, one of them (it was dark in...
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On Saturday, in honor of the NFL draft, we detailed what a draft of Kern County's best seniors might look like if college teams were drafting them.
Today, the question is what a high school team would do for next season if the Kern High School District conducted a draft of all of the...
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So I was partaking today in a great American tradition — sitting on the couch with a frosty beverage in hand (Coke, in my case today) with the NFL draft on the tube — when I actually stopped vegging out and got to thinking: What if college teams had to draft players instead...
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The last coaching vacancy in Kern County for the year was filled today, with Foothill calling up defensive line and wide receivers coach Mike Gregg to the big-boy job.
I chatted with Gregg and Foothill athletic director Kevin Platt earlier today, and both sounded pretty excited about the...
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The Kern High School District waited until after spring break to fill its open positions, so it come as no surprise that this week has seen two football coaching jobs open. A day after Dennis Manning left Foothill to coach Ridgeview, Shafter has hired Garces freshman coach Ben Ansolabehere as its...
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This is the second part of a rare April treat: a two-part football blog. Catch the first half, a note on rosters for the annual Arena Bowl all-star game, at this link.
Dennis Manning, the coach responsible for turning around Foothill's program in the past three years, has moved to...
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This is the first of a rare April treat, a two-part football blog. Catch the second half, on Dennis Manning's move from Foothill to Ridgeview, at this link.
I caught the press conference today where the rosters and coaches were announced for the eighth annual Arena Bowl, Kern County's indoor...
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There are rumors in Los Angeles that a sparkling new $800M stadium may be rising and there are several NFL team willing to relocate to the nation’s second-largest sports market.
Billionaire developer Edward P. Roski, partial owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings, wants to...
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UPDATE, 10:59 a.m. Tuesday: I've just been corrected on this post, so if you saw it last night when it first went up, here's the correction: Bakersfield has been awarded the CIF State Basketball Championships for 2010 only. The finals return to Sacramento in 2011 and then will be...
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There's probably no denying that Bakersfield is a football town. The high school state wrestling tournament at Rabobank is a sight to behold, the Condors provide enough entertainment to keep the fans coming back, and good luck getting a parking spot when it's AYSO Saturdays, but Friday night...
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The Kern High School District needs to leave sports alone. There will be many angry parents and fans (I'm a Centennial fan myself) if sports are cut thanks to Sacramento's problems. It's time we hold our legislature accountable for this, not the student athletes. Many other...
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If you ever want to tire yourself out, just try to make as many National Signing Day ceremonies as you can in one day around Kern County.
I left home this morning around 11:30, went to Highland to watch Patrick Su'a sign his national letter of intent with Fresno State, then raced over to...
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Let’s look back at some of the best and worst of the 2008 NFL Season As we do, consider these unlikely developments: An 8-8 team won its division. An 11-5 squad missed the playoffs entirely. Two teams with rookie quarterbacks and first-year coaches advanced to the postseason, and a 9-7 team...
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Three quick items to note before I get to work on this week's basketball rankings.
— Had an interesting time at the Kern County Invitational this afternoon, a new tournament hosted by Centennial that coach Mike Hicks is trying to grow into a late-season local must-see like East's Coyote...
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The Cardinals franchise has been the laughingstock of the NFL for decades, but this team is one win from bringing home a Super Bowl Campionship. Like them or not its because of them that this years Super Bowl is already proving to be better than another year that involves the New England...
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I was excited to see an e-mail in my inbox this morning with the three proposals the Central Section came up with for the new league alignment. I hurriedly printed off the proposals, went over to the printer and started looking them over on my way back.
Turns out, there was no need. The...
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As a red and white sea of confetti dropped from the stadium rooftop in Glendale, Arizona, as “We are the Champions” rang through the public address system, and players gathered on the field to celebrate the first ever Super Bowl appearance in Cardinals franchise history. Arizona WR...
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This weekend, top-of-the-table Internazionale looked anything but. They were not only humiliated in the first half against mid-table Atalanta (3:0), but played the second :45 as if they were a pick-up squad, never having seen eachother or practiced together before the match. Poor crosses, bad...
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Rucks, a maul, a scrum, are terms that are about as foreign to Americans as afternoon tea and crumpets. For decades rugby in the United States has been thought of as a game of brutality only played by folks across the pond. Contrary to that belief, the sport of rugby has an international...
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I've been in Bakersfield off and on for a week or so at a time since Thanksgiving, but I went for a run this morning and found myself thinking this was the first time in six weeks that I actually felt like I was sliding back into my routine.
After having company for Turkey Day, I've...
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O Heavenly Father. Forgive me for I have sinned.
I didn’t watch a single college football bowl game until the Rose Bowl. That’s right, I missed 30 games of basically anticlimactic football.
I apparently have an obligation, as a sports writer, to spend the bowl season plastered to my...
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We've got the Sacramento-Grant—Long Beach-Poly Open Division state championship football game on TV here in the office, and it's a somewhat surprising 13-7 lead for Grant at the half. Maybe by the time I'm done with this all-encompassing football wrap-up, the game will be close to over....
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So how important is legally changing your name? Is it to become the be-all of pop culture bad-assness? Who are some of sports most famous players who have changed their names? Was the overall effect positive or negative for their careers, or did it make absolutely no difference whatsoever?...
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Since when has soccer been more American? Multi-million dollar contracts, league suspensions, banning fans from coming to matches indefinitely following racially charged insults, and steroids scandals. Does it get any more American than that?
With headlines that rival other major American...
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Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly present the final Californian football podcast of the season. Listen here, download to iTunes and listen on your way to the game tomorrow. It's all there for you.
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UPDATED, 11:42 p.m.: It's repeat night for the South Sequoia League. Bakersfield Christian, as expected by some, went up to Corcoran and put a big number on the undefeated Panthers despite fog so think you couldn't see the stadium lights until you were right beside it. And Tehachapi, a few miles...
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After a perfect week last week (granted, it was just 5-for-5), I take a stab at the last four Central Section games of the season.
Bonus picks this week of the Divisions II and IV championship games — and barring any unforeseen miracles, that will be it. If Bakersfield Christian had...
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A little late-night blogging for some late-season football rankings, with championship week left:
1. Clovis West (10-3, Division I, last week: 1) — What a culmination for the Golden Eagles in the Division I championship game: A stifling defense shut down a good offense, and CW...
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So often in sports, the run-up to the championship seems to overshadow the actual title game. Baseball's regular season is a marathon of a spectacle and the playoffs are wall-to-wall action for the first week until the World Series, when things grind almost to a halt. March Madness is really...
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UPDATED, 11:41 p.m.: Offense carries the night in Kern County. With Bakersfield Christian, of course, that's the routine. Derek Carr threw for 417 yards and six more touchdowns tonight. I wrote that so non-chalantly that it makes me feel dirty. Let me try again: FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTEEN...
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After some more technological hand-wringing on my part and a very big assist from The Californian's photo/video department, we have a workable podcast once again. It's semifinals time, ladies and gentlemen.
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