Coach Z
After starting the season 0-4 it’s no reach to say that 2013 might have been Coach Z’s best year ever.
Those first four losses were to Bonita, Los Altos, Diamond Bar, and Monrovia. They lost by margins of 21, 20, 12, and 13, the last coming at M-Town on September 20th. After that the Saints won ten in a row and no one got with shouting distance of them until Paraclete in the finals.
This was a team that lost, arguably, its best player in Jake Payton over the summer. Then survived “Milkshake Gate” when they were falsely accused of giving players supplements. The 571 points scored by the team, second in the Mid-Valley Division, were the most scored ever in the Zernickow era.
It’s easy to have fun with Coach Z. We’ve talked about him being a member of “The League of Baldheaded Coaches”, in that every HC that has won the Mid-Valley going back to 2008 has had a clean dome.
We’ve had fun with his answers to questions: “We’re gonna be okay.”
We’ve talked about him sitting up in the “crows nest”, his play calling, his penchant for doing the opposite, and the endless comments/texts/emails we get about him hanging it up that began after 2008.
…But probably because of guys like Ryan Maddox and Norm Dahlia, the Cinderella efforts of San Gabriel, and the quote machines that are guys like Jim Singiser and Matt Koffler, Zernickow gets overlooked as being among the best of this generation.
This 2013 season, may very well have been his masterpiece.
P.S. …He also has a sense of MVS karma.
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