Tim Peterson
By Tim Peterson
You don’t take a whole lot away from teams out throwing the ball in April. A lot of the kids that you’ll see in the summer are still playing baseball or running track or still deciding if they’re going to play football or not. But it is a good place to touch bases with coaches and get a feel for the upcoming campaign.
It should be interesting at El Rancho this year. There was already a sense of excitement as the Dons went through passing drills Saturday, a sense of expectation that things will get better. They have a new head coach and it’s a new season. After all, after a 1-9 season the only way to go is up right?
“These kids went through a lot,” said new coach Adrian Medrano. “You have to remember they have had four coaches in the last two years. It’s been tough.”
Medrano, who came to ER from Bonita, is a graduate of El Rancho but said that wasn’t the only reason he took the job.
“Bonita was great. But there were a lot of things that went into my decision, personal and otherwise,” Medrano said.
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He was also happy to see Bearcat assistant Ibis Aguilar land the job at Bonita. “The only thing I didn’t like was that I wanted to bring some of the Bonita staff over here with me. But now that Ibis is there they will probably stay,” he laughed.
Another team that hit some bumps in the road last year was South El Monte. The Eagles finished 3-7 overall and missed the playoffs under first year HC Frank Gallardo.
“Sometimes with us I think it’s more of a mental thing,” Gallardo said Saturday. “A few weeks ago we threw against Whittier and we looked great. But out here today we’ve struggled at times. Sometimes I think it’s an Arroyo thing. Like we start thinking oh we’re going up against Arroyo so there’s no way we can win. We have to get over that.”
When I asked him if he had considered joining old friend Margarito Beltran’s staff at Bell Gardens he just smiled and said, “No. I love it here at South.”
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Gladstone has finally nailed down a head coach. If everything goes according to plan, there should be an announcement this week. But the way things have been going at Gladstone this off season, that’s a big if.
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I thought I was the only one that was thinking this but I had another coach tell me over the weekend, “What’s going on at Diamond Ranch? They just need to bring back Roddy Layton. Nobody else can get it right. When you think of Diamond Ranch football you think of Roddy Layton.”
You listening Coach?
That’s my principle.
Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com or on Twitter @tspeterson40
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