Why not the View?
A friend of mine who is an English teacher once told me, “If I ever was alone in a room with President Obama, I would be completely comfortable having a conversation with him.” I laughed because I knew exactly what he meant.
See, my friend is a sesquipedalian and can handle any vocabulary thrown his way.
Go ahead, look it up. I needed to. George, when you asked me the question “Why do you think Mountain View has not won”, I think back to what my friend said so confidently. What if the great Don Markham watched my game film? What flaws would he see in my play calling? What schemes would the SGV legend Mackinnon employ that I did not? I then started to analyze my 6 seasons as a head coach:
2012: (3-7) lots of talent, but I was learning on the go. I knew as much about coaching DW offense, 4-3 defense, and basic special teams as Trump knows about politics.
2013: (5-5, but the 2017 Romero goes 9-1) lots of talent again, but made bad calls in crucial game situations.
-(Pioneer) took the lead with 1:30 left. Decided to kick off deep. This is when I learned that you have to have your best players on special teams. Hence “special” “teams”.
-(Maranatha) driving the ball, down by 3 with 2 minutes. FUMBLE-ROOSKIES!!! Don’t call plays during a pressure 2 minute drill that you have not ran in a while.
-(Gabby) down by a score. Note to self. Teach speed option responsibilities in spring, summer, camp, and every week. Not just when you know you are going to see it.
-(Rosemead) lost in overtime to Rosemead. Don’t try to teach a DB to play bump-n-run in 3 days.
2014: (0-10 in my eyes) When life gives you lemons, take them with tequila cause it’s going to be a long season. Hardest working group of kids I have ever had though.
2015: (4-6, but could have been 7-3) lost to EM by 7, Gabby by 3, SEM by 1. Just like in baseball. 1 run losses are coaches losses.
2016: (3-7) lots of talent, 3200 rushing yards returning, MVL teams were down, and 1st year of CIF divisions (Division 13). This was the only time in my career I sold winning and a ring to my kids. I became that coach and hated it. Never again.
2017: (5-5, but could have been 8-2) Attention to details
-(Viewpoint) opened the season with a 1 point loss to Viewpoint (really lost by 8 but I choose not to count the Hail Mary returned for TD). I didn’t teach my kids that a blocked field goal behind the line of scrimmage is still live. We started celebrating and so did Viewpoint after they picked it up and ran it in for a TD. Never seen 22 football players celebrate on the field at the same time.
-(Rosemead) Took a 14-0 lead early in the game. Lost a close one. Can’t stop the run when they have 8 in the box and we only have 6.
-(El Monte) We knew from film that when #7 comes in, look for pitch pass. Saturday: practiced #7 pitch pass. Monday: practiced #7 pitch pass. Tuesday: practiced #7 pitch pass. Wednesday: practiced #7 pitch pass. Thursday: practiced #7 pitch pass. Friday comes and #7 comes in late in the game down by a score. We yelled out “#7 is in the game!!!”. DB bites on the run and #7 throws a TD. What did I learn? If the DB only speaks Spanish, you have to yell “siete!” Love that David. Sorry, I mean Daveed.
It is now 2:44am on a Thursday and I feel like Jerry McGuire writing a mission statement. “Not a memo, a mission statement. A night like this doesn’t come along very often. I seized it.” (Jerry McGuire). Back to answering your question. Why do I think Mountain View has not won? In my 6 year stint, the answer is clear….COACHING. 100% without a doubt. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of all the great work my coaches and I did to build the program, but when it came to “X’s and O’s” and getting our own athletes on campus to play football, we needed help. Believe me, we knew this from day one and it was our #1 focus throughout the years. We were just not as successful at it as we would have wanted to be.
I would assume the next question would be, “What does Mountain View need to win?” (This is of course taking recruiting off the table, where great talent will always triumph.) Mountain View already has in place great admin support, parental involvement, faculty and staff backup, and exceptional facilities. In my opinion, the winning formula is having a coach that has the charisma and energy of a James Wilson in order to get our athletes to play football and bring in great assistants. He also needs a great strength and conditioning program, such as Frank Alonzo had, to build these athletes into football players. A high percentage of our students have hardships that a lot of us didn’t have growing up. This new coach needs to be caring and empathetic towards his players and create a welcoming environment, such as Aaron Sepulveda did so well. Vision and organization are vital, which I feel my staff and I modeled well. Last but not least, you need a creative football mind that understands you cannot fight fire with fire, given our student demographics.
Needless to say, it will take a special coach to get Mountain View on the wining track. Will the new head coach, Paul Rodriguez, be that guy? Knowing him personally, I feel he has many of these innate qualities. He has my 100% support in whatever he needs and I wish the MVHS Viking Football Program and it’s new captain the best of luck.
I coached with victor and he was always a class act his core covenant was intense and awesome
I have been coaching a d1 team in the ie and still use the covenant
I hope vic is aan advisor to the new coach
good luck mv
Kudos to Coach Romero for writing this piece. Those kids that played for him should consider themselves fortunate to have been mentored by such a class act!. I have spoken with him a few times over the years, and he has always been a solid guy. He was right in the fact that they need someone with a great personality to be in charge. Coach Wilson definitely had that personality when he was there. Having been fortunate enough to have worked with him for the past 7 years, I can tell you he does a great job of getting the kids to “BUY IN” to everything we are trying to do at Arroyo. He got them to buy-in to the Double Wing at MVHS and they had some success because he stuck with it. You cannot just continue to change offenses every year-or every week-and expect to develop any kind of consistency. You also need to hire and develop a great staff-that alone is more important than what you do offensively or defensively. If you have a great staff-top to bottom, Varsity and lower levels-you can start to develop a different culture, and with that, success.
It always puzzles me when people make posts along the lines of “this team is irrelevant because they aren’t that good/they play in a stupid league/they’re in a low division”. Take this to its logical conclusion, and the only team in the area worth writing about is Bishop Amat. (Maybe St Francis or Cathedral once in awhile.) Whichever SGV team you support would get killed by Amat, so naturally they are a waste of time. I want to hear about those great teams, to be sure…as well as the likes of Glendora, Monrovia, Arroyo, and even Glendale or Flintridge Prep. And of course John Muir. (Even HS, I suppose) If you like football, there’s no reason not to welcome any good article about it.
Coach Romero sounds like a class act. I do not know him, nor have I heard any comments about him. Rarely, especially now-a-days, will you hear a coach take the blame for what happens on the field; it is usually the other way around. You can tell he cared for his players, wanted nothing but the best for them and, regardless of the record, always gave it his all.
So Cal…that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while. Hey screw baseball and baseball players. The SGV is a baseball area. More D1 and pro kids that football, by far.
One more edition of this never-ending duck-farm drama and the letters MVS will stand for Mountain View Sports. I get it, there’s nothing going on while we chomp at the bit waiting for the PGA to roar back in June, but come on….how about a write-up on teams that have a tradition of winning, and a detailing of how they did it?
From T. Peterson: You still don’t get it? They haven’t won! That’s why the series is called Why Not the View? That’s the whole point of the series. Teams that that traditionally win are written about every day. We’ll get to them later. It’s only April. This is a series about why they haven’t won and the opinions of several former players and coaches. Why is that so difficult for you to comprehend? If you don’t like it go spend your time reading about the NBA Horse challenge. I’m sure that excitement will have you on the edge of your seat.
Quality man here! This as honest as it gets. Respect! I also agree that will start with a coach. But every kid in the roster must do his part. I believe the Vikings can do it… sooner rather than later.
As for Trump.. Considering the pandemic going on I’d rather have him in office than the dude who can’t finish a thought anymore.
If you switch football and baseball season from the fall to the spring and CIF doesn’t clear everybody to play until Christmas than baseball would lose two years of high school baseball. Great for football but not to great for baseball.
Blaming it all on yourself while praising your kids? I don’t think you should be comparing yourself to Donald “I take no responsibility” Trump.