{"id":83267,"date":"2024-03-06T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=83267"},"modified":"2024-03-06T04:02:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T11:02:11","slug":"the-peterson-principle-3-6-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=83267","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle: 3\/6\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Tim Peterson <\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Serna is the class of the Del Rio League. Let’s not kid ourselves. The Lancers are the team to beat. The team that, at least for right now, every other team in the league aspires to be. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

La Serna has been the cream of the Del Rio for years and when you look at the landscape of High School football right now the Lancers will be on the pedestal for several years to come. But all is not lost for the rest of the league. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re in the Del Rio, all you have to do is win a couple of league games, finish second or third, get into the playoffs and make a run. See Santa Fe last year. The Chiefs, after years of futility, went 3-1 in league and advanced all the way to the CIF Semi-Finals. You don’t have to worry about La Serna anymore in the post season. Ok they beat you 42-7. Fine, cool, have a nice day. You won’t have to see them again once the league game is over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re not going to be in the same playoff division as La Serna. The Lancers were in Division 4 last year. Santa Fe? 12. But now Santa Fe is relevant again. Winning games does that. Making a Semi-Final run does that. That kid that maybe didn’t want to play football at Santa Fe before will now be at Spring practice. The fans that used to stay home and watch Netflix on Friday night will now get out to see the Chiefs play. Ryan Bateman and his coaching staff has made Santa Fe relevant. Good coaches do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whittier had that chance. The chance to win some games, to make a playoff run, to be…well…relevant. Because a quick check of the record books will tell you that when it comes to wins and losses the Cardinal program has been irrelevant for the better part of the last 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cardinals have had only three winning seasons in 23 years. They’ve never won a playoff game during that span and have had only three playoff appearances. They lost in the first round in 2006, 2015 and 2017. Santa Fe won more playoff games last year than Whittier has won in 23 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whittier had the opportunity to change all of that last week and they dropped the ball…in the endzone…with the game on the line. They hit the front of the rim on a slam dunk, swung and missed with the bases loaded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had a chance to hire a coach who has been successful everywhere he has been. This coach took one team to a CIF Championship game and won a CIF Championship with another. And after his team won the CIF Championship they went on to win a State championship the same year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guy has coached two running backs who went on to play in the NFL. Another is currently playing at the Division 1 level. His offense has produced four 2000-yard rushers and 12 that have rushed for over 1000 yards on the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it was rumored that he had interviewed at Whittier and wanted the job it looked like a done deal. Slam dunk right? I even had people texting me telling me it was set in stone. Wrong! He was told last Friday he wouldn’t be hired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whittier seemed to be at a point that they wanted to turn things around as well. The Cardinals let head coach Todd Quinsey go after just one year- a season in which the Cardinals went 2-8. Quinsey is an experienced coach that figured to get at least 3 or 4 years to right the ship but no, he was out. Whittier wanted to change things now. Or so we thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they have their guy in their sights. Here he is…a guy that not only wins but that actually wants the job. And they let it slip away. So what went wrong? A teaching job? Different philosophies? Scheduling conflicts? Well, he was never even offered a teaching job so it wasn’t that. But it doesn’t matter what it was. It should have been worked out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question from the powers that be at Whittier to the coach shouldn’t have been “What can you do for us?” It should have been “What can we do for you? What will it take to get to you to become the head football coach at Whittier?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why wouldn’t you take a few small steps to clear a hurdle and get the program on the right track? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three winning seasons and no playoff wins in 23 years? Well that’s only as far as the records go back on the website that was referenced. It could be longer. 25 years? 30? But the better question is how much longer will it be before Whittier is relevant? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whittier had their man and let him walk. So now it starts all over and the search for a coach continues. And unfortunately for the Cardinal faithful so does mediocrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s my principle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Peterson can be reached at tim.midvalleysports@gmail.com. or on Twitter @tspeterson40. Facebook- Tim Peterson. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson La Serna is the class of the Del Rio League. Let’s not kid ourselves. The Lancers are the team to beat. The team that, at least for right now, every other team in the league aspires to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816,3,12817],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","category-high-school-sports","category-petersonprince"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83267"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83287,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83267\/revisions\/83287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}